Buy or Sell: First Start Wonders

The majority of MLB starting pitchers have still made just one start, but in your Ottoneu leagues (actually, in all your leagues), managers are making decisions about who to speculate on. Is that first great start a sign of the next Kyle Wright breakout? Or another Kyle Gibson (9.51 P/IP in his first start; 3.35 the rest of the way)? With just one start, it is hard to know who you can trust, but if you wait until you are sure, someone else will have grabbed these arms already. Who should you bid on and who should you pass?

This list is made up of pitchers who are among the top-30 in P/IP for SP with exactly one start, so far who are less than 70% rostered and were not covered in yesterday’s Hot Right Now.

Jhony Brito – 5 IP, 40.8 points, 8.16 P/IP, 16.35% rostered – Brito was effectively 0% rostered a month ago and below 5% a week ago. If you are the manager who had him back in February or early March, I want to know how you knew! Brito made what was effectively a spot start for the Yankees, shutting down the Giants before being sent right back to Triple-A to await another shot, which could come as soon as next week. Brito mixed four pitches (five if you count a slider he threw three times) and didn’t use any more than 40% of the time, with his changeup (36.8% usage) leading the way. And goodness was that change devastating – all six of his strikeouts came on changeups.

Brito’s minor-league track record doesn’t really support his debut. He’s never been a K/IP guy in the minors and it’s probably not a good idea to assume he will be one in the majors. He does have a history of keeping the ball on the ground, which should serve him well when Yankee Stadium becomes his more permanent home.

The Giants threw a lefty-heavy lineup at the young righty and that may have driven the high changeup usage. Against LH hitters, he threw 22 changeups and 22 four-seamers, plus three curves, three sliders, and a sinker. Against RH hitters, he threw 12 sinkers, seven curves and six changeups. And while there is nothing in the results to suggest a reverse platoon split, two of the three hard-hit balls he allowed were to righties, despite facing just five right- and 12 left-handed hitters.

Putting this all together, I am intrigued but not rushing out to add him, necessarily. With the limited track record, I wonder if the relative lack of changeups vs. RH hitters is simply because he doesn’t want to use it against them or because it is ineffective against them. If the change isn’t going to be his go-to vs. righties, what is? And will it be as effective? I see Brito, for now, as a guy who could be used in the right matchups, but nothing more. And that means I am not interested in him until I know who he is facing next. But if he can show a solid breaking ball to add to that change, there is real upside, and that makes him worth picking up.

Matt Strahm – 4 IP, 30 points, 7.5 P/IP, 4.49% rostered – Strahm also has a 9.4 point, 1 IP relief appearance, but that isn’t our focus. Strahm is a guy I was high on forever ago. Or at least it feels like forever. But he has never been more than an occasionally good RP who you can’t really rely on too much. So seeing him have some early success this year is fantastic.

What is driving that success? Well, it could be pitch mix, but that is hard to read. His FanGraphs player page has him throwing a cutter, if you ask Pitch Info, but no cutter if you ask Baseball Info Solutions. Baseball Savant has him leaning more heavily on his four-seamer (again, no cutter) and slider, while using his other pitches less often than last year. A couple of weeks back, Strahm was quoted by Matt Gelb of The Athletic as having a cutter among his “seven to 10” pitches. So maybe he is throwing a different pitch mix, including a cutter we don’t see in the data from previous years. Or maybe not.

One thing all the sources agree on is his velocity is down, but not by much and that can easily be accounted for simply by being a starter instead of a reliever.

The factor that jumps out at me, though, is some good fortune. Strahm got hit pretty hard. He has allowed 12 batted balls this year and the average exit velocity on them is 93.8. He is close to averaging a hard-hit ball. He has given up a couple of barrels already, as well. And yet for all that hard contact, he didn’t give up a homer on any of his eight fly balls and he has allowed just a .083 BABIP. That contributes pretty heavily to a 4.96 xFIP and 4.23 SIERA. His FIP looks good, but this is a good example of where xFIP is more useful – he won’t run a 0% HR/FB rate for long with that much hard contact.

Strahm looks like he will get another start, this one against Miami, and I have no problem taking a shot on him again, in that start, but be warned – he is giving up a lot of hard contact and a lot of contact in the air and his home park (where he pitches next) isn’t particularly forgiving. I don’t expect this to last.

Anthony DeSclafani – 6 IP, 44.6 points, 7.43 P/IP, 16.99% rostered – Is it really baseball season yet if you haven’t fretted over whether or not to pick up Anthony DeSclafani? He wasn’t even supposed to go that deep, as he was apparently expected to piggyback with Sean Manaea but he threw just 73 pitches in those six stellar innings, so Manaea basically became a two-inning set-up guy.

DeSclafani lacked strikeouts, but the underlying numbers – 12 whiffs and a 30% CSW in those 73 pitches – are solid. He kept the ball on the ground, as well, which is quite helpful for a start on the South Side of Chicago, against a team with good power. He didn’t give up a walk. Lots to like.

The “bad” wasn’t something from the boxscore, but his velocity is still down where it was during his injury-shortened 2022, rather than where he was in 2021, when he was excellent for the Giants. That is by far my biggest concern. But that 17% roster rate should go up quite a bit. DeSclafani put up 4.85 P.IP over 167.2 innings in 2021 and then lost last year to injury. Yes, injuries are an issue for him. Yes, the velocity being down is worrisome. But with the SF org behind him, are we really betting against him being who he was last time we saw him healthy?

Aaron Civale – 7 IP, 49.6 points, 7.09 P/IP, 61.22% rostered – Civale is a favorite of mine to watch, as I love when a pitcher can get by mixing and matching a varied arsenal that he can spot in the zone as needed. Civale used five pitches in his first start this year. Last year he used seven, per Baseball Savant, as neither his sweeper nor his slider made an appearance Saturday.

Given this is a guy who posted a 4.92 ERA last year and was last seen getting lit up by the Yankees in the postseason, this may come as a surprise but…he kinda picked up right where he left off. All of his ERA predictors last year were much better than his ERA itself – mostly mid-3s. He avoided walks last year; he avoided walks Saturday. He only had three strikeouts Saturday, and he has historically been a low-K guy. From July 8 through the end of 2022, he had a 3.00 ERA, 3.09 FIP and 3.01 xFIP.

His schedule isn’t easy – he handled the Mariners fine last time, but he gets them again and that is a good offense. After that, he should be facing the Yankees, though if he gets pushed back at all, he would miss them and get the Nationals and Tigers, instead.

I might hold off on picking him up until after that Yankee series. The risk is that he pitches well against them and his value jumps dramatically. But I would likely bench him for that start, anyway. So I’ll wait, let others get frustrated with whatever he does against a stellar NYY offense, and capitalize on his decreased value.

Kenta Maeda – 5 IP, 34.9 points, 6.98 P/IP, 66.99% rostered – Maeda has been mostly “good” and occasionally “very good” in his career and I kind of think his low-ish roster rate is a result of people forgetting just how solid he can be. This start wasn’t really an outlier for him over his career. He gets Ks, he avoids walks, and he can get hurt by the long ball. That is basically what happened in his first start of 2023.

Maeda’s velocity was solid, until his last inning when he came out with the trainer, which is always concerning. It’s even more concerning for a 35-year-old pitcher coming off a serious injury. He was also facing the Marlins in Miami, which is a seemingly-soft offense in a pitcher-friendly park.

He says the injury was not so much an injury as a tired/dead arm and the Twins expect him to make his next start, but I don’t think we can just brush that aside. If the velocity is down next start, that would be a bright red flag and have me running for the exits.

Until then, if he is still available, I would happily add him. I don’t expect much, but he can be useful even if you have to pick and choose matchups. Just remember that he’s not young, hasn’t pitched in a year and a half, and is already having arm issues. Enjoy the ride while it lasts, but don’t be surprised when it stops.

Michael Grove – 4 IP, 26.4 points, 6.6 P/IP, 7.37% rostered – Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Grove only allowed four base runners and didn’t give up any HR, so in your points leagues, things look great. In 5×5 or 4×4, you would be more frustrated. Grove stacked his two walks back-to-back to open the 5th, then gave up a two-run double before he was pulled and the bullpen couldn’t stop the bleeding, leaving him with an ugly 6.75 ERA.

This brings us to one of two issues for Grove. He hasn’t thrown many innings and I am not sure how deep into games he’ll be able to go. For H2H Ottoneu leagues, with a Games Started cap, that completely takes him out of consideration for me. This start went as well as could be expected, thanks to a weak opponent, and it still wasn’t very good for that format.

The other issue is just that his track record isn’t that exciting and I don’t see anything new to get excited about. His upcoming schedule is interesting – the Diamondbacks and Cubs are both pretty high-volatility teams that will be hard to get a read on until things settle out a bit. But for now, they aren’t terrible options for a borderline pitcher like Grove. He should get 2-3 more starts and if those are them, I could see a pitching-hungry team taking a shot that he can help out.

But after those starts, he’s still a guy who scouts see as a 4th or 5th starter with questions about how many innings he can throw. Jake Mailhot has made the point that you can’t really stream in Ottoneu, but you can drip and Grove feels like the type of guy who will show up in Jake’s column regularly. He’ll be in and out of the rotation in LA, and when he is in, and when he has a good matchup, he could be worth a shot if you need innings.