We have all been wrapped up in the deadline deals for the last few days, so we could have easily missed something potentially relevant to fantasy owners over the weekend. Back on Sunday, the Reds beat the Phillies, 4-0, and the victors departed for their road trip with a three-game win streak. Gabe Kapler even said a whole bunch of nice stuff about the team that just took a series from his Phillies.
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You’re not imagining things, the pitching landscape has been a nightmare in July. Sometimes we get in the bubble of our team and project our struggles onto the league and I thought perhaps I was doing just that as I watched my ERA and WHIP just take a beating in league after league. So, I had to check into it.
It’s time for the bi-weekly look at under-the-radar pitching prospects. As a reminder, here is what the rankings are and aren’t:
Are
Aren’t
Last week, I discussed the most disappointing starting pitchers after comparing CBS’ projected versus actual ranking. Today, we look into the surprises and ask ourselves whether they could keep up the magic.
Scouring the depths of the waiver wire to find some useful arms:
Ervin Santana, Twins, 24% roster rate | Has not pitched in the majors this year
This will be the most “known” arm on this list, but the veteran righty is widely available as he’s yet to appear in the majors this year. He had surgery on his right middle finger all the way back in February, but he’s finally slated to return. Santana has been a remarkably steady arm throughout his career, including a 3.32 ERA and 1.17 WHIP in 392.7 IP over the last two seasons. He doesn’t miss a lot of bats with a 19% strikeout rate, but he regularly goes deep into games so his strikeout volume is still solid. He’ll make his season debut tomorrow against Toronto and a good outing would no doubt push the price, so I’d get the jump in daily moves leagues and take a shot on Santana.
If the All-Star break is a momentum-stopper, then this week’s exercise of finding meaning in back-to-back surprising starts could be moot. Charlie Morton, who entered the break with consecutive disappointing efforts, will roll into Wednesday night’s start at Coors Field against the Rockies having not pitched in a game in 13 days. Frankie Montas may have had some success against the Indians and Astros before the break, but Tuesday night’s outing at the Rangers comes after a 15-day hiatus.
Still, taking a peek at these pitchers’ two most recent starts can give us some context for evaluating their upcoming assignments. If Montas breezes through his start against the Rangers, who rank 22nd in wOBA against right-handed pitchers, can we merely chalk it up to a favorable matchup after he held his own against two of the top six offenses against righties? And if Morton flubs his first start of the second half, should we blame it on the Coors Effect?
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If something about Madison Bumgarner’s first eight starts of 2018 have seemed odd to you, it’s because they have been. No matter the fielding independent pitching statistic to which you subscribe — FIP, xFIP, SIERA (although, frankly, it should be SIERA) — Bumgarner’s 2018 has not inspired confidence. Despite a dazzling (and quintessentially Bumgarnerian) 2.90 ERA, his baserunner suppression skills (i.e. strikeouts and walks) have lagged this year, and the various FIPs all portend severe bumps in the road. Granted, Bumgarner has outperformed his FIPs the last three years and throughout his career. I’m here to argue not that we should dismiss our concerns because of this but, instead, that such overperformance has insulated us from what should be potentially serious concerns about MadBum’s long-term health and success.
The problems with Bumgarner’s 2018 season — or at least the peripherals that underpin his 2018 season — thus far stem back not to his broken finger but, rather, something both farther back and much more dire. You may or may not recall Bumgarner fell off a dirt bike last year and injured his throwing shoulder. He returned from that injury almost exactly a year ago and promptly underwhelmed us. Sure, he posted a 3.43 ERA through September and has a 3.23 ERA in the calendar year since his return. It’s not vintage Bumgarner, but it’s not awful. But the peripherals, oh, the peripherals: his strikeout rate (K%) has caved dramatically, falling more than 6 percentage points (27.1% from April 2015 through April 2017; 20.9% from July 2017 onward).
It’s his fastball. Bumgarner’s fastball, once elite (relative to other four-seamers), is broken, and it has been broken for a year.
With two ratio categories out of four they contribute to, starting pitchers could turn around their seasons much more easily than hitters, who must make up ground in four counting stats. I compare the CBS projected and actual rankings and sorted by the difference for a list of the most disappointing and surprising starters. I eliminated any pitcher currently on the DL. These six are arguably the most disappointing. Will any of them deliver the kind of value over the second half that fantasy owners paid for?
Since 2013, I have polled you dashingly attractive readers on which group of pitchers you think will post the better aggregate ERA post all-star break. The two groups were determined based on ERA-SIERA disparity, pitting the overperformers versus the underperformers during the pre-all-star break period.
After trending the wrong way for more than a month, Luke Weaver pulls into the All-Star break with two of his strongest outings of the year. Just when it seemed safe to start Chase Anderson again, he finished his first half with a sputter.
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