Two prospects have recently been called up to fill holes in their respective rotations. While Jungmann was once a highly regarded prospect (ranked 70 overall by Baseball America in 2012) and has since fallen off, Wisler is across the board a top 100 prospect. Despite their different paths to the majors, both are up and are performing, so let’s take a look and see if either or both are worth adding.
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Mike Montgomery is on fire. He has risen from the ashes of old Baseball America Prospect Handbooks to all of a sudden become a key piece of the Mariners’ rotation. Podhorzer tried to get you on board a month ago. Did you listen? You didn’t, I knew it. Well, you missed 38 innings of a 1.64 ERA and 0.89 WHIP including back-to-back shutouts. So the best is almost certainly behind him, but it’s not like he has to maintain a 1.64 ERA or he can’t be picked up. He could reasonably add two runs to his ERA and still be a plus asset delivering quality innings.
It’s rankings update time! We’re coming up to the midpoint of the season, which means there are only a couple of months left of baseball to be played ::sad face::.
My usual caveat on how I rank pitchers follows:
It’s essential to remember that ERA is not a skill. It’s just a result. So I don’t really care what a pitcher’s ERA is at the moment. What I’m really interested in is their peripherals and any changes in pitch mix and/or velocity. And even if their peripherals have changed, you then have to ask yourself if its sustainable. Again, more likely is that what we initially forecasted is what is going to be posted the rest of the way, though obviously this is not always the case.
As a reminder, the tiers are named after the best characters from the FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.
Continuing with my Hail Mary Pitchers from last week, here are the final two categories:
The Young Unknowns are the shiny new toys who are having some success this year, but carry risk due to a lack of track record. That volatility could definitely burn you, but when you’re in Hail Mary mode, that upside is desirable enough to take on the risk. These guys won’t necessarily come cheaply because they aren’t failing, but they will usually still be cheaper than what a peak version of him with a track record would cost.
Danny Salazar, CLE – Salazar has so many appealing aspects to his profile that it seems ludicrous to find him on any kind of list like this, but his ERA is now at 4.06 after his start on June 23rd against Detroit (4.3 IP/6 ER). He has absolutely devastating stuff: 30% K rate, 6% BB rate, 46% GB rate, and 13% SwStr rate.
These are all in line with his work in 162 IP from 2013-14, but his primary issue from those seasons – a 1.1 HR/9 – has been even worse this year at 1.4 HR/9. His 16% HR/FB rate is a career-high and could be ready to move closer to the 11% league mark. He also cut his flyball rate from 42% to 36% so the volume of homers should definitely drop if he gets that HR/FB rate in check.
Today, I’ll do something I will rarely do. That is, recommend not one, but two pitchers returning from Tommy John surgery. I typically ignore such returnees, as our own Jeff Zimmerman’s research confirms what we already knew anecdotally – that in their first year back, they suffer serious performance declines. But in a deep league where you’re scraping the barrel and choosing between a near guaranteed mid-4.00 ERA just for the potential for a couple of wins and some strikeouts, the possibility, even if small, of someone league average or better instead looks more intriguing.
Hitters have to be jealous of pitchers in at least one respect. A pitcher can add a new pitch — maybe by fiddling with the grip or the release — and that new pitch can make them into a totally different guy. Hitters can fiddle with their mechanics, but it’s rare that there’s a readily available obvious and easy change they can make that rises to the level of a New Changeup.
Speaking of new changeups, check out Carlos Martinez.
As you are likely (hopefully) aware, I’m not a fan of small sample size analysis. In fact, it could be argued that I’m far too patient, requiring the sample size to be quite significant before I change my opinion/projection on a player. But a pitcher’s SwStk% is different. It’s a per-pitch metric, so it stabilizes rather quickly and conveys very useful information. So with that in mind, let’s browse through the SwStk% leaders over the last 30 days and look to uncover any surprise names.
A couple weeks ago I shared my Hail Mary infield, a group of infielders you should consider collecting on a struggling team in the hopes that you hit it big with them returning to form. The idea is that you can also get them at a discount, thus a surge to their talent level would net a huge payoff. Today I’m going to hit the mound and discuss the Hail Mary pitchers. Pitching can deliver a bigger payoff in most cases. League standings will dictate which side you’re better off attacking, but a big pitching run can pay huge dividends in relatively short order.
Four of the five hitting categories are counting stats so the accumulation to make a move can be more of a slow burn. Additionally, the one rate stat (usually AVG or OBP) doesn’t usually move too quickly once we get around this point in the season as the ABs/PAs start to pile up. A single exemplary performance from a hitter – even something like 5-for-5 with a homer and six RBIs – rarely has the impact that one huge start does and once start stringing them together, movement comes quickly.
If you guessed this post might relate to BABIP, you would be right. Last year, the highest BABIP by a qualified start in either league was .339, followed by four between .320 and .330. This season, the Major League average BABIP for starters sits at .297, while for American Leaguers it stands slightly lower at .295. The five starters below lead the American League with the highest BABIP marks. There doesn’t even need to be any deep analysis done to say with near certainty that better BABIP days ahead. But of course, that would be lazy, so analysis there shall be.
It took a dominant 11-strikeout, zero-walk performance from Taijuan Walker for the fantasy world to finally take notice of him. I don’t have ownership trend data to exemplify this, but I do have an anecdote: he was available in every league I’m in before the start, and he was owned in every league I’m in shortly after it.
The truth is Walker had demonstrated progress, described here by Eno Sarris, in his prior four starts, notching 27 strikeouts to three walks in 29 innings. Someone who hadn’t been paying attention to Walker probably wouldn’t have noticed: his ERA prior to the recent five-game surge stood at 7.33, and he had completed the sixth inning only twice in nine games. Once a hyped prospect, he looked like a 22-year-old who still needed seasoning to reach his potential.
No longer, as you will probably have to give up an asset of value to acquire Walker from a fellow owner now. The price may not be too steep given his poor ratios (4.94 ERA, 1.39 WHIP), but this is likely the highest they’ll be for the rest of the season.