Chris Archer Needs Target Practice
After a breakout 2015 campaign (2014 wasn’t a legit breakout, as it required a 6.9% HR/FB rate), this was not the start Chris Archer owners were expecting. He has posted an ugly 7.32 ERA and a rather hilarious 2.08 WHIP. That’s not a typo — his WHIP is above 2.00! It has only been four starts, but since he has already allowed six runs in half of them, it’s logical that there would be some concern. So let’s try to figure out what, if anything, is wrong.
First, let’s get the obvious out of the way. If we sort our starting pitcher leaderboard by BABIP in descending order, Archer finds himself with the second highest mark in baseball. That would certainly explain part of the inflated ERA. Next, sort that same board by HR/FB rate and who appears at the top? Archer, of course. So, he has the second highest BABIP and the highest HR/FB rate! And that, my friends, is how you’re saddled with a 7.32 ERA, but a healthy 3.32 SIERA.
Theory #1 — It’s just some bad luck that so happened to have occurred during a string of four straight games to open the year.
You don’t want to just blindly accept that, though, right? Of course not. So let’s check in on his fastball velocity, which has been a topic of conversation.
You could see that in his first two starts, his velocity was indeed down. But it has rebounded in his last two starts to back above 94 mph. That’s still a mile per hour below last year, but it’s only April, so the decline isn’t all that worrisome.
How about the effectiveness of his repertoire? We can check Baseball-Reference.com to get the breakdown of his strike types. These are the components of my xK% equation.
| Year | Looking/Strike | Swinging/Strike | Foul/Strike | xK% |
| 2012 | 34.4% | 16.4% | 25.1% | 26.1% |
| 2013 | 27.8% | 15.4% | 28.5% | 20.7% |
| 2014 | 30.9% | 15.9% | 24.4% | 21.2% |
| 2015 | 27.4% | 21.6% | 26.6% | 28.0% |
| 2016 | 27.4% | 20.7% | 27.8% | 26.7% |
| Career | 29.0% | 18.1% | 26.3% | 24.1% |
Compared to last year, his strike rate types are virtually identical, with a few less swinging strikes and a few more foul strikes. Clearly, the quality of his stuff remains top notch. That’s no surprise, as his strikeout rate sits at an elite 29.6%.
There are several metrics that do jump off the page though. We’ll begin with some explanation for his high BABIP — an inflated 27.6% line drive rate and a league leading Hard% (along with a Soft% that is fourth lowest). How hitters could simultaneously have such difficulty making contact, while also hitting with such thump when they do make contact, baffles.
Last, we arrive at his control issues. His current 11.2% walk rate would be a career high. Let’s go back to Baseball-Reference.com to look at the component of my xBB% equation.
| Year | Str% | 3-0 Count% | xBB% |
| 2012 | 61.0% | 5.7% | 10.7% |
| 2013 | 63.8% | 4.8% | 8.7% |
| 2014 | 62.9% | 4.6% | 8.7% |
| 2015 | 65.0% | 3.1% | 7.8% |
| 2016 | 61.3% | 6.1% | 10.5% |
| Career | 63.7% | 4.2% | 8.5% |
And there it is. That inflated walk rate is a direct result of fewer strikes thrown. Duh. Over a small sample, strike rate and walk rate don’t always line up, so it was important to confirm that it does in his case. And you see his xBB% also validate that his control has been off. I included his 3-0 count percentage as well, as that has nearly doubled from last season.
Yesterday, Jeff Sullivan made his best guess as to what was behind Archer’s issues. He believes it’s a simple mechanical issue with his landing foot, while a commenter noticed that his elbow is much more bent this year than last season. Mechanical troubles could certainly explain his poor control thus far, though even without perfect mechanics, there is still clearly some poor fortune involved in those ridiculous BABIP and HR/FB rates. If it’s truly just a mechanical thing, this would be great news for his owners as it means he’s healthy and it’s easily fixable.
Theory #2 — It’s a mechanical issue that should be easily fixed.
But we’re just speculating here. We don’t know for sure. When you throw a slider more than 30% of the time (and nearly 40% last season!), there’s always the worry of an arm injury. When your control suddenly disappears, the alarm bells ring louder.
Theory #3 — After throwing soooooo many sliders, his arm has been shot and he’s pitching hurt.
Ignore his ERA and actual results. All we care about is the high walk rate (driven by the low strike rate) and whether that’s a signal that Archer isn’t healthy. If a little birdie would assure me that Archer is 100%, without a doubt, healthy, then I’d be all over trying to acquire him. But because there is that small risk, I think that you need to demand an additional discount beyond the poor results discount you would have potentially received in your standard buy low situation. If you’re curious, I’m far less concerned here than I am about Felix Hernandez, who I shared my thoughts about on Monday.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
This goes back to his last 6 starts of last season as well. He also faced AL East teams in all but one of those 10 starts (CLE this year). He has not hit 7+ innings since mid August.
Could be a combination of his control as well as high scoring offenses that want to work the count. In most of those games his SwStr% has been below 10%.
It also appears that his slider is much less effective. His pitch value on his slider is significantly lower this year than last and it seems that he’s leaving it up far more often than last season. Hopefully it is the mechanical issue, but this dates back all the way to the end of last season as well, where he became much more hittable. Any study of Archer should also include looking back at his last few starts from 2015 to see if there are continued trends.
Pitch values are pretty useless and just reflect the inflated BABIP and HR/FB rate. By itself, it doesn’t tell us if it’s just been bad luck or bad sliders. All of his pitches have a negative pitch value, so it’s not just the slider getting hit.
I argued a bit with Blake Murphy yesterday. Basically, even if we can’t pinpoint why Archer’s been getting hit so hard, I think we have to discount him signficantly. This isn’t just bad, it’s BAD, and it dates back to the end of last season.
Maybe it’s one of the theories you laid out above. Maybe not. But results/outcomes have to count for SOMETHING, even if we don’t know the cause. If we try to write this off as 100% fluke/luck and treat him like the preseason top-20 pitcher, we’re just ignoring 4 starts worth of data that say something is wrong.
I’m not targeting for a buy-low, and if I owned, I’d be considering a sell-low.
Well it depends on which results/outcomes you’re referring to that should count as something. ERA/Whip? Absolutely not. I put 0 stock in those numbers. LD%, Hard%, walk rate, strike percentage and velocity? Yup, those do count for something, which suggest that something may be wrong.
Looking at it a little more I wonder if its mental. He is just in love with striking out batters, which he is still doing at a high rate. It’s just when batters do not swing and miss, they hit it harder because they are sitting on location. He has completely abandoned his 2 seam FB. He is also gun shy with his CH to righties. He is a 2 pitch pitcher that does not pitch outside. Hitters just need to look middle / in. They may swing and miss, but not always and when they make contact they barrel up better than before.
I think you’re on the right track here. The raw stuff still seems mostly intact. Sure, the FB may be a tick off but who can say if that’s just ramping up out of Spring; and maybe he’s hung a few sliders.
But I think he hasn’t taken the next step as a pitcher in terms of knowing when to conserve energy, pitch to contact, etc… vs. just trying to strike guys out all the time.
Also, per their fans supposedly the Rays catchers haven’t been much help in terms of defense. Conger is terrible.
I think he will make some mechanical tweaks and settle down, but not at elite Top 15 SP level like last year…more Top 25ish level.
Was actually looking to move Felix for Archer and another piece, something like DeShields Jr. Would you shoot for more or does this seem around right?
Love the Archer side, can’t imagine that’s accepted!
As an owner who kept Archer over Thor I really hope you’re right.
I see it as one of 2 things, both related to the fastball. (1) fastball location or (2) tipping his fastball. His triple on is fastball is absurd .350/.477/.625 and per baseball savant his avg. batted ball velocity on his fastball is 95mph. Once he starts locating it again, he’ll be fine.