Just How Good is Julio Teheran?
Julio Teheran is owned in just 52% of Yahoo! leagues but I expect that number to jump up pretty swiftly after last night’s performance. If he’s available, it’s time to put a claim in on him and offer up a hefty amount of FAAB if that’s how your league operates. The one concern around owning Teheran and investing a lot into him this season was the return of Brandon Beachy. With Teheran’s sixth straight quality start, he has all but assured he will remain in the rotation when Beachy returns in the next two weeks.
After his first three starts, Teheran has posted a 2.13 ERA with 43 strikeouts and just eight walks in 55 innings. The strikeouts have begun to pick up as well, with 25 in his past 21.1 innings pitched. The Colombian right-hander is still working to improve his changeup, which he has thrown just 4.2% of the time. The fact that he has had this much success without utilizing what was known as his best pitch while he was coming through the minors is a very big deal. This is why I am looking to acquire Teheran in every league right now, because once he picks that back up he will be even better than he currently is.
Where Teheran has really improved is in his command. He walked 7.5% of the batters he faced last year and 8.1% the season before, both at triple-A Gwinnett. This season, his walk rate has dropped to a sparkling 5.1%, the 21st lowest mark in all of baseball. This has allowed him to be a first pager in strikeout-to-walk rate, so even though the strikeouts over the course of the full season have not been incredibly impressive, the K/BB rate has been great and it is a main driver for his success so far.
Teheran was working on his fastball command and his breaking balls at Triple-A and in winter ball. Both of those have seen massive improvements, showing that he is capable of adapting when he needs to adapt. He has been working hard with Gerald Laird behind the plate and yesterday’s one-hitter was obviously the high point of the year for the two of them.
While there is understandably doubt that Teheran becomes the ace many expected him to be, in his first full season as a starter he has put himself back on track to be a very successful starter and looks like he could certainly be a front-end guy for a sustainable amount of time.
ZiPS has Teheran with a 4.36 ERA and a 3.07 BB/9 after walking just 1.9 per nine so far this year. The walk rate is the main difference between what Teheran has been so far and what ZiPS projects him to be. If he reverts back to that type of walk rate and his strikeout-to-walk ratio dips, sure he could end up struggling as the season continues. What I foresee happening given his recent trends and improvements is at least a slight uptick in his walk right but a coinciding increase in his strikeout rate. I think projection an ERA between 3.30 and 3.60 for the remainder of the season is reasonable and not even incredibly optimistic. If that is someone who you are willing to trade for, send out some offers and see if his owner is willing to move him.
Ben has been at RotoGraphs since 2012 and focuses most of his fantasy baseball attention toward dynasty and keeper leagues.
After his first three starts, Teheran has posted a 2.13 ERA with 43 strikeouts and just eight walks in 55 innings.
Thats a lot of innings for three starts.
He played under UNC rules.
The key word is “AFTER”……those stats are for the 8 starts or so AFTER his first three.
I think you actually may have misread it. The structure is fine. It’s “After events x happened, y has happened” not “After events x happened, y had happened.”
I think since would have been better though.
I was looking to sell high, but I might have to reconsider that after this piece. Thanks.
1. I took him on a flyer but dropped him due to low K rate (don’t REALLY need wins right now, I need ghost players to actually play their players more than anything but CSB), but it looks like that’s ticked up. I’d like to have that back (picked up Corbin and Liriano which…. I dunno yet)
2. Saw him pitch last year a couple of times, and if his secondary stuff isn’t going, teams will absolutely ROCK his fastball (even at AAA). I don’t think he’s leaning on his change as much as he was in the minors- and his slider has been on, which might be the better results.
I think the key piece we are assuming here is that he sticks in the rotation with Beachy due back shortly.
Do you think a guy that has already amassed 71 innings, putting him at 43.5% of his CAREER HIGH innings pitched (of 164 in 2011 – he had just 137 in 2012) is going to be pitching the rest of the year? I find it hard to believe the Braves would push a 22 year old much beyond where he has already pitched in his first full big league year.
If you believe he will stay in the rotation, who gets the boot? Tim Hudson has clearly been the worst performer, but I highly doubt the 37 year old gets dropped from the rotation. Every other pitcher in their rotation has an ERA under 3.7 (both Medlen and Minor are better than Teheran’s 3.30 ERA) and Maholm has been very solid.
I could see an argument to move Medlen back to the bullpen with the injuries to Venters and O’Flahrety, but with his last 24 starts spanning 2012 and 2013, I find it hard to imagine the Braves making that move.
To me that decision comes down to Hudson and Teheran and I don’t think Teheran stands a chance in that scenario…
beachy comes back as the long man in the pen.
Medlen has been the worst pitcher on the Braves thus far this year, not Hudson.
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2013&month=0&season1=2013&ind=0&team=16&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
IMO, Medlen goes to the bullpen when Beachy returns.
I suspect that at least a couple of the conventional assumptions under FIP don’t apply to the Braves:
(1) It appears from my cursory glance that the Braves horrible non-Simmons infield and largely stellar outfield have made it so that high fly ball rates correlate with lower eras
(2) The statistical gaps between era and fip for Braves starters, for several years, corroborated by visual evidence, suggest that Braves pitchers know how to induce the mythical ‘weak contact’
So basically I find myself skeptical of Hudson’s uncharacteristically low FIP.
Hudson has outpitched his FIP nearly every year he’s been in the majors. If it was his 4th or 5th year in the league, maybe there’s room for skepticism, but for a guy like Hudson, we pretty much can expect he’ll pitch better than his FIP. Medlen WAS that type of pitcher last year, when his excellent command had him throwing pitches almost exclusively on edges of the plate. But he’s lost that this year, and it was really all that made him valuable.
Uggla’s Forearm nailed it. With Teheran’s confidence where it is, there’s no way they’re sending him to the ‘pen. Hudson is the lone “veteran” on the staff…he’s not going either. It will be Medlen, or possibly they’ll let Beachy test his arm in some long relief situations, although that wouldn’t make sense with him starting in rehab.
My current starters are Lee, Moore, Miller, Porcello, Lackey, Wacha, Garza, Johnson. If Teheran were available on waivers, who would you drop to try to grab him?
For me it’s Johnson, I just feel like hes gonna struggle this year. But you seem pretty set, itd be up to you who youd rather go with
Wacha, not close.
You you trade Adam Jones/Teheran for Felix? What about Cliff Lee? Who will be better ROS, Cliff or Felix?
I always have trouble trading a hitter as good as AJ for pitching even when it’s felix. I wouldnt unless my outfield had enough to pick up the slack without him. As far as Cliff or Felix, I take Felix by a nose because of his K rate and bigger ballpark. And cuz hes the King
Who would yor drop for Tehran? Haren, Josh Johnson, cashner, or Fernandez?
Also considering i only have 9 transactions left for the year, would you make the move or hold?
I’d drop Fernandez…actually, I dropped Fernandez. Teheran has had two full seasons in the minors, he probably won’t be running into any innings limits this year. Fernandez won’t last through August. And, the fish never win. Even if Fernandez pitches well and gets enough run support, which is rare, the bullpen blows the game. All that being said, I don’t like Johnson moving forward either.
Medlen has spent most of his pro career as a relief pitcher and the Braves have already said that whomever gets bounced from the rotation will head to their bullpen. I highly doubt they send Teheran to the pen, being that all but three of his appearances as a pro have come as a starter. What’s more; the Braves don’t know how Teheran would take to a bullpen role, whereas Medlen has already proven himself to be an upper-echelon ML reliever. To impede the progress of a legitimate potential number-one pitcher like Teheran by sticking him in the pen would be foolhardy. Medlen is a solid starter, but at best he’s a number-three on a championship-caliber squad. Where he’s truly dynamic is as a RP and incidentally, that’s where the Braves biggest need in lies.
I want to see stats configured to quality of opposition.
Drafted both Teheran and Beachy very late. I stuck with Julio through the early struggles, one of my only smart moves this year! and now I can’ wait for Beachy to come back.