Kevin Gausman the Brave

A former top prospect, Kevin Gausman owns a 4.27 ERA/100 ERA-/97 FIP- over his career, spanning 127 games started and 763.2 innings pitched. While that has been perfectly acceptable, we expected much more than just a league average pitcher. With good control and a mid-90s fastball that has apparently peaked at 101.2 mph, his mediocre strikeouts rates have also been head scratching. But perhaps, he has new life after being traded to the Braves on trade deadline day. Will the change in parks help him realize his potential?

On non-home run hits, Camden Yards is actually a bit more pitcher friendly than SunTrust Park, with both doubles and triples park factors significantly lower. However, SunTrust makes that up by being close to neutral on homers, suppressing them ever so slightly. Camden is one of the better home run parks in baseball, sporting the sixth highest factor in 2017.

Since Gausman’s batted ball profile is pretty generic and right around the league average, which combines with just an average strikeout rate, just a bit of bad luck could result in fly balls leaving the yard often. Though it seems like he’s a long-time sufferer of gopheritis given his career 1.30 HR/9 rate, his HR/FB rate is actually around where you would expect it to be given the home park. Then again, his 13.8% career mark is being held down by an abnormally low 5.8% mark back in 2014. Every other year, he has settled into the mid-teens.

So it’s no surprise that Gausman hasn’t really been good at keeping balls in the park, as the combination of his fly ball and strikeout rates, along with his home park, have frustrated fantasy owners. But the move to a much more neutral environment, a league that features the pitcher batting, and a division with much less offensive power, should dramatically improve his home run suppression.

Outside of the homers, the other factors are fairly close and over a small sample, shouldn’t have much of an impact. Interestingly, even with the much higher HR factor in Camden, it has been just a slightly favorable park for hitters, and not drastically more favorable than SunTrust. This suggests that while Gausman should enjoy the home run benefits, his ERA shouldn’t drop rapidly solely due to the park switch.

Of course, there’s more to his rest of season projection to consider than just the park switch. He also switched leagues and divisions. Both of those moves should improve his ratios, while the far superior Braves offense should lead to better run support.

Armed with an elite splitter, I’m still waiting for that strikeout rate spike to come. He’s surely getting the swings and misses as this is his fourth straight season posting a SwStk% around 11%. He’s in a great spot to get his ERA below 4.00 and match his performance from 2016. I’m buying.