Mayday, Mayday! Sorting Biggest ERA Jumps

I know the headline is a little alarmist, but now that I have your attention, I’m here to let you know that not all of these struggles are cause for alarm. 

In this article, I’ll take a look at a handful of starting pitchers who struggled to maintain their strong starts to the season, sorting by the biggest ERA increases from April to May amongst those with at least 25 innings pitched. Based on underlying numbers and vibes, I’ll bucket these starters into guys you should look to cut or trade and who to buy or hold. 

And remember, try not to worry just because a guy shows up on this list! For the most part, to have a big gap in ERA between any two months, you need to have done pretty well during one of them. 

So here we go. 

Buy or Hold

Let’s get a few of these guys out of the way, starting with the ones who you should not abandon, despite the relatively rough go of it in May. 

Jacob DeGrom did what many expect when he’s healthy, putting up a 2.01 ERA and 0.96 WHIP across six starts through April. He held opposing hitters to a .198 AVG and was striking out 32.5% of batters faced. 

Even for DeGrom, those are solid numbers, especially at this stage of his career. Last season, his first making 30 starts since 2019, the veteran only had one month with a strikeout rate above 30% in any month. 

Expecting strikeout improvements for a 37-year-old would be wishful thinking, even though his fastball velocity has largely stayed steady, as has his Stuff+ grade. 

In May though, home runs bit DeGrom, allowing multiple home runs in three separate road starts against the Yankees, Astros, and Angels, respectively. But even in those outings, he still looked pretty solid. He walked one batter against the Yankees, striking out seven, and didn’t walk any Astros. Sure, somehow the Angels got to him for four long balls, but that will happen. 

And in his first start of June, he held the Cardinals scoreless over five innings with 6 strikeouts and one walk, getting strikeouts on the changeup, slider, curveball, and heater. 

All in all, he had a bit of bad home run luck in May. His 4.68 xERA was a run below his 5.72 ERA, his K-BB% remained above 20%, and his Stuff+ and fastball velocity both remained at DeGrom levels. If you are in a shallow league with a skittish manager rostering DeGrom, float them an offer.

Justin Wrobleski is a case of regression that I’m sure we all would say we could’ve seen coming. His 1.50 ERA through April came with a 3.73 xERA and a 92 Stuff+. He also wasn’t really striking anybody out. 

I took a quick look at Wrobleski’s hot start a few weeks back, noting his 4.43 K/9 through May 12 and how he had recently given an interview with Katie Woo of the Athletic where he said that part of the game is going through games, and even months, where you don’t strike anyone out. 

In what I think is ultimately a good change for the young lefty, he did start striking guys out in May, upping his K% from 12.6% to 19.1%. A lot of his early luck dissipated, but the increase in strikeouts helped limit the damage. 

To sum things up, Wrobleski’s ERA went up by three runs, in part because he started allowing home runs at a feasible rate, stranding runners less often, and experiencing a more reasonable BABIP, or at least one closer to his career norms.

At the same time, he cut his xFIP, likely thanks to the aforementioned 6.5% jump in K%, his 3.4% drop in BB%, and his improvements in both Stuff+ and Location+. 

Wrobleski has qualified for a win in all nine of his starts thus far this season. In leagues with quality starts, Wrobleski has six of them. And he’s gone six or more innings in seven starts, with the non-QS coming in a Kobayashi-esque performance where he went 8.2 innings, allowing seven earned runs and striking out seven against the red hot Atlanta Braves. 

To top it all off, Wro-Flow struck out nine over seven one-run innings against the Phillies to wrap up his May. Watch him rack up punchies with his fastball, which he routinely ran up to 96 mph to strike out Phillies hitters.

If he’s available in your 10-teamer, you should consider picking him up, especially if you’re looking for wins and quality starts. While he’s rostered in 90% of CBS leagues, that is the case in only 63% of Yahoo leagues.

He’s a volume play who is on a surging team who is being given plenty of chances to win each time he takes the mound. 

And unlike his teammates, he is likely going to be in the bullpen come October. So there’s no real worry about shutting him down early to limit his innings this summer. 

Buy, buy, buy!

Nolan McLean has been a controversial name since draft season. Lofty comparisons were being thrown around in conversations about the young righty. At 24 years old, his story is not yet written. 

But Corbin Young did check in on McLean last week. If you missed it, check out that piece, since he goes in depth on the ace of the Mets, looking through heat maps and what went wrong during McLean’s May mishaps. He sums things up with his view on McLean.

Among qualified starting pitchers, McLean ranked 12th in Stuff+ and 43rd in Location+, making one of the few players with a high-end stuff grade and above-average command. We should probably expect more whiffs from McLean’s arsenal, but there’s a deep arsenal with good stuff and command within his profile. If these last two starts have made another manager anxious, I would be inquiring about buying on McLean.

Even with all the walks in May, his Location+ stayed right around 100, and he struck out a little more than a batter per inning. He should be just fine. 

Sell High (If You Still Can) or Hold, But Know What You’re Getting 

Jose Soriano started the year on an absolute heater. In his first six starts, he allowed just one run. He stranded 100% of baserunners. And he struck out 43 batters in 37.2 innings. 

We loved it! But we knew that he was weird. Michael Baumann got ahead of things and summed up Soriano in his beautifully titled piece back on April 8. Citing Jake Mailhot’s article from last season, Michael touched on part of what had been helping Soriano succeed to start 2026. 

In his article from this past July, Jake mentioned that Soriano didn’t get very much two-strike chase on his splitter because he didn’t command it well enough. He hasn’t thrown any pitch enough times for us to learn much from the results, but every pitch he throws is getting chased more, including the splitter. The chase rate on Soriano’s splitter has doubled from last year.

So, I could tell you that Soriano’s K-BB% fell from 20% through April to 11% in May. You probably already knew, or could just guess, that he didn’t keep stranding every baserunner in May either. But did he maintain his chase rate gains?

No. No, he did not. His 36.9% O-Swing% through April fell down to 30.6% in May. 

But thus far, he is still getting more chase on all five of his pitches, relative to last season. The splitter though, the pitch highlighted by both Michael and Jake as a way to potentially unlock strikeouts for Soriano, is not getting much more chase. But there is a change.

Even though Soriano is not getting more chase than he used to on his nastiest pitch, he is throwing it more for strikes, and just more in general. 

Just in case you needed a reminder, it is nasty. 

If you have Soriano, let it ride. And if not, he could be a fit for your team. I’m not at all saying you have to sell him. Just don’t expect his ace hood from April to stay. He has a tendency to run hot and then run cold. So if you can parlay him into a more proven ace or otherwise use him to improve your team, I’d feel confident selling him. 

Shota Imanaga is, in my view, a much clearer “Sell High” than Soriano is.

In his three years in the majors, he has struggled most in May and June, running ERAs above 4.00 in both months. His career ERA across March and April is 2.32. 

For the most part, Imanaga looks like the same guy he’s been thus far as a member of the Cubs. He is allowing plenty of homers (1.67 HR/9), but limiting walks (2.31 BB/9). While his 4.37 ERA is not helpful, his 1.07 WHIP is. 

His last three starts in May were his first three multi-homer games of the season. While for DeGrom I shrugged this off, it matters a bit more for Imanaga, who is known to be prone to allowing homers. 

As Kiri Oler outlined a few years back, Wrigley Field is particularly hitter-friendly in June, especially when it comes to home runs. 

If you have a chance to sell Imanaga to someone who sees the May blip as just that, it may be a good time. Otherwise, be careful with him in June. The Cubs begin the month with back-to-back series at home before going on the road to Coors to face the Rockies. If you can bench him for those starts, you may just avoid a few more ERA-inflating outings. 

Just Be Careful 

If you’ve stuck with me until the end, I’m going to limit these last few players to short blurbs. Just know that these should be considered fringy options in shallower leagues, though given their propensity to eat innings, you should just stay the course in deeper leagues. 

Jack Kochanowicz is a pitch-to-contact arm whose Location+ fell from 102 through April to 85 in May. Couple that with his 4% K-BB% and it’s pretty clear that he is really only a deep league filler. 

Sandy Alcantara had a 7.39 ERA in May. He probably won’t have that happen again, but, to borrow from the late Toby Keith, he’s not as good as he once was. He may be more of a streamer at this point, at least in shallower leagues. The volume is still there.  

Janson Junk is a FanGraphs favorite. His last name is one of the best a pitcher can have and he’s a strike-throwing soft-tossing throwback. His 7.00 ERA in May was a mirage it seems, as his xERA was 4.22, his Pitching+ improved from 109 to 113, and his K-BB% went up from 10% to 14%. Keep on sending him out there, especially against weaker offenses. 

Zac Gallen was due for regression based on his xERA alone. His 3.14 ERA in April was called into question by a 4.94 xERA. So while his xERA only rose to 5.39 in May, he more or less earned his 7.04 ERA this past month. He hasn’t been consistent even within starts and has allowed a 93% Z-Contact%. For a guy who allows more than two homers per nine innings, that won’t play. 

Robbie Ray had one of the steepest K-BB% fall offs of all qualified starting pitchers in May, as his 16% rate in April tumbled down to 5% in May, thanks to a 5.22 BB/9. Yikes. For a guy who has gone through his fair share of control issues and injuries, he may be entering one of those periods again now. His fastball velocity remained steady, but his Stuff+ fell below 100. It could be time to say goodbye.