Perusing the Fours and Fives

After a relatively quiet start to Spring Training, injuries are starting to pile up. You may have already had a waiver run in your league, but even if not the first one will run this weekend and a lot of interesting arms have won fourth and fifth starter jobs. Plenty of them are already being drafted as potential contributors (Tyler Chatwood 204th in NFBC, Jordan Montgomery 213th, and Lucas Giolito 215th to name a few). I plucked a few who are intriguing to me and here are some thoughts about them:

Joe Musgrove | Pirates

I’ve been a Musgrove fan from the jump, but he saw his draft stock stay low because of some shoulder soreness earlier in camp. He’s been back and pitching, putting up five strong innings on Sunday in his last start before the regular season. If he sharpens his command and keeps the ball in the park more often, he has breakout potential.

Matt Boyd, Daniel Norris | Tigers

Looking to get a share of new pitching coach Chris Bosio? One of these lefties could be a worthy avenue. Both have shown flashes, but are also coming off nightmares in 2017 (5.27 ERA for Boyd, 5.31 for Norris and unimpressive skills underneath). Boyd desperately needs to hone his fastball command so if you see some early success built on spotting his heater, that’d be encouraging. He has walked just five (6%) and allowed a single homer (0.5 HR/9) in 19 Spring Training innings. Norris displayed poor control throughout 2017, pushing his walk rate up to a career-worst 10% as he struggled to string positive starts together all season.

Jakob Junis, Nathan Karns | Royals

Junis closed the season with a nice little two-month run in KC. He posted a 3.61 ERA and 1.11 WHIP in 62 innings with a 16% K-BB rate. He is primarily sinker-slider, doesn’t have much of a platoon split, and limited homers in that final run (0.87, after an insane 2.9 in June). He’s having a strong Cactus League, too, with 20 Ks and just one walk in 14 innings. It’s worth noting that he has a 7.5 OppQual according to Baseball Reference, which suggests he’s been facing essentially a hybrid of Double- and Triple-A players.

I talked about Karns in my NFBC Sleepers piece, but I wanted to mention him again because he doesn’t get drafted much and could be a nice strikeout source. He’s fanned 18 in 14 spring innings and his OppQual is a robust 8.6, too.

Amir Garrett | Reds

He’s actually going to the bullpen, but I wanted to include him because he could be another major multi-inning middle man. He didn’t exactly smash the competition the first two times through the lineup with an .870 OPS, but it soared to 1.206 the third time through. We’re seeing the mid-to-upper 90s velo that was advertised in his scouting reports this spring. He sat at 91.7 mph with his fastball last year. He becomes a different pitcher if he’s clocking in at 94-95 on average.

Brent Suter | Brewers

In fact, Suter might also be a better multi-inning reliever than starter, too. He was crushed the third time through. Of the 193 starters who had at least 45 PA facing someone a third time, Suter’s 1.127 OPS was 189th. Garrett was 190th at 1.166! Suter was 18th with a .630 OPS the first two times he faced a batter, though, so there’s a solid 4-6 inning pitcher here. Guys seem to start timing his 85 mph fastball after a couple times seeing it. His fastball OPS jumps from .651 times one and two up to 1.088 the third time.

German Marquez | Rockies

Marquez was solid for 162 innings last year, earning 5th place Rookie of the Year consideration. He held his own at home with a  4.59 ERA and his 17% K-BB rate was actually five points better than his road work. While he is primarily a two-pitch guy, the curveball kept lefties at bay and negated a major platoon split, but righties had a 100-point edge at .855 OPS. His poor fastball command really hurt him against righties with a 6% HR rate on his fastball, 2nd-highest to only Ariel Miranda’s 7% v. righties. That’s obviously the worst park to have command issues, especially with your fastball, so he must get better there if he’s to be trusted in anything shallower than a 15-team mixer or NL-Only league.

Seth Lugo | Mets

He generated some excitement last spring when he came out throwing heat at the WBC, but then a torn UCL kept him out until June. He struggled away from Citi Field with all six of his highest earned run totals were on the road, but if you had blindly sat him on the road, you’d have missed a lot of his best starts, too. I don’t think he’s a home/road guy. I wouldn’t read anything into the 2.39/6.08 home/road ERA split, especially with his base skills being essentially the same at 15%/13% K-BB home/road rates.

Jack Flaherty | Cardinals

Flaherty got a gig with the Adam Wainwright injury and the former top prospect has some real upside. It could be a short stay, but he has the talent to force a tough decision for Cardinals. He walked 10 and allowed four homers in his 21-inning cup of coffee last year, one or both factors spoiling his five starts. If the fastball is setting up his plus slider, he’s a strikeout contributor right away.

Marco Gonzales | Mariners

Gonzales was a top 100 prospect all the way back in 2015. Since then he has pitched just 210 innings with injuries stalling his development. Now 26, he enters 2018 with a rotation spot and the chance to deliver on that promise.

Derek Holland | Giants

Maybe AT&T Park works a miracle!