Revisiting Collin McHugh

Collin McWho? That was the question I asked in early May when Collin McHugh had made just three starts. But at the time, he had allowed just six runs over those starts, while posting a sparkling 23/4 K/BB ratio in 19.1 innings. It was a small sample size to be sure, but it’s hard to fluke your way into a 30.7% strikeout rate. So we all took notice and wondered where this performance came from.

We’ve now gotten out of tiny sample size territory and McHugh’s ERA still stands below 3.00, at a shocking 2.79. Who would have ever imagined that McHugh would rank 14th in ERA in the middle of September among all Major League starters who have thrown at least 140 innings? The Mets and the Rockies clearly didn’t. The Mets traded him to the Rockies last summer and then he was DFA’d over the offseason by the Rockies, at which point the Astros claimed him.

Since his first three starts that left us all scratching our heads, McHugh has posted a 2.79 ERA and 3.21 xFIP, driven by a 24.4% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. Obviously, the strikeout rate he initially enjoyed wasn’t sustainable. But he’s still managed to continue punching out batters at a rate higher than we would have predicted.

McHugh’s fastball has averaged just 91.5 mph. That’s below average velocity for a right-hander and not a level you would expect to see from a high strikeout guy. But, it’s a full mile per hour higher than he sat last year, so this isn’t necessarily the same pitcher he was historically and he did post some respectable strikeout rates in the minors with that lower velocity. But even with mediocre velocity at best, his fastball has generated a SwStk% above the league average, albeir just by a small margin. Knowing that his fastball isn’t that great, he throws it quite infrequently. In fact, his fastball percentage of 41.3% is the seventh lowest in baseball, a ranking surrounded by guys with fastballs in the low 90s and upper 80s.

Because he throws his fastball so infrequently, he has resorted to throwing his two breaking balls often. His slider is his secondary pitch of choice this year, but it actually hasn’t been that great, generating swinging strikes well below the league average. Though, it has induced a ridiculous rate of pop-ups (35.7%!). His curve ball is clearly his best pitch and I’m not sure why he doesn’t flip-flop his usage of it with the slider. It has generated a SwStk% well above the average and induces a ton of grounders. When you throw a pitch that a batter either swings and misses at or hits a grounder, that’s elite. Of course, we can’t be sure if his curve would remain as effective if he threw it more often, but it does suggest that there may actually be some additional upside here.

While it’s still hard to wrap your head around what McHugh has done this year, he doesn’t appear to be any sort of fluke. I think both his Steamer and ZiPS RoS projections are quite unkind (4.00 and 4.64, respectively), and those are likely going to be close to the systems’ 2015 preseason projections. Personally, I would guess that my projection will be in the 3.50-3.75 ERA range, which is clearly assuming some regression, but still quite valuable for fantasy owners, especially when it comes along with a nice strikeout rate.