Select Late-Season Arms (Rutledge, Severino, Spiers, Veneziano, & Vines)
Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.
The 24-year-old righty made four end-of-the-season starts (two vs ATL) for the Nationals. He struggled with a 6.75 ERA (6.15 xFIP), 1.50 WHIP, and 5.4 K/9. He performed better in 23 minor league starts (3.71 ERA, 1.269 WHIP, 8.0 K/9, and 4.2 BB/9).
His fastball averages 95.6 mph and he throws it 60% of the time. It generated just a 9% GB% and an 8% SwStr%. His slider does have a 16% SwStr% and a low 20% GB%. The low groundball rates led to a 1.8 HR/9. Finally, he mixes in a worthless changeup (5% SwStr%). Without a change, he doesn’t have a way to get out lefties. On the season, he posted a 16% K%-BB% versus righties and a -2% K%-BB% versus lefties.
I could see instances when his average fastball and slider work together, he doesn’t face many lefties, and he has a nice start. Right now, he’s giving up a ton of home flyballs/home runs and just getting torn apart by lefties.
After being a dominant pitcher for his career (3.39 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, and 10.0 K/9 coming into 2023), he struggled with an 8.0 K/9, 1.65 WHIP, and 6.65 ERA (4.83 xFIP) last season. He started the season with a lat injury and didn’t make his first major league start until May 21st. He made 18 starts and then ended the season on the IL with a side injury.
His K%-BB% has been on a nose dive starting at 32% in 2021 dropping to 20% in 2022 to 11% last season. His fastball didn’t hold him with the velocity steady at 97 mph and a 9% SwStr%. His issue were that his slider (9% SwStr%) and change (12% SwStr%) didn’t even miss bats at a league-average clip. He did introduce a cutter after the All-Star break (20% usage) that kept more balls on the ground (73% GB%, 7% SwStr%).
He saw some improvement in the second half with his K%-BB% increasing from 9% to 13% and his groundball rate from 39% to 46%. The stats helped his xFIP drop from 5.24 to 4.45. There was improvement but Severino was still putting out below-average results.
One issue was that he filled up the center of the strike zone as seen here:
And here is his pattern from 2022 when he moved the ball around more:
By filling up the zone, his BABIP jumped from .237 to .326, and his HR/9 from 1.2 to 2.3.
I’m not sure why he struggled so much besides the injury. With an NFBC ADP of 316, I’m sort of interested to see if the 29-year-old can get it together on the Mets. I’d prefer adding him in a waiver wire league to see if he can perform like he did a couple of seasons ago.
The 26-year-old righty made a couple of starts along with two relief appearances in the majors last season. The Red lasted between three and four innings in each appearance with his final stat line being 6.92 ERA (5.82 xFIP), 1.92 WHIP (4.9 BB/9), and 8.3 K/9. He threw only 2 IP in AAA but did have 83 IP in AA (3.69 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, and 11.5 K/9).
While his fastball only comes in at 93 mph, it had a 15% SwStr% in the majors. None of his other pitches had a swinging-strike rate over 10%. His slider and cutter do have some positive comps.
Slider (121 Stuff+, 53 BotStuff)
Cutter (106 Stuff+, 51 BatStuff)
Also, he struggled with lefties with a 0.0% K%-BB% against them while having a 16% K%-BB% against righties.
Too much needs to go right for Spiers to be a decent fantasy option. He’s not even average in any one area. Ignore him until he shows some progress.
The 26-year-old lefty threw two major league innings where he walked two batters and struck out one. Across two minor league levels last season, he threw 132 IP for the Royals with a 3.55 ERA, 8.7 K/9, and 1.27 WHIP. I almost skipped over him but he has an intriguing arsenal.
While his fastball averaged 94.7 mph as a major league reliever, it sat at 93 mph as a AAA starter with an 8% SwStr%. To pair with the fastball, he had a changeup (16% SwStr%) and slider (15% SwStr%). Here are the comps on his three pitches.
For a lefty, he has a way to get out both righties (changeup) and lefties (slider) while having an acceptable fastball.
He struggled with walks (4.3 BB/9 in AAA, 37% Ball% or equivalent of 3.2 BB/9) last season but in AA and AAA the league was experimenting with different balls and the automatic strike zones. There is no way to know how they affected him.
The pieces are there for a decent pitcher if he gets a chance.
The 25-year-old righty started the season on the IL with a shoulder issue. He climbed through three of Atlanta’s minor league levels and posted a combined 2.37 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and 8.9 K/9. While the strikeouts didn’t continue to the majors (6.2 K/9) the results were acceptable with a 3.98 ERA (5.58 xFIP) and 1.08 WHIP (.203 BABIP).
He doesn’t throw hard with a 90-mph fastball that doesn’t miss bats (5% SwStr% in majors, 7% in AAA). He throws a cutter (13% in both the majors and AAA) the same amount as his fastball (33% usage). His best pitch is an above-average changeup with an 18% SwStr% in the majors and 27% in AAA.
His changeup eats up lefties who have a 21% K%-BB% against him. He struggled against righties with a -5% K%-BB% (17% BB%). He has a slider to possibly get same-handed batters out, but he throws it less than 10% of the time.
While his changeup dominates lefties, he doesn’t have any swing-and-miss in his profile especially since he’s building off a 90-mph fastball. He needs to take a step forward to be draftable.
Previous Select Late-Season Arms articles.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Severino definitely worth a flier, but man, 2018 was so long ago. He had two really good years but the injury and the pandemic really took him out of things.