The Leap Year – AL Edition

This piece isn’t about that extra day in February that comes around once every four years. I’m a year late for that. No, this is a 2500-word breakdown of the 2010 rom-com starring Amy Adams, who has actually appeared in every single movie since 2005. I should’ve saved this piece for January 8th, which marks the 7-year anniversary since the film’s release, but we don’t post on Sundays. Anyway, Adams plays Anna who is… OK, I’ve taken this joke (and I use that term loosely) entirely too far, but I still kinda want to write 2500 words on this sweet, sweet movie film.

A leap year in sports isn’t an official thing, but “making the leap” is when a player puts it all together and pans out on previously established promise. I’m not even sure you have to have the promise or hype ahead of your leap, but the pitchers I’m discussing in this piece definitely do. “Leapers” over the last two seasons include guys like Aaron Sanchez, Danny Duffy, Carlos Carrasco, Gerrit Cole, and Carlos Martinez. There is no set formula or requirements, so this is definitely more of a feel thing.

Sanchez had all of 125.3 MLB innings, mostly in the bullpen before his 2016 breakout. Cole had two solid seasons with about 2/3rds of a full workload before his 208-inning masterpiece in 2015. Carrasco discovered himself in the bullpen as a 27-year old after multiple false starts in five disjointed MLB seasons (one of which was lost to TJ recovery).

To give some idea of what would constitute a leap year, I’d say first and foremost that you have to throw a full season (162+ IP) and then the stats can vary, but probably no worse than a mid-3.00s ERA, low-1.20s WHIP, and a good strikeout rate. Here are four American Leaguers who look ready for their leap in 2017 (I’ll have 4 NLers tomorrow*):

*Author Note – I mean Friday… we recorded the pod Thursday and I didn’t get to finish the last part of the NL piece, so look for it early Friday. 

Carlos Rodon | White Sox

Rodon keeps teasing with his second halves. Add up both and he has a 3.58 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and 24% K rate in 146 IP. He took steps to combat his egregious walk rate dropping it from 12% to 8%. Early on, it seemed to be more control than command as his hit and home run rates surged in the first half (10.7 H/9, 1.5 HR/9), but the command came around in the second half as he continued to hit the zone while dropping the hits and homers to 8.3 and 1.0, respectively.

He’s got to get way better with the fastball to really take the leap. The velocity is there (93.4 MPH was 16th-best), but his .938 OPS was third-worst among the 51 pitchers who threw at least 1500 fastballs. Only Michael Pineda (1.036) and Edinson Volquez (.947) were worse. The high heat could be his path to success. He had a .771 OPS and 24% K rate on 112 PA in the upper third of the zone, compared to a .990 and 10% in the middle and lower thirds with fastballs.

Kevin Gausman | Orioles

Gausman listed in a piece where Paul recommends pitchers? Weird*. He’s so close, though. Home runs have been an issue throughout his career (1.2 HR/9 in 453 IP) and unsurprisingly he had his best ERA (3.57) in 2014 when he had a career-best 0.6 HR/9, but he’s been at 1.4-1.5 in each of his other three seasons. It isn’t one pitch in particular, but rather a scenario. Or at least it was this past season.

*not weird

He allowed seven of his 28 homers on 1-0 counts. There were 46 pitchers with at least 40 PA ending on 1-0 counts and his 14% HR rate was easily the highest of the group (Chris Archer was second at 10%). Like Rodon, he might benefit from elevating the fastball more. More than half of his 1-0 pitches (58%) were thrown in the lower half of the zone and he allowed a 1.406 OPS with six of the homers on those pitches.

Of course, he wouldn’t necessarily have to alter his 1-0 approach if he just got himself into fewer 1-0 counts in the first place. His 57% first-pitch strike rate was 63rd among 73 qualified starters. Interestingly, Rodon was 73rd, another guy on this AL list was 67th, and one of the NLers I’ll cover tomorrow was 72nd. It’s a workable problem, though, so I like guys who have many other things working their way and this fixable issue holding them back.

Elite velocity, a swing-and-miss secondary pitch, three distinct velo levels, and a plus BB rate give Gausman a great foundation , but he won’t fully reach the frontline upside if he can’t keep the ball in the park with any consistency (22nd-worst HR rate since ’13).

James Paxton | Mariners

Perhaps his 2016 could be classified as a “jump year” as some mechanical changes yielded a huge spike in velocity and command and he set a career-high in innings (albeit at just 121) with career-bests in strikeout and walk rates (23% and 5%, respectively). Health has eluded him throughout his career and a DL stint for a bruised left elbow kept the dubious streak alive, but a combined 171.7 IP between minors and majors puts him in line to chase down 200 if he can in fact finally stay healthy.

I’ll let Eno explain the aforementioned mechanical changes here and I’ll point out that they yielded the third-fastest fastball in the game (min. 120 IP) while also improving his command and control with a career-high 62% first-pitch strike rate, career-low 5% walk rate, and a strong 0.7 HR/9, down from 2015’s 1.1 mark. The changes also improved his cutter (or slider… or slutter… the classification doesn’t really matter) and fostered his highest usage by a landslide.

He had never used the pitch more than 6% before surging to 16% in 2016. Not only was he using it more, but the results were brilliant. He allowed just a .451 OPS with a 35% K rate and 1% BB rate in 92 PA. I’d love to see his changeup improve a bit to round out his four-pitch arsenal, but I think even with just the fastball, cutter/slider, and curve, he can be successful. He actually has a reverse platoon split for his career, so the changeup isn’t a must.

Paxton has been in the baseball consciousness since 2010 when the Blue Jays drafted him in the first round (he passed on signing and went to the University of Kentucky instead) so I’m sure some of you have just written him off at this point as someone who won’t ever pan out. But I think the 28-year old will build on his mini-breakout and show he was a three-time top-100 prospect from 2012-14.

Yordano Ventura | Royals

This is my Hail Mary pick for sure. The other three are all building on something, while Ventura continues to regress from a solid 2014 rookie campaign. He shows that velocity alone doesn’t make a fastball good. He is routinely in the top five leaguewide for velocity with his 96+ MPH heater, but the results have grown increasingly worse since 2014.

Remember the horrible OPS totals off the fastball highlighted in Rodon’s section? Ventura was fourth-worst behind that group at .935 and at least the others all missed some bats with theirs. His 5% strikeout rate is easily the worst among those 51 pitchers with at least 1500 fastballs thrown last year. Meanwhile, his 12% BB rate was seventh-highest. Maybe it’s time to trade some velocity for even a shred of command with the pitch.

On the other hand, the curveball is fantastic and the changeup solid (though it dipped a bit in ’16 as he lost command of it for stretches). His .449 OPS off the curve is 10th-best (min. 400 curves thrown) and of those in the top 10, his 769 are the most thrown. So it’s great and he’s not afraid to lean on it. It’s his strikeout pitch and a groundball weapon. The change was essentially average except when it came to walks (11%, way worse than average) and groundballs (66%, way better than average).

It’s all about the fastball, though. He can live with an 11% walk rate on the changeup if he’s not giving away so many free passes with the heater. The curveball’s excellence only keeps him afloat because the fastball is so bad. You’ve probably heard it a million times, but Ventura is the perfect embodiment of it: MLB hitters can hit elite velocity if there’s no life to it and they know it’s coming. Ventura had a lifeless 96 MPH heater in 2016.

If he can get back to the 10% swinging strike rate with the pitch we saw in 2014, the makings of a breakthrough are here. He’s averaged 177 IP the last three seasons and has consistently been a better second half pitcher so I don’t think this is a durability thing. He just needs to be better. Easier said than done, obviously, but we’ve also seen it before so I’m reluctant to completely write him off. He’s certainly priced to buy, too, going off in the late-teens, early-20s area of drafts I’ve done this winter.