The Projections Are Wrong! 6 Starting Pitcher Targets + Bonus Hitter Sleeper – A Review

In late March, just a couple of days before opening day, I shared the names of six starting pitchers and a hitter who I thought the projections would prove wrong. I incorporated various new information we learned over the offseason and during spring training that the forecasting models are unaware of to identify these names. I then commanded you, okay, suggested, that you targets these players, or go the extra buck in auction leagues. Let’s find out how my calls went and these players performed.

After breaking into the starting pitching elite in 2019, Bieber’s skills faded in 2023, as his strikeout rate plummeted to just 20.1% and his fastball velocity sat at a career low. It triggered a jump in ERA to his highest mark since his 2018 debut, making him a question mark heading into 2024.

We then learned in early February that he was attending Driveline Baseball, a company that offers data-driven performance training and has been known to power improved results. So I immediately got excited, especially as news spread that his fastball velocity was up, which is what I felt might be the key to a strikeout rate rebound.

Unfortunately, after two absolutely brilliant starts, he succumbed to the Podhorzer curse, ultimately requiring TJ surgery on his right elbow, knocking him out for the rest of the season. I feel like he would proven the projections wrong, but you never know with just two starts in the books.

Well hot damn! A pitcher whose performance absolutely and without debate, crushed his forecasts. Miller debuted in 2023 after skipping Triple-A altogether, but was a bit of a disappointment, especially in the strikeout rate front, particularly considering his 70 grade fastball and 95.1 MPH average velocity.

Personally, I wasn’t intrigued here until I learned about the new splitter he added, and the fact that his absurd spring training SwStk% suggested that splitter was a boon. Sure enough, he ended up throwing the pitch 17.1% of the time and it generated a 15.1% SwStk%, the best of any of his pitches. With just a .173 wOBA against, the lowest mark by far of any of his pitches, it was clear that the pitch was a true weapon.

Oddly, though, his overall SwStk% actually declined slightly on the season, though he made up for it with an increased called strike rate. Ultimately, that splitter paired with a strong mid-90s fastball still didn’t result in a huge strikeout rate spike I thought he was capable of, but a lot of that had to do with how much contact was made on his sinker that he threw second most frequently among his pitches.

While Miller’s surface results scream breakout, I think there was a lot of good fortune here thanks to a .237 BABIP, which ranked third lowest among qualified pitchers. As a fly ball pitcher with a low LD%, he definitely deserved a better than average mark, but no one is good enough to deserve a mark that low. With both SIERA and xERA marks well above his actual ERA, I think he might end up a bit overvalued next year, though I still feel like that fastball always means there’s some additional strikeout rate upside here.

Welp, that didn’t exactly go as hoped. Sears’s fastball velocity was up more than a mile per hour in his first spring training start and he generated a whopping 15.7% SwStk% in it. The bull view here was that the increased velocity would be here to stay, and that velocity would result in a strikeout rate spike, up from his meh 21.9% mark in 2023.

That didn’t happen. None of it. In fact, his fastball velocity actually fell this year from 93.1 MPH in 2023 to just 91.9 MPH this season. That’s not good! His strikeout rate ending up coming for the ride downhill, falling to just 18.1%.

There’s nothing else to see here. The lesson here is not to get excited about a one game velocity jump in spring training. And even if there’s a jump through a number of games, it doesn’t mean the pitcher will maintain that increase throughout the regular season.

Another win! Houck is a former top prospect who posted a 5.01 ERA in 2023 during his first time only serving as a starting pitcher. I was already intrigued by the strong SwStk% that suggested a higher strikeout rate, and loved his GB% as well. So the seeds were there for a potential breakout. But I definitely didn’t expect this.

What got me on him this season was an observation in late February by manager Alex Cora that Houck has added the most velocity of any pitcher on the team. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any Statcast readings from his starts, so I couldn’t confirm whether this was true or not. That said, a number of other observations and data points pointed to real change that got me even more excited.

The good news here is that the breakout results hoped for did indeed occur. His ERA improved by almost two full runs and he also improved his walk rate, while continuing to generate tons of grounders. The bad news is the way he got there wasn’t at all the way I expected.

That increased velocity failed to materialize. His most used fastball, the sinker, averaged just 0.1 MPH higher than 2023. His strikeout rate actually declined to just 20.7%, as his SwStk% plummeted to single digits for the first time in his MLB career. Interestingly, he somewhat offset the drop in whiffs by upping his called strike rate to a career best.

He dramatically overperformed both his SIERA and xERA and posted a significantly higher second half ERA, which might make him less costly next year than if he enjoyed even halfs and still ended up with the same line. Without the strikeouts, I highly doubt I’ll end up rostering him again next season at the price he will likely command.

Gosh, Mize is baffling. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it was all about the velocity surge during spring training. This time, we had the Statcast data to prove it. After he made the Tigers rotation, he became one of my favorite sleeper picks. Oops.

His velocity did spike this year, a whopping 2.1 MPH compared to 2022 and 1.7 MPH compared to his previous peak in 2021. But it didn’t matter. He failed once again to generate a double digit SwStk% and his strikeout rate finished at a sad 17.3%. That’s right, he averaged 95.5 MPH with his fastball, featured a splitter that generated a fantastic 17.3% SwStk%, and yet still posted that lowly strikeout rate. I just don’t get it.

With that kind of fastball velocity to go along with an excellent splitter, he’s got most of the seeds already for a skills-based breakout. He’s definitely one to watch in spring training, as he’ll come cheap as dirt, and if his fastball velocity holds, there still remains the possibility of significant strikeout rate upside.

Yessssss. I grabbed Flaherty to fill my last pitcher slot in AL Tout Wars and then rostered him in my home league as well, so I definitely put my money where my mouth was. He blew the projections out of the water, as he rebounded to what he was before his strikeout rate plummeted in 2022.

Once again, it was as easy as following his spring training velocity, which was up at 94 MPH like where he sat in 2019 and 2020. But while it was easy to see increased velocity and bet on a rebound, the increased velocity didn’t actually stick. He ended the season just 0.2 MPH higher than last year and the same as 2022, though he lost a bit of velocity over the second half of the season.

So it wasn’t the velocity that drove the rebound. Part of it was getting both his slider and knuckle curve on track during the same season. Most years, it was one or the other that posted an elite SwStk%, but this time both pitches were over 16%. He also posted the lowest walk rate of his career, which was a big improvement after posting a mark in double digits last year.

Sometimes you just gotta remember that pitcher performance is volatile and you shouldn’t just give up on a guy coming off a bad season or two. One mechanical adjustment, better health, a new pitch, etc might be all it takes to return to former glory.

Coming off his weakest offensive performance over a full season in 2023, France was another Driveline Baseball attendee. Word was that he increased his bat speed, and you would think that increase would also lead to greater power output.

Sadly, it didn’t happen. Well, it did, just compared to 2023, but that wasn’t exactly a high bar. His HR/FB rate finished at the second lowest of his career and the second straight season it was in single digits, while his ISO also finished second lowest and well below the league average. His HardHit% was essentially unchanged, his maxEV was in line, and while his Barrel% increased marginally, it wasn’t a significant increase to make a difference.

He even struck out more at his highest mark in a full season and the highest SwStk%, even including his partial 2019 and 2020 seasons. The increased strikeout rate paired poorly with the worst BABIP of his career, which resulted in a weak batting average.

So nothing went right here and you have to wonder what happened after he supposedly gained all that bat speed. He’s now in a much better home park for power, but at age 30, he probably is what he is at this point.

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So overall, out of seven names, one missed the majority of the season due to injury, three enjoyed major breakouts, and three disappointed again. While that 50% win rate seems like just a dart throw, those breakouts were serious profit makers. In fact, I owned all three in my home league (that I won) and two of those three in AL Tout Wars. They were big reasons for my successful season.