Thoughts on Three Upcoming New Starting Pitcher Faces

by
August 20, 2018

Prospects, prospects, prospects! Back on July 25th, I recommended stashing Sean Reid-Foley. It wasn’t because I’m fond of hyphenated last names (I am!), but because in a deep league, finding a starting pitcher with true strikeout potential is gold. Over the last couple of days, it has been reported that three more prospects will or at likely to, make their debuts either during this upcoming week or before the season ends. Let’s discuss them.

Michael Kopech

Finally! Kopech’s arrival has been anticipated all season, but the White Sox have resisted the pressure to call him up before he appeared ready in their eyes. Good for them. Kopech is your prototypical hard-throwing top pitching prospect with an elite fastball and major control problems. In fact, his season walk rate peaked at an absurd 15.2%, and he actually sat at that level after two different games!

Clearly, no team was going to call up their top prospect when he was suffering from such serious control issues. But after his game on July 5th, he has become a new pitcher. In his seven games since, he has brought his walk rate back down to a more respectable, but still high, 11% for the season. Amazingly, he managed to walk just four batters over that period, posting a minuscule 2.3% walk rate! And it’s not like the quality of his stuff suffered, as he still struck out 33.9% of the batters he faced! That mark was even higher than before that stretch, when he posted a 30% strikeout rate.

Given that control was the last question mark remaining, and he may have turned the corner there, he’s an obvious must-add in any league format. This is simply due to the strikeout potential alone and a 25%-30% strikeout rate could cover up a lot of control issues.

Stephen Gonsalves

Gonsalves was rated as the fifth best prospect in the Twins organization heading into the season, with a blurb that didn’t inspire a whole lot of excitement. He is expected to be recalled today to debut tonight against the White Sox.

The 24-year-old left-hander has spent a looooong time in the minors, as he debuted all the way back in 2013 as an 18-year-old. He has struggled with control issues here and there and posted his worst walk rate during his latest stint at Triple-A with a 13.4% mark. That’s no good. It’s especially ominous considering his strikeout rate was just 23.1%, backed by a SwStk% mark that fell to the lowest mark of his minor league career.

There might be some glimmer of hope though. In looking at his batted ball profile and BABIP, it appears he’s a fly ball pitcher who induces lots of pop-ups. That would explain his consistently low BABIP, which has only exceeded .270 once at a minor league stop since 2014. That’s pretty incredible, especially since minor league BABIP marks are higher than in the Majors. A suppressed BABIP could help offset the potential of lots of walks. But we still want to see a better strikeout rate, as a low 20% Triple-A mark likely equates to about a league average MLB mark.

If I’m desperate in an AL-Only league, then sure why not, take a shot. Otherwise, I’m not optimistic for this season.

Josh James

Weeks ago in AL Tout Wars, I perused the minor league leaderboards looking for prospects to preemptively scoop up in the hopes they get the call over the next month. I’ve now been holding onto James and am ecstatic to finally read this news:

James has literally come out of nowhere this year, as he wasn’t even ranked among the Astros top prospects. But he has been absolutely unbelievable in stops at both Double-A and Triple-A. Overall, he is sporting a 37% strikeout rate and 10.5% walk rate. The walk rate is obviously a tad concerning, but seriously, when you’re striking out nearly 40% of hitters as a starter, who really cares?

This is such an enormous step up for James that you wonder if it’s the same person putting on that uniform. From 2015-2017 while pitching at Single-A, High-A, and Double-A, his best strikeout rate was just 24.6%, while posting mediocre SwStk% marks. Now he’s striking out every batter in sight and his SwStk% catapulted to 19.4%(!!!) at Double-A and 14.5% at Triple-A. That we know he’s been hitting 100 mph means that he’s not just getting by with deception and/or command/pitchability. That suggests this is no fluke.

James might only end up getting a start or two, so his value in single season leagues is probably limited. But if you’re in a keeper league and can keep players you picked up during the season, pick him up immediately, as you could potentially own an excellent cheap keeper for next year.





 

Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.

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