Tipping Pitches: Changing My Tune

We are now two months into the season and I’ve definitely evolved my thinking on a number of pitchers. I try not to overreact and change my outlook start-to-start, but we’re getting a relatively worthwhile sample on the books and pitchers are always changing so if you stay married to everything you thought in March, you’re going to get left behind on guys for better and worse. Here are three guys I’ve really changed my tune on so far (and they’ll weirdly all lefties).

Steven Matz is Really Good

I hated Matz’s draft slot coming into the season. I thought he was being way overdrafted as the 30th SP off the board and it was more because of his health than his skills. It felt like a lofty draft status based on six MLB stats. Coming up through the minors, he put up great numbers, but only once topped 106 innings in a season. He was pummeled in his debut after being pushed back to April 11th, but he’s been damn near unhittable since: 1.13 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 49 Ks and 7 BBs in 48 IP. He has three scoreless starts and three where he allowed just 2 ER. A balky elbow caused another layoff in the midst of this run, but he has shown no ill affect with two brilliant starts since returning.

It’s still just nine starts and my primary concern (health) hasn’t really waned, but I’ve regularly said that I would gladly bet on a strong skillset and hope for health as opposed to roster some healthy guy with a limited ceiling. Matz fits the former for sure. He gets ahead (68% first-pitch strike) and smothers the opposition (24% K, 56% GB, 23% Hard contact) while bringing 94-95 MPH from the left side. The introduction and quick maturation of his slider has been instrumental to his success and gives him a four-pitch mix now. He will at least make my top-35 rest of season ranking and that top-30 draft slot no longer seems so crazy, especially given the production of that mid-tier through two months.

Rich Hill is Pretty Damn Good, Too!

Few people are more “Spring Stats Mean Virtually Nothing!” than I am. I used to not even include in the “Virtually”, but I’ve softened as some stats can be indicative of skills improvements worth noticing, but by and large you will be led astray by focusing too much on spring stats. And yet, I bit hard on Hill’s 12 innings of awfulness in the Cactus League. He had an 11.25 ERA and BB/9 – yep, he allowed 15 ER and BB in the 12 IP of work.

The reason I gave more weight to those spring numbers than most is because we (yes, I was initially in before waffling) were pumping Hill up on just four starts of excellence from last September and the spring performance exhibited some of the same traits limited him to a whopping 153 MLB IP from 2008 through 2014. In that span he had a 5.41 ERA, 1.69 WHIP, and 6.4 BB/9 as he battled wildness and injuries. I was already out with the spring (I ranked him 93rd among SP in my last update), but then his season debut just sealed it for me when he allowed four runs (two of ‘em earned) in 2.7 IP.

Only one walk, but two HBP and two of the three hits he allowed went for extra bases. Now that is some confirmation bias. I basically ignored the fact that he was thrust into the start ahead of schedule after Sonny Gray had to be skipped due to food poisoning. Even with that start, he has a tremendous 2.25 ERA, but since the debut he has just a 2.05 mark in 61.3 IP with 71 Ks. His walks are high-ish (23 in the 61.3 IP; 9% all told), but manageable when you consider how hard he is to hit (48 all season; .206 AVG).

He’s got a peak-Francisco Liriano thing working where the filthiness of his stuff contributes to what we’d normally call “control issues”. There are some control issues for sure, but I think we are too hard on this kind of profile when it comes to the walks. I certainly understand how dangerous it is to hand out free passes, but we have to look at it in tandem with the hits allowed.

There is some still lingering injury concern for a 36-year old with a checkered injury history and he left his last start with a mild groin strain, but we are now 15 starts into a really impressive renaissance from Hill. Using the admittedly low threshold of 80 IP since last year, Hill’s 2.03 ERA is third to only Jake Arrieta (1.72) and Clayton Kershaw (1.97). By the way, the low threshold brings Matz into play and his 2.47 slots fifth. Hill himself is also pushing for a slot in that top-35 the rest of the way.

Patrick Corbin Isn’t the Same and Also Kinda Terrible

Corbin had an impressive return season from Tommy John last year that I felt went overlooked so I was targeting him as a mid-tier arm for many of my teams. He was tremendous in 2013 during a breakout campaign and while it was only 85 IP last year, they looked a lot like that big season. Entering his age-26 season, he was some improvement against righties away from taking a big step forward. From 2012-15, Corbin had a 125-point platoon split favoring righties, though the resultant .743 OPS wasn’t that far off of the .729 league average OPS for the lefty pitcher v. righty hitter matchup.

One path to cutting that platoon split would be the evolution of his changeup. He has been using it a lot more at 12% (most since 2012), but it’s getting crushed. And I wrote all of this before he was trounced for another seven earned in 3.3 IP against the Astros on Tuesday afternoon. His 41% hard contact rate is the league’s highest mark. I don’t know if this is Tommy John related since he is still in the midst of his first full season back innings-wise, but timing-wise it feels like he should be far enough removed to be feeling the effects like this.

Either way, he’s a cut across all formats right now. There just isn’t anything to justify holding on, even in NL-only leagues. If his strikeout and swinging strike rates hadn’t also tumbled, maybe we’d have something to hold onto for hope of a turnaround, but there just aren’t enough (or any?) encouraging signs right now. He was slotted 33rd in my final SP ranks before the season started. He’ll  be outside the top-60 in my updated rest of season ranks.