Tipping Pitches: Cutting Bait on Three Top-60 Arms

A great K-BB% ratio can only get you so far. Pineda is one of just 13 pitchers with 100+ innings since the start of last year with a 20% K-BB% ratio, but he’s only one with a 1.4 HR/9. In fact, Max Scherzer is the only other guy above 1.0 with a 1.1 mark. Meanwhile, Pineda’s .279 batting average against is the highest of that group by 48 points.

Luis Severino

It’s time to Sever-ino ties with Luis.

Drink it in folks, you know you loved that.

I was nervous about Severino coming into the season as I thought his price was being inflated based on a tiny sample of work, especially since his 2.89 ERA didn’t really hold up under even the slightest scrutiny. I wrote this in the 2016 Starting Pitcher Guide:

Obviously, he gets more than three starts before I start declaring how “right” I am, but I haven’t seen anything that has me changing my tune, either. He hasn’t been bad by any stretch. Instead, he’s looked a lot like a 22-year old who is 14 starts into his career.

Severino has a live arsenal and plenty of upside, but he had just 61 Triple-A innings before his call-ups so he’s essentially learning on the job. I will be keeping a close eye on him, but for now, I’d cut him for a veteran like Hector Santiago, who has some interesting skills changes fueling his fast start or a prospect like Berrios, who I believe has more immediate upside.

Of course after I write this he gives up six earned in three innings at Texas and now looks like a much easier cut, but I still had to include him for those remaining on the fence.

James Shields

“Well at least he had the strikeouts” is how we justified hanging onto Shields last year. His first season with the Padres yielded a career-best 25% strikeout rate, but also career-worst 9% walk rate (double his 2014 mark) and tying his career-worst home run rate of 1.5 HR/9. In short, the strikeouts weren’t worth it, but they were still better than nothing.

So far this year he has given back the strikeout gains (career-low 18% rate), but with only minimal improvements to his walk and home run rates. He has lost another tick of velocity, too. It’s actually two ticks if you compare April-to-April and at age-34, it isn’t coming back. In fact, it’s unlikely that his ace form is coming back, either. Is a high-3.00s/low-4.00s Shields all that special?

Here’s the thing, even a pitcher with a low-4.00s ERA for 30+ starts is going to have a lot of good starts, but I don’t really want to try and figure out when Shields will have his. Maybe he’s a home-only streamer. He did have a 3.29 ERA at Petco last year, but also a 1.36 WHIP. He’s got more name value than fantasy value at this point which is why I’m open to cutting him in shallow leagues in the hopes of finding a more stable arm I can use every time out.

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And now Sean Manaea was just called up. I really like him and I’d definitely be looking at him as a pickup when I cut one of these guys.