Two Good Starts, Two Bad Starts: Luke Weaver and Chase Anderson

After trending the wrong way for more than a month, Luke Weaver pulls into the All-Star break with two of his strongest outings of the year. Just when it seemed safe to start Chase Anderson again, he finished his first half with a sputter.

Both pitchers were widely drafted, even in shallower leagues. Neither is being started by many owners outside of deeper leagues. What’s an owner to make of these confusing trends?

Two Good Starts: Luke Weaver

What’s Different: Weaver entered July with a 5.16 ERA and an extended string of bad starts. Between May 28 and June 30, he made seven starts that culminated in a 6.49 ERA, and not a single one of them lasted as long as six innings. During that difficult stretch, Weaver did not locate too often in the strike zone (42.9 percent Zone%), and he did not get many chases (26.2 percent O-Swing%). That combination bloated his walk rate, as he issued 16 free passes over 34.2 innings.

Yet there was something of an uptick in the last two starts of that slump that got buried in the overall trend. Against the Brewers and Braves, Weaver posted O-Swing rates of 32.0 and 38.9 percent, respectively. Then, in his two July starts, he mostly stuck with the trend, compiling rates of 28.3 and 38.8 percent against the Giants and White Sox. He also showed better control, throwing at least 46 percent of his pitches in the strike zone in both outings.

If we look at this as a four-start trend, instead of a two-start trend, Weaver actually had decent results against the Brewers, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks over 5.2 innings. Better yet, he picked up nine strikeouts. The Braves, however, blasted him for eight runs in 4.2 innings. Of the 10 hits he allowed, six had an exit velocity of at least 97.9 mph, per Baseball Savant.

Recommendation: Weaver has been merely average as an inducer of swinging strikes and called strikes, and the former tendency has not been helped by a career 27.3 O-Swing%. Thanks to a healthy foul ball rate over his career (19.5 percent, per Baseball-Reference), he has been able to collect strikeouts, but getting batters to chase more often will aid his K-rate while helping Weaver to cut back on walks.

He is not especially prone to allowing hard contact, so outings like the one against the Braves should not be commonplace. As long as Weaver continues to get more chases, the results should be helpful to fantasy owners more often than not. He has not had a discernible change in movement or velocity, so some skepticism is warranted. However, owners who are benching Weaver in 15-team mixed leagues should watch his upcoming start this weekend against the Cubs to see if he can build on his recent success. (He was recently sent to Triple-A Memphis but is expected to rejoin the Cardinals’ rotation after the break.) If he does, Weaver may be worth using in the first full week after the break.

Two Bad Starts: Chase Anderson

What’s Different: Anderson’s recent history provides a great illustration as to why we should be reluctant to make start/sit decisions on the basis of a small number of starts. His June 12 start against the Cubs appeared to usher in a resurgence. He tossed seven scoreless innings in that outing and followed up with a six-run effort against the Phillies that featured four innings of one-hit ball sandwiched by two sketchier innings. Anderson’s next three starts produced a 1.56 ERA, and suddenly he looked like a viable fantasy starter again.

Yet the five-start run was something of a mirage. Both of the first two starts featured a lot of contact and poor control. Despite continued control issues, the following three starts were legitimately good, as Anderson produced a swinging strike rate of at least 11.5 percent in each appearance. Reassuringly, none of his three opponents — the Cardinals, Reds and Twins — are prone to striking out. It may have helped that Anderson threw his cutter for no more than 5.0 percent of his pitches in each start, as he has averaged just a 6.6 percent swinging strike rate with it this season.

While Anderson’s last two starts were not bad in terms of run prevention, the 1.80 WHIP and 6.7 swinging strike rate they produced are concerning. Maybe it’s not just a coincidence that Anderson went back to employing his cutter more often, using it at a 13.9 percent rate. Whatever the reason is for Anderson’s increased contact-friendliness, it makes it difficult to trust him going forward. His longest stretch of sustained success this season was not as lengthy as it appeared to be, and now it is over.

Recommendation: We have waited long enough for Anderson to show glimmers of his 2017 form, but he has yet to show that he can miss bats or avoid hard contact the way he did a year ago. He is droppable in mixed leagues with 12 teams or fewer and should be benched, if possible, in 14- and 15-teamers for now.