What’s Up with Lance McCullers?

Lance McCullers was highly sought after this draft season. He was the 40th SP on average in NFBC drafts, but went as high as the early-20s among pitchers, making him a top 100 pick in those cases. A couple rough starts in April left him with a 4.34 ERA, but then he reeled off a 1.51 ERA for eight starts before a sore back put him on the DL. It was his third DL stint since the start of 2016 and a continuation of injury issues that have haunted him throughout his pro career (high of 104.7 IP in the minors). It’s been rough since his return. He has a 7.13 ERA in five starts and hasn’t gone six innings in any of them.

So what’s going on?

Looking at his repertoire and velocity doesn’t show any red flags that would explain such a fall off:

Velocity:

• First 13 starts: 94.3 fastball, 85.6 curveball, 88.8 changeup
• Last 5 starts: 93.9 fastball, 85.7 curveball, 88.7 changeup

Usage:

• First 13: 41% fastball, 46% curveball, 13% changeup
• Last 5: 38% fastball, 48% curveball, 14% changeup

Those are imperceptible changes that you could easily find in any five-start run out of an 18-start sample, so we’re not getting any answers here.

The next place I looked was his plate discipline numbers. I’ll spare you the full comparison, but here we actually see some differences that start to show something. First is that his Zone% has dropped from 45% to 40% taking his already-below average first pitch strike rate down from 57% to 54%. Then, in perhaps the most damning change, we see that his Z-Contact% (contact on pitches in the zone) has jumped from 89% to 94%.

To put that into perspective, Bartolo Colon “leads” the league in Z-Contact at 93%. He’s followed by the likes of Andrew Cashner, Sam Gaviglio, Matt Cain, Ivan Nova, and Eddie Butler. Of the top 20, all of whom are at 90% or higher, only Nova, Alex Cobb, and Mike Leake are having anything close to good seasons. Inducing weak contact is their game, though, as none of that trio features overpowering stuff. The surge of contact in the zone off McCullers has pushed his season total to 90%, slotting him 24th on a list where he sticks out like a sore thumb.

Of course, the fastball was where I looked next because everything starts and ends with fastball success. Unsurprisingly, it’s been much worse over these last five.

• First 13: .179/.281/.333, 10% K in 97 PA
• Last 5: .538/.613/.615, 3% K in 31 PA

And the Z-Contact jump has played a role with the fastball yielding a 1.300 OPS in 20 PA in the zone over these last five (.594 in 76 PA in the first 13). It’s mostly singles with a .100 ISO and .600 BABIP and while some of it may be a rash of bad luck, he also lacks command of the pitch right now so he’s contributing to the issues, too.

He’s throwing the fastball down in the zone 49% of the time over these last five, up from 39% in the first 13, and that’s part of where the flurry of singles is coming from. He’s allowed a .692 AVG and .077 ISO in 16 PA on fastballs in the lower third over these last five.

He’s getting singled to death. In his July 6th start at Toronto, he allowed one unearned run on four hits in four innings before a five-hit fifth that included four singles and a double, leading to five runs (one of which was allowed by Michael Feliz and charged to McCullers). He hosted Seattle out of the All-Star break in his next start and allowed an unearned run on a hit through three innings before the floodgates opened up. He allowed five hits and three walks in his final two innings, leading to four runs. Four of his six hits in that outing were singles.

He opened his last start at Baltimore with a single and a walk only to be bailed out by a double play, but he wasn’t so lucky the rest of the way. The second opened single, HBP, walk, and HBP (2 HBP and a walk speak to the command issues as well) before another double play followed by the single. That double play stopped the bleeding a bit, but the damage was done. Four more singles and two doubles led to another three runs, yielding his worst start of the season (4.7 IP/6 ER, 23 Game Score – season low).

So where do we go from here?

Declaring this BABIP bad luck and calling it a day would be foolish because he is undoubtedly contributing to this with poor fastball command. I’m wondering if the back (or something else) is still ailing him causing him to struggle with pitch command. On the positive end, I’d say there is some hope here. If he is still hurting, then it may be as simple as another 10-day DL stint to get right, and if he feeling fine then he may be a mechanical tweak or two from getting his fastball command back to the pitch that held the opposition to a .179/.281/.333 line in his first 13 starts.

He knows he’s off right now per this from a piece at the Houston Chronicle:

“I don’t think I’m getting down the hill very well right now,” he said. “I find myself falling off toward the first-base dugout a lot. It’s not like a finish toward the first-base dugout. It’s like I’m literally falling over there. I need to get in my legs a little bit more. I need to drive my hip to home plate. It’s easier said than done just from watching the film real quick. I have a couple extra days to get that right.”

He’s getting two extra days in between starts to help him get sorted out. I spoke to Gill Alexander of VSIN (starts around 43:00 minutes) on Monday about McCullers and tabbed him as someone to fade in the second half because I was concerned about health and his holding up over the full season. If this is just a mechanical issue and not still health-related, then I’m encouraged by the findings here as they look very fixable, but I won’t fully rule out health contributing to him falling off the mound and struggling with mechanics. I’ll be keyed in on this next start Sunday at Detroit to see where he’s at with his fastball command. Hold McCullers shares for now because you’d be selling low and could immediately regret it.

Addendum:

Commenter brought up exit velocities of the singles which is a great point. If a bunch were softly hit, you’d be inclined to say there’s been some bad luck for McCullers, but they’ve been rather well-struck: Avg was 97.8 mph, three under 90 (89, 85.6, 80.2), and seven over 100 (peaking at 108 twice). Six were classified as sharp while one was labeled soft. Baseball Savant Details: https://goo.gl/RMzBHt.