With and arm handed down from Mount Olympus, Tyler Glasnow has been slated for stardom since childhood. While growing into a strapping young man at 6’8”, the road has been filled with excellent performances as well as staggeringly low, lows. With the trade to the Rays last season, a run of 11 starts raised the specter of hope that 2019 will be the breakout campaign for the man with an arm that is touched by the gods. Will Glasnow break the seal and move from frustration to fantasy stardom in 2019?
25 years old
Bats/Throws: Right/Right
Height/Weight: 6’8”, 225 lbs.
Position: Starting Pitcher
THE NUMBERS
|
|
Level |
IP |
W-L |
ERA |
WHIP |
K/9 |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
GB/FB |
|
2012 |
RK, A |
38.1 |
0-3 |
1.88 |
1.04 |
10.30 |
4.00 |
0.70 |
|
|
2013 |
A |
111.1 |
9-3 |
2.18 |
1.03 |
13.30 |
4.90 |
0.70 |
|
|
2014 |
A+ |
124.1 |
12-5 |
1.74 |
1.05 |
11.40 |
4.10 |
0.20 |
|
|
2015 |
A, AA, AAA |
109.1 |
7-5 |
2.39 |
1.10 |
11.20 |
3.50 |
0.20 |
|
|
2016 |
AA, AAA |
116.2 |
8-3 |
1.93 |
1.17 |
11.10 |
5.20 |
0.40 |
|
|
2017 |
AAA |
93.1 |
9-2 |
2.03 |
0.95 |
13.50 |
3.10 |
0.60 |
|
|
|
Minors |
593.1 |
45-21 |
2.02 |
1.07 |
11.90 |
4.20 |
0.40 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2016 |
MLB |
23.1 |
0-2 |
4.24 |
1.50 |
9.26 |
5.01 |
0.77 |
1.50 |
|
2017 |
MLB |
62 |
2-7 |
7.69 |
2.02 |
8.13 |
6.39 |
1.89 |
1.19 |
|
2018 |
MLB |
111.2 |
2-7 |
4.27 |
1.27 |
10.96 |
4.27 |
1.21 |
1.66 |
|
Career |
|
197 |
4-16 |
5.35 |
1.53 |
9.87 |
5.03 |
1.37 |
1.45 |
|
|
Baseball America |
Baseball Prospectus |
MLB.com |
|
2014 |
46th |
42nd |
27th |
|
2015 |
16th |
21st |
12th |
|
2016 |
14th |
11th |
10th |
|
2017 |
23rd |
14th |
8th |
THE SKILLS
Let’s talk pitch mix. At this point, Glasnow is really a two-pitch pitcher who is trying to find that third offering.
The fastball has extremely high velocity, but it is also pretty straight. His 96.6 mph fastball last season ranked fourth amongst the 140 pitchers who threw 100-innings. However, he threw the pitch 70 percent of the time which is, as you might expect, an awful lot. In fact, amongst the other nine men in the top-10 men in fastball velocity last season, not a single one threw his fastball 60 percent of the time. This has long been an issue for Glasnow. It’s not that his “stuff” isn’t elite, it’s that he doesn’t have enough of it. It’s not easy to have success throwing one pitch seventy percent of the time – Bartolo Colon, Lance Lynn and J.A. Happ all hit 70 percent on their fastball last season – and guys that aren’t able to add secondary stuff often get shifted to the bullpen or struggle a bit as starters.
The only other pitch that hit the 10 percent mark last season with Glasnow was his curve ball at 18 percent. That rate is well down from the 35 percent he posted in 2016 and the 23 percent mark he had in 2017. The curve ball is thrown hard, it registered at more than 82 mph last season and he generates a lot of swings and misses on the pitch given it’s 12-to-6 movement. Moreover, the K-rate on the pitch has climbed each season from 30 to 38 to 43 percent last season. The whiff rate on the pitch has also grew last season by three percentage points to 36.5 percent. He also greatly jacked up the spin rate on the pitch from 2,571 in 2017 to 2,809 last season. With a wOBA of .307 on the pitch, he should throw it more. Even if he does, in order for his game to explode, he likely needs to find a third pitch, which given his repertoire, looks likely to be the slider, a pitch he threw about nine percent of the time last year but one on which he had a .067 wOBA on.
Let’s talk mechanics.
Glasnow stands 6’8”, and the history of pitchers who have succeeded at the major league level that height isn’t exactly extensive. Beyond the rarity of the height, is the fact that when you’re that tall, your levers are long, and repeating your delivery is difficult (being small and compact has it advantages sometimes). To help combat the mechanical inconsistencies, Glasnow has incorporated a pause in his delivery that he believes helps him to get his hips in alignment. Here is some video of the pause. Compare that to his traditional delivery. He plans to use both actually, perhaps even messing with the hitters timing, in addition to helping out his own mechanics.
“The motivation behind [the change] was that my biggest problem is that I was always very drifty,” Glasnow said. “I would go forward, because I’m very long-limbed and my arm path is very long. So, the longer I stay back, the more success I have, and that showed to be pretty true, especially last year. Whenever I’m back over my hips longer, my spin efficiency is a lot higher,” Glasnow said. “My velocity has gone up, my spin efficiency has gone up and it’s just getting my body into a better spot to be consistent.” Reports suggest that his velocity is up about two mph this spring. That’s scary for opponents given that his average heater last season sat at 96.6 mph.
Not surprisingly, Glasnow misses tons of bats. Last season his K-rate was 10.96 per nine with and 11.7 percent swinging strike rate. That’s a number he could sustain, but the floor is a strikeout per nine.
Glasnow walks too many guys, and that has been his big bugaboo. For his career he has a 5.03 BB/9 rate in the bigs and 4.20 in the minors. You just cannot do that. He needs to start with strike one. Sounds simple, but that’s where his focus needs to be. Last season he had a 58.3 percent first pitch strike rate, just a tenth above his career average. However, that mark is subpar given the 60.6 first pitch strike rate for the league. When he got ahead in the count 1-0 last season, he held batters to a .457 OPS. That’s sick. When he fell behind 1-0 the number skyrocketed to .834.
Glasnow’s pitches are hard, and they have downward movement. It’s therefore not surprising to see his ground ball rate settle at 49.8 percent last season. If he keeps that number there, we will continue to smile. Oddly, through 197 innings, Glasnow has allowed 30 homers leading to an elevated 1.37 HR/9 rate and a 17.2 percent HR/FB ratio. One would think the rate would come down, just naturally, but the mark has been 18.1 and 18.3 percent the last two years.
The homer total is more about timing than stuff. I say that because of the following; Glasnow has allowed seven homers in 273 at-bats when he was ahead in the count. With an even count batters have gone deep 10 times in 259 at-bats. In the 220 at-bats that the batter has been ahead in the count they went deep 13 times. When a batter is ahead in the count, they are sitting fastball, so unless Glasnow gets ahead in the count, or begins to trust his secondary offerings more, Glasnow might allow a few more homers than one might expect.
PLAYING TIME
He will be on of the Rays top-3 arms this season, and it appears that he will be utilized normally, avoiding The Opener nonsense that was so prevalent with the club last season.
Here are his innings pitched marks.
2012: 38.1 innings
2013: 111.1 innings
2014: 124.1 innings
2015: 109.1 innings
2016: 140.0 innings
2017: 158.1 innings
2018: 111.2 innings
He’s thrown 145-inings one time, and last season was under 115. It would take a lot to have him qualify for the ERA title, not to mention it would be the first time he’s ever gotten there.
AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION DATA
As of this writing, here is the ADP data for Glasnow (since February 1st).
|
|
Overall |
Position Rank |
|
156.3 |
57th |
The Fantasy Guru Rankings can be found by clicking on the link.
CONCLUSION
Glasnow has long been viewed as a potentially elite performer. It’s taken him longer than anticipated to live up to those expectations, but the ground swell is that it’s finally going to happen this season. There are still concerns – the walk, the homer and the lack of depth with his offerings – but there is no doubt that the ability to turn in a dominant fantasy season is possible. I would loosely compare him to Robbie Ray. See Ray’s efforts the last two seasons to get how things might go for Glasnow this year. It could be great… it could be solid… it could be spotty. That’s why folks aren’t reaching too much on Glasnow at the moment despite the arm talent.
10-Team Mixed: An ideal fifth starter who you should back up with a “boring” type like Julio Teheran or Jon Lester just in case.
12/15-Team Mixed: Taken as your fourth starting pitcher there’s room for some return. Even if he struggles, he’s not likely to drop that much from that draft spot as long as he’s healthy enough to exceed 160-innings.
AL-Only League: You need to be careful with how you roster Glasnow here. There’s the certain potential for an explosive effort this season, but what if he struggles and the ratios are poor? So, if you roster Glasnow, try to pair him with a starter or two with a solid ratio outlook. Wouldn’t hurt to roster a potentially dominant middle reliever too just in case.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday-Friday, 8-10 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). Follow Ray’s work on Twitter (@baseballguys) and be sure to listen to his podcast work too.
