It’s time to look at some arms. Buehler still doesn’t look quite right. Foltynewicz is closing in on a return to the bigs. Glasnow has been stupendous. Lynn has turned in a couple of solid outings for the Rangers. Mahle has done a good job in his two fill-in outings for the Reds. Montas has been successful for the A’s, but there are some concerns. What is wrong with Paxton and Pivetta? Are they both in trouble? Robbie Ray… so many pitches. Trevor Richards is trying to prove the skeptics wrong. Dereck Rodriguez might be a pretty decent streaming option. Woodruff has nice stuff, but his secondary pitches have let him down.
Walker Buehler hit a homer Thursday. He also allowed five runs over four innings to push his ERA to 8.25 in three starts. He’s also seen his K-rate fall to 6.75 and his walk rate rise to 3.75 per nine. Simply, he’s hasn’t looked quite right. The velocity is there, so his arm would appear to be fine, but after the odd manner that his spring unfolded, his work through three outings is far from ideal. Still thinking he will be fine, but the confidence level in that statement drops a bit with each subsequent blah outing (that’s two eggs in three outings).
Mike Foltynewicz will make one more start in the minors before being activated by the Braves. The club with goo with Kyle Wright, Sean Newcomb and Julio Teheran Friday through Sunday. For my thoughts on Folty make sure to give his Player Profile a read.
Tyler Glasnow’s stuff is flat out sick (see this and that). From his Player Profile. “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” It’s been a crazy dominant start (1 ER, 3 BB and 21 Ks in 17 IP), but it’s a long season and there’s a long way to go before we anoint him. Tremendous start though.
Lance Lynn was bombed in his first outing against the Cubs allowing seven runs. Still, his last two outing have been pretty sharps as he’s held the Angels and D’backs to a total of three runs over 13 innings. More impressive might be the fact that he’s punched out 19 in 18.2 innings, and even more impressive is the fact that he’s walked three batters in three outings. He’s going to be hit or miss this season, and pitching him at home could be outright dangerous at times, but he still owns the stuff to get roughly a strikeout an inning, and when he’s throwing strikes, he can still be a formidable opponent.
Mmmmm… coffee.
Tyler Mahle has made two starts for the Reds and has allowed one run as he holds down the spot of the injured Alex Wood (he’s out with a back issue and is hoping to be back in early May from the sound od things). Mahle is currently a streaming option. Though he has a K per inning, he doesn’t have the stuff to sustain that level including a mere 9.5 swinging strike rate. He’s also somehow permitted a massive 46 percent hard hit rate yet allowed a mere .240 BABIP. Playing with some fire here, so if you are using Mahle, get some fire-retardant gloves handy.
Frankie Montas, the 26 year old righty of the Athletics, has made three starts allowing a total of six runs over 17 innings keeping the A’s in all three contests. He’s also allowed at least one homer in each outing, four in total, and has benefited tremendously from an absurd 97 percent left on base rate. He too has a lowish swinging strike rate, well below the league average at 9.5 percent this season and just barely nine percent the last two years. There’s also the fact that lefties have destroyed him to this point of his big-league career with a Trout-ian slash line of .306/.394/.583. #Caution
A little house cleaning… Daniel Norris will have his start skipped by the Tigers after their Friday game against the Twins was postponed (to be made up as a doubleheader May 11th). Tyson Ross will start Saturday and Jordan Zimmerman Sunday.
Your eye hurt? Maybe you have bees in it?
James Paxton struggled mightily in his last outing. He basically grooved two fastballs to Jose Altuve who said thank you blasting each pitch into the seats. He simply couldn’t put anyone away in the outing allowing eight hits, three walks and five runs his last four innings in the effort. Through three starts, including two against the hapless Orioles, Paxton has been a disaster when you look at the results: 6.00 ERA, 1.73 WHIP and 1.80 HR/9. As I warned about in this Battle of the Experts piece “…Paxton’s ground ball rate, once at elite levels, has dipped not once or twice, but every season of his career. Here are the numbers: 59.1 percent, 54.8, 48.3, 48.1, 44.9 and 39.6 last season. Last season he sported a 0.96 GB/FB ratio, light years from his 1.43 career rate. If he maintains that depressed number this season, throwing half his games in New York, people are gonna start talking about him being homer prone like guys like Mike Fiers and Luis Castillo.” Know what his ground ball rate is right now? Try 35.7 percent. It’s early, but the downward trend on his ground ball rate is entering Scarytown for the talented lefty.
Nick Pivetta has the skills to pay the bills. Much like last season however, the results to this point have been disappointing as he’s 1-1 with a 9.45 ERA and 2.18 WHIP. Is it that bad? No, it’s not. Pivetta still has more than a K per inning. There is simply no way that the BABIP is going to continue to haunt him like this (it’s an absurd .447 right now). Even if he’s not great at run prevention, and his career 67.3 percent left on base rate is about five prevent below the league average, it’s impossible that he’s as bad as it appears on the surface (it’s currently 56.5 percent). I’m not starting him right now if I can help it. OK, I’m not starting him. I’m also buying shares everywhere I can where people bail on him or will trade him for 70 cents on the dollar.
Snakes, I hate snakes.
Robbie Ray needs to go deeper into games if he wants to get some “W’s.” He’s allowed a total of six runs in three outings, never more than three in any of them, but he’s 0-1 as he’s gone 5.0, 5.1 and 5.0 innings. In two of the outings he’s walked five men, and in two of the outings he’s struck out at least nine men. Through three outings he’s averaged 95 pitches in five innings. He’s really struggled getting ahead 0-1 through three outings as well with a 48 percent first pitch strike rate which is 10 percent below his career mark. He simply must be better on that first pitch.
Trevor Richards usually hits about 90-91 on the radar gun, but it doesn’t seem to matter with that changeup of his. Through three starts he’s upped the usage of the pitch from 32 percent last season to 39 percent this year, and batters have done nothing with the pitch posting a .257 OPS in the 37 plate appearances that have ended on the pitch. Taking his cues from a guy like Kyle Hendricks, Richards will attempt to zig while everyone else is zagging, relying on off-speed stuff to pave the way to success instead of a fastball. He’s thrown his fastball and changeup on more than 80 percent of his pitches to this point, so it will be interesting to see how that plays long term as that’s an awful lot of reliance on just two pitches.
Dereck Rodriguez came out of nowhere to have a terrific rookie season last year with a 2.81 ERA and 1.13 WHIP over 118.1 innings of work. He didn’t miss bats much with a 6.77 K/9, but he kept the walks in check (2.74 per nine) and didn’t allow too many fly balls to reach the seats (0.68 per nine). In 2-of-3 starts this season he’s allowed two runs, and in those three outings he’s walked a total of one batter. He still doesn’t miss bats, he likely never will, but he is a solid streaming option in the right matchup as he has a pretty good handle on this pitching thing in his young career with nary any split issues (he has a .298 wOBA versus lefties and .279 against righties in his young career).
Brandon Woodruff has pitched fairly well in three outings with a 12.00 K/9 rate and a mere four walks. He’s also only given up one homer. Alas, he’s had a few rough innings and as a result he’s allowed eight runs his last two starts (10 innings), and he’s been flat out mashed when he’s made a mistake leading to some absurd numbers like a 31 percent line drive rate and a 55 percent hard-hit rate. His four seamer has had success with a .298 wOBA, and he is throwing that pitch 45 percent of the time, but his other offerings, look out below: .532 wOBA on his sinker (16 percent of his pitches), .430 on his changeup (11 percent of his pitches). He’s gotta do a better job on strike one as well as his 48.5 percent first pitch strike rate is hideous. There are seeds of success here, but he’s not a fully formed pitcher yet.
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.
