These first few weeks have been a bumpy ride for many fantasy owners who invested in early starting pitching but are getting bombarded out the gate. If you used a pick in the first few rounds on Chris Sale, Corey Kluber, Aaron Nola, Zack Greinke or James Paxton, you’re certainly feeling a little pressure. If you have two of those guys, you may even feel that your season is lost. Especially if you mixed in other early-season disappointments like Nick Pivetta or Yu Darvish as one of your first three SP. Not to worry! I’ll say it again. It’s a long, long season. This time last season in NFBC Platinum, Rob Silver and I were utterly decimated in ERA and WHIP and were sitting in 10th place (out of 15 teams). We got wrecked by our SP1 (Greinke), two mid-round guys (Sonny Gray, Marcus Stroman) and had lost Dinelson Lamet for the year before the season even started. We ended up grinding down on those horrific ratios to respectable ranges, finishing second in the league. And this, against the best fantasy players in the world. A rough start in ratios early on is troublesome, but if your aces aren’t getting shut down with season-ending surgery, it’s certainly not the end of the world.
There are some guys out there dancing on water. Take a look at some of the top teams in your standings or in the NFBC overall. Their teams are littered with guys who have barely allowed any runs through their first three to four starts (Glasnow, Musgrove, Matz, Stroman). Is Glasnow this year’s Blake Snell? It’s certainly possible. Will he end the season with an ERA under 2.00? No way in hell. Our fantasy seasons are filled with extreme highs and lows and the best way to navigate starting pitchers continues to be looking beyond the box score into pitch data and advanced metrics and continuing to take advantage of good matchups while occasionally benching them for the tough ones. Grinding fringe waiver wire pitchers in the right spots will always be a way to catch up as well. And some of these guys end up becoming mainstays on our roster.
Let’s take a look at some of the early season ballers and strugglers to find out what’s really going on.
Studs
Matt Boyd LH/DET – Boyd is off to an electric start and looks every bit the late-round steal who might help boost fantasy players’ teams. Only Snell has a higher strikeout rate (40.5% to 40.3%) and Boyd has yet to serve up a homer in three starts. His 2.60 ERA is on par with a 2.62 xFIP and his FIP is a sparkling 1.01 (of course, very unsustainable). Looking at his .389 BABIP doesn’t point to him being particularly lucky – in fact, quite the opposite. He’s also giving up significantly less hard contact this season (30.6%) compared to last season (37.5%). Hard to take much out of strength of opponents, but he did pitch well against two subpar offenses (CLE, TOR) and pulled off quite the feat, whiffing 13 Yankees on the road. He hasn’t added any new pitches nor increased velocity on his fastball, but did lower his arm slot in the offseason and has a touch more spin on that fastball. All in all, the jury is still out on Boyd. I won’t be in the court of folks expecting him to be a top-25 SP the rest of the year. Top 50 is a different story, and certainly reasonable. He could easily end up striking out a bit more than one batter per inning, but won’t finish the year anywhere close to his current 40% rate. Pitching in the AL Central is one part of a recipe for success, but I’d still look to maximize a return in leagues where you can trade. Not to insult any owners in your league, but you can at least see if someone is willing to part with a Strasburg in exchange for Boyd. You don’t get anything if you don’t ask.
Matt Shoemaker RH/TOR – Shoemaker has had some buzz around him as Comeback Player of the Year, which is an absolutely ridiculous conversation to have this early. There is no doubt that Shoemaker has looked great thus far. His sinker has been virtually unhittable (.128 BAA in 41 PA) as has his sinker. But looking at a 1.75 ERA that doesn’t match his 4.26 xFIP and a .164 batting average on balls in play may portend to a bit of good fortune thus far. When healthy, Shoemaker will be a serviceable arm in the top 50 range and his early-season 14% swinging-strike rate is impressive as well. But like every other pitcher who calls the AL East home, he will have bumps in the road and have some bad starts. Much prefer Boyd to Shoemaker rest of season, but I’m sure almost all of us do.
Marcus Stroman RH/TOR – If you follow my work and paid attention to our Draft Guide, you likely noticed that Stroman was one of my favorite late-round SP targets. The justification was that he had a good-looking early schedule on paper, and if he stunk, we could just drop him. Out the gate with starts v DET, v BAL, @ CLE is as good as it gets. His latest one against the scorching-hot Rays was a tough one. He walked four and due to an error, ended up with no earned runs despite allowing three. Most impressive with him early on is that Stroman is actually averaging over a strikeout-per-inning (24.2% k-rate) which is the highest mark of his career. Something I believe is unsustainable and that early season schedule was part of the reason. Nevertheless, a healthy Stroman is a serviceable pitcher with value in 12 leagues in the right spots. Stroman was a workhorse prior to last season’s injury-laden season as he pitched at least 200 innings in two consecutive seasons and posted a valuable 3.09 ERA in 2017. He is one of the league’s extreme groundball pitchers (career 59.9%) and has yet to allow a homer this season.
Brad Keller RH/KCR – The former #5 overall pick of the Rule 5 2017 draft is still just 23 years old and has plenty of promise as a groundball-heavy arm with fire pitching out of the AL Central. Keller essentially maneuvers between a 94mph fastball, slider and sinker. His 12.4% walk rate leaves a bit to be desired and he’s walked four or more batters in two of four starts. He has thrown at least six innings in each of those four starts and has been gifted a bit of a preferential early season schedule (v CHW, v MIN, @ DET, v CLE). His strikeout rate was a big concern for us going in to this year, but because of his 10 whiffs against the Indians, it’s currently at a career-best pace (likely unsustainable). He allows mild contact (35% thus far) and seems to lack that true punchout-ability based upon his career nine percent swinging-strike rate. Pick your spots with Keller as he’s someone I’d be hard-pressed to start in matchups that don’t look pretty on paper. Be mindful of his walk rate going forward.
Duds
Aaron Nola RH/PHI – An incredibly rough start for Nola who sadly has the league’s highest ERA (7.45) allowing 16 runs in 19.1 innings. He has served up five homers and has a paltry 19:11 K:BB ratio thus far. All the damage has come in these past three starts – two against the Nationals and his latest one against the Mets. In fact, all five homers were served up in those two games with the Nats. Nola did start the season off on the right track with an eight-strikeout outing with just one run allowed, but did worry us with five walks in that outing. He isn’t giving up hard contact at all (just 26.9%, well below league average), hasn’t seen a dip in velocity whatsoever and is still using the same pitch mix and repertoire, including that infamous curve of his. What is concerning is Nola forcing meatball pitches down the middle after getting behind in counts. That 48 percent first-pitch strike rate is way below league average. Not to mention a massive dip in SwK% – from 12.4% last season to 8.4% through these first four starts in 2019. All in all, there are no signs pointing to Nola hiding an injury and there’s a high likelihood of a strong rebound with us all looking back several months from now, not believing Nola ever struggled. He’s an excellent buy-low target. Personally, don’t have any shares of him because a second-round pick was basically assuming an even greater step up statistically – which is hard to do for someone who was already one of baseball’s best pitchers. If I played in trade leagues and owned say a David Price, I’d at least entertain what kind of package I could get in return for Nola. I absolutely love and adore Glasnow, but perhaps some owner may be willing to give you Nola straight up for him. Don’t underestimate the stupidity of your league-mates.
Corey Kluber RH/CLE – Kluber gets crushed in April, goes on to dominate the rest of the season, rinse and repeat. It’s literally what the guy does every single season. Last year was the exception where he started off fine, then struggled in June and July before righting his ship just like every. single. season. So far, 2019 has been a disaster, but mostly marred by two specific starts – 6 ER, 5 BB in 2.2 IP against the Royals and 8 H, 4 ER, 3 BB against the White Sox in his second start. His season opener against the Twins was fine (7 IP – 2 ER – 1 BB – 5 K) and his start against the Tigers was a gem (6 IP – 1 ER – 1 BB – 8 K). The one thing worth noting is that Kluber’s velocity is down about one mile per hour on all of his offerings and that he’s been serving up insane levels of hard-contact: nearly 45 percent this year where his career rate is 29 percent. Not trying to row my own boat here, but Kluber was someone I have no shares of, and that’s mostly because I’ve felt that a decline was coming soon and the fact that I preferred teammates Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco around his ADP range. Perhaps his days of sub-3.00 ERA are over, but that doesn’t mean he’s absolutely toast or won’t at least come close to returning value on his draft day cost. Just keep an eye on his cutter, his fastball velocity and swinging strike rate, but otherwise, probably just another slow start for one of the league’s best starting pitchers of the last half-decade.
Yu Darvish RH/CHC – Well, Darvish is a league leader in something, but not exactly what you’re looking for. No one has allowed more walks than Darvish’s 15 so far. Simply put, he hasn’t been the same since the 2016 season when he posted a 1.12 WHIP and a strikeout rate nearly 32 percent. His 2017 season was decent, but ended in the worst possible fashion as he imploded in Game 7 of the World Series. Last season, Darvish threw just 40 innings and underwent season-ending ligament reconstruction on his right elbow last September. He was a popular target in the 120-150 ADP range this season in hopes of a comeback. But it’s been anything but. We already mentioned the walks – 4, 4 and 7 in three starts. In his third start of the year against the Pirates, Darvish did not issue a free pass but did serve up two homers and four earned runs. Even his latest start wasn’t all that promising of a bright future since it was the Marlins and he ended up walking four despite eight strikeouts. His fastball velocity is down from nearly 95 the last few seasons to around 93, yet his swinging strike rate has maintained at the 11-12 percent level. His next start will be telling since it’s against a weak-ish Diamondbacks’ offense. Holding out judgement until then. Darvish will have some dynamic starts this season, but that walk rate is worrisome and I wouldn’t be the least bit shocked to see him spend some time on the DL at some point. Past his prime and the outlook isn’t pretty.
Miles Mikolas RH/STL – A very rough start to his season – 24 hits, 14 runs allowed in 21 innings (four starts). What’s mostly concerning is this is a guy whose value comes from his control since you know the strikeouts won’t be there. Last year’s 18 percent rate is down to around 11 percent early on. Velo down across the board for him and his already below-average 9.6% swinging-strike rate is down to 6.2% early on. Very few of us ever expected improvement from an incredible return to the big leagues this season so if you drafted him you likely overpaid, and if you avoided – kudos to you – it’s the ultimate lesson about paying up for career seasons that many of us have learned before. Watch to see if he can pick up the velocity in his next start (against the Mets on Saturday), but in the end I’m sure Mikolas will be fine. He’ll have some great home starts and have a WHIP below 1.20 with not many strikeouts.
Current Top-25 SP Rankings
1 – Trevor Bauer CLE
2 – Jacob deGrom NYM
3 – Max Scherzer WAS
4 – Justin Verlander HOU
5 – Gerrit Cole HOU
6 – Chris Sale BOS
7 – Blake Snell TBR
8 – Aaron Nola PHI
9 – Carlos Carrasco CLE
10 – Walker Buehler LAD
11 – James Paxton NYY
12 – Noah Syndergaard NYM
13 – Corey Kluber CLE
14 – Jack Flaherty STL
15 – Jose Berrios MIN
16 – Clayton Kershaw LAD
17 – German Marquez COL
18 – Tyler Glasnow TBR
19 – Stephen Strasburg WAS
20 – Patrick Corbin WAS
21 – Shane Bieber CLE
22 – Luis Castillo CIN
23 – Madison Bumgarner SFG
24 – Charlie Morton TBR
25 – Chris Archer PIT
