Two of the better righties in baseball, Nola and Syndergaard, are struggling in the early going. Kershaw returned from a health issue to look pretty darn sharp. As he returned, another left as Snell has been placed on the DL with one interesting injury. Darvish is still trying to throw strikes. Luis Castillo has looked like the guy we thought we were gonna get last year. Lucchesi and Richards are struggling a bit, while Freddy Peralta hits the DL.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH NOLA AND SYNDERGAARD?
Aaron Nola has been a mess as he has allowed at least five runs in 3-straight games. Last season, in 33 starts, he didn’t allow five runs a single time. Last season he was second in the majors with a first pitch strike rate of 69.4 percent as he was constantly putting batters in the hole 0-1. This season, his first pitch strike rate has slipped, fallen, and been run over as he has bounced down the cliff, tearing pieces of flesh off, before landing in a kersplat at the bottom of the ravine. The mark is 47 percent. “My body feels fine,” Nola said. “My arm feels good. I’m healthy. That’s the main thing for me. I feel like if I’m healthy, I can make strides… I’m not making quality pitches when I’m in the zone.” Here is what his manager Gabe Kapler said. “I’m concerned about his command,” Kapler said. “His command is his calling card. He’s just not throwing the ball where he wants to throw it right now. It’s hurting him. He’s got movement, deception, life — those things are still there. He just needs to put the ball where he wants to throw it.” The velocity is there, his arm is healthy, but he’s just not hitting his spots (he has a ghastly 5.12 BB/9 rate that is more than double his career mark). There really is no reason to panic, not with this skill set, but Nola missing spots like this is vexing likely meaning there is a mechanical tweak that is needed.
Have things gotten so bad for Noah Syndergaard that he’s resulted to cheating? The debate about using a substance will rage on – some batters actually prefer a pitcher using pine tar or something so as not to lose control of the ball causing a potential injury to a hitter – but I want to spend a moment looking at Syndergaard to date. Admitting the sample size is small, there are some concerns here. (1) Though the velocity on the fastball is the same as last season, he’s actually lost three mph on the slider. The OPS allowed on the pitch this season is a career worst, but it’s not like a .561 OPSA is something to worry about – yet. (2) Syndergaard has a 1.60 GB/FB ratio which would be a four-year low, but it’s obviously not that far off (career 1.72). (3) His hard-hit ball rate is 30.6 percent, a great number, but it would still be a career worst. (4) His 12.5 swinging strike rate is a strong number, but it would be a 4-year low. (5) He has thrown 56.1 percent of his pitches in the strike zone, a career best, and light years beyond the 46.3 to 47.6 percent mark he had each of the previous four seasons. So why the concern? It’s the quality of the pitch that sticks out to me. Noah has thrown just 56 percent of his pitches for strikes on the first offering, a career worst and way below his 61.8 percent career mark. The fact is that he’s falling behind 1-0 too often, causing him to come in to the strike zone more. His performance would improve if he got ahead in the count a bit more.
Here a quick clip from me talking about Noah.
SNELL TO DL
And another one bites the dust.
Blake Snell’s arm is fine, but he hurt himself getting out of the shower, has been placed on the DL, and the hope is that he will be able to return after missing one start. We shall see if that ends up being the case, and how thing will be impacted with the toe in the coming weeks.
KERSHAW’s FIRST OUTING
In his first outing of the season, Clayton Kershaw started slow, allowing an early homer to Yasiel Puig, but in the end his effort was an encouraging one (6 Ks, 0 BBs, 2 ERs in 7 IP). His fastball was at 90 mph, a mph below the level last season that was three mph from his established norm as Kershaw threw his just 32 percent of the time in the outing, well off the 42 percent rate last season. Still, he pounded the zone early with a massive 79 percent first pitch strike rate. His slider looked sharp, even having a bit more “depth” than normal. Overall, it really couldn’t have gone much better than it did.
Here’s the crew at MLB Network talking about the outing.
DARVISH BETTER
Yu Darvish beat a beatable opponent (the Marlins) Monday night as he threw a season best 5.2 innings walking four. Darvish seemed unconcerned. “I’m Yu Darvish. I walk guy(s),” he said. “I’m trying to throw more curves because I’m always throwing fastball, slider, fastball, slider.” I’m glad Yu isn’t concerned because the rest of the world is. The guy has walked 15 batters in 17.2 innings making even Robbie Ray blush. He’s barely throwing 51 percent of his first pitches for strike, seven percent off his career number. Contrary to what Darvish said, he’s actually not throwing fastballs a lot. In point of fact, his current 48 percent fastball rate would be the first time in five years the mark hasn’t been at least 51.8 percent. He’s falling behind, he’s nibbling, he’s putting men on base, and allowing homers, something that has happened an awful lot of late (11 homers his last 57.2 innings). He looked better Monday, but the competition wasn’t exactly elite and he still allowed a homer and walked four, so being better is relative.
CASTILLO SURGING
Luis Castillo was the breakout poster boy last season. He didn’t as he landed with a thud. Coming into this season many were cautious, but there was still reason to be bullish. “The seeds for success are here, and he posted a pretty impressive second half (2.44 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 4.93 K/BB ratio) when things started to fall back into place leading to some hope that the inconsistency which has plagued him might be starting to iron itself out. Over drafted last season, he’s cost this year is reasonable enough that investing yet again makes a lot of sense.” Through four starts this season, those that invested are plenty happy: 1.46 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 11.68 K/9 an a huge 59 percent ground ball rate. All that is extremely heartening. At the same time, he’s not going to hold batters off the homer board all season long, and that 4.74 BB/9 rate is huge as he too – say it with me – isn’t getting ahead of enough batters with a mere 54.2 percent first pitch strike rate and a terrible 37.1 percent of pitches in the zone. If he’s ahead in the count and that changeup is working, he’s extremely hard to square up. If he falls behind, has to come in to the batter, struggles can follow. Most of the early work is impressive, but those walks, they must be cut or the early season success will fade.
LUCHESSI/RICHARDS STRUGGLE
Joey Lucchesi hasn’t had the start for the Padres that we were hoping for, sort of. In his first two outings he didn’t allow a run, but the last two times on the bump he’s been destroyed to the tune of two homers and 12 runs over 11 innings, with one of those outings in San Francisco against the lowly Giants. The K/BB is basically the same as last year (3.0), and the 1.59 HR/9 rate from last year is way down at 0.84. The BABIP is .005 points different, and the hard-hit ball rate is down 13 percent. All of that suggests that the recent struggles may not be as big a deal as it appears to be if you saw the last two outings. There are plenty of reasons to keep the faith.
Trevor Richards was rolling through three starts, but start #4 was a mess as he allowed five runs over 4.2 innings against the Cubs. The biggest culprit was a lack of controlling the strike zone as he walked four batters (he threw 62 of his 96 pitches in the outing in just two innings). As excited as everyone is about that wondrous changeup, the fact is that he just doesn’t have the velocity to fool hitters, so when he falls behind in the count he is forced to nibble, knowing that if he were to come in to the batter, the results wouldn’t be good. You can see some of that in his last two outings as he’s walked nine batters over those 10.2 frames.
BREWERS LOSE ARM
Freddy Peralta has been placed on the DL with a shoulder issue (his roster spot is being taken by Jeremy Jeffress). “He was having some pain last night during the game, so there’s some inflammation in there that we had to calm down,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Don’t expect it to be long term. It should definitely be on the shorter end here. So he’ll rest for a couple days and then he should be able to start throwing pretty soon.” His spot in the rotation will be taken by…? Chase Anderson, Adam Houser and Aaron Wilkerson appear to be the front runners.
PIVETTA DEMOTED
Nick Pivetta has been sent to the minors, to be replaced in the rotation by Jerad Eickhoff.
Pivetta got the win Tuesday night, but he struggled against allowing three runs, seven hits and seven walks over five innings. It’s bee a bad start to the season, zero doubt there, and the numbers do back up that assertion (7.93 K/9, 3.93 BB/9, 2.45 HR/9). At the same time, this is a very quick hook by the Phillies. Very quick. Even a cursory look at the numbers shows an impossibly high .413 BABIP and a 26.3 HR/9 rate. They have to know those numbers will regress substantially, don’t they? Regardless, this quick hook means that it is not paramount that you hold on to Pivetta in mixed leagues, even in 15-teamers, as it’s clear that the Phils really don’t have much faith in him at the moment. Still though, in a dynasty scenario, I would be holding this righty as there’s just too much talent to give up on at this stage of his career.
Eickhoff was last a serviceable fantasy option in 2016. That’s three years ago folks. He threw a mere 133.1 big league innings in 2017-18, he missed nearly all of last season with a lat injury, and in those 133.1 innings the numbers stink: 4-9, 4.79 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 3.58 BB/9. Honestly, he hasn’t been any better than Pivetta has been. He’s also a tiny bit fly ball prone with a mere 0.99 GB/FB for his career, and doing that in Philly isn’t a great bet (1.21 HR/9 for his career). He’s a serviceable mixed league option, but he’s not one to get overly excited about – because of the health concerns as well as a lack of impressive offerings when on the bump (8.19 K/9, 9.5 swinging strike rate, 60.4 first pitch strike rate in his career). Oh yeah, he’s set to make his next start in Colorado, so even if you add him, can’t feel good about pitching him there.
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.
