Fantasy Baseball: Ranking eight hot starters showing ace potential, from Jacob deGrom to Michael Pineda
I have a pretty hard and fast rule about not changing my mind about hitters for at least the first month of the season. It just takes too long to separate a slump from a real change in skill set, without even getting into how much luck and random chance play into things.
Those things also apply to pitchers, of course, but I'm a bit more comfortable changing my opinion based on small samples with pitchers in the early going. For one thing, each game represents a larger chunk of a pitcher's season, with many already around 10 percent through their expected 30-plus starts. A pitcher is also throwing 90-100 pitches per start, giving you a lot more data to go on, at least when it comes to usage, velocity, and per-pitch results.
Three starts is, of course, still relatively little when it comes to a whole season. But, it's not nothing, and we can start to look for early trends. So, let's look for them. Here are eight players off to noticeably strong starts, ranked by their chances of actually finishing as ace-level, top-15 starting pitchers.
Jacob deGrom took a bit of a step back last season, as he struggled with injuries and ended up with a career-worst 3.04 ERA. His velocity was down in the spring and never really rebounded, but he has reversed that trend so far, matching his career-high average fastball velocity, per PITCHf/x. Given that velocity tends to rise as the season goes on, it's not unfair to wonder if he might have even more room to grow.
That's a scary prospect for opposing hitters, who are already whiffing on 14.9 percent of his pitches, a career-high mark. deGrom's slider has been especially wicked, with just one hit allowed, to go with a 22.7 percent swinging strike rate. We've seen deGrom pitch like an ace before, and it seems like he is fully healthy. Expectations should continue to be sky-high.
James Paxton's velocity isn't quite where it was last season, but with an average fastball at 95.8 MPH, it's hard to complain too much in the early going. He was someone we pegged as a potential ace before the season , and with 21 scoreless innings to open things up, it's pretty easy to buy in. Especially with a career-best 29.3 percent strikeout rate, matched up with last season's strong walk rate.
Paxton showed two different potential plus secondary pitches last season, but he didn't really throw them at the same time; he relied on his cutter early in the season, before largely abandoning it for his curveball once he figured out how to throw it from his new arm slot. He is throwing both together this season, and has yet again shown above average swing-and-miss tendencies with both. Paxton has one of the best fastballs in the majors and two plus breaking pitches, so should it really be a surprise he is pitching this well? We told you this could happen .
I'll admit, I was worried about Dylan Bundy's chances Sunday. He totally overpowered the Blue Jays in his season debut, with much of his success coming as a result of his slider, a pitch major-league hitters had essentially never seen before. Was his success a novelty? If so, Sunday's rematch with the Blue Jays would have been a good indicator.
So far, so good. After throwing 31 sliders in his first outing against the Blue Jays, Bundy tossed 30 of them Sunday, and he racked up another 10 swinging strikes with the pitch. Through three outings, Bundy is sporting a whopping 34.9 percent swinging strike rate with that pitch, a truly absurd number. Last year, Noah Syndergaard had a 28.1 percent swinging strike rate with his ridiculous slider. The stuff is legit with Bundy, even if two of his three starts have come against a Blue Jays team that just looks lost right now. They're still major-league hitters, and we're seeing a much-improved Bundy thanks to the addition of this pitch to his repertoire.
Jameson Taillon probably didn't get enough credit for how well he pitched last season. Posting a 3.38 ERA over 100-plus innings as a rookie is impressive enough, but Taillon did it after sitting out the previous two seasons due to injuries. He probably doesn't have ace upside due to a limited strikeout rate, but Taillon commands his three pitches well, racks up groundballs and doesn't permit many free passes. There's value in that, even if you can't necessarily project top-10 upside on him.
We have seen Dallas Keuchel pitch at an ace level before, and he did it on the strength of elite groundball rates and strong control. He has all of those things working in his favor in the early going, and he seems healthy after admitting he pitched through shoulder pain all season last year. Still, he doesn't seem likely to find the above-average strikeout rate that catapulted him to stardom in 2015, so you might have to settle for 2014 as his upside. With 200 innings of 2.93 ball, that's not a bad ceiling, even if it isn't quite an ace.
Marcus Stroman's path to stardom looks a lot like Keuchel's: elite homer prevention, elite control and just pray for an average strikeout rate. He was a bit below average over the entirety of the 2016 season, but he did show signs of improvement in the second half as he relied more on his four-seam fastball for whiffs. He hasn't kept that trend up in the early going, with his swinging strike rate dropping from 9.3 to 6.4 percent, and his four-seam usage cut by one-third.
Stroman has proven he can dial up the strikeouts if needed, but his bread and butter is always going to be keeping the ball down and working quickly. Like Keuchel, that might limit his ultimate upside, but Stroman also has the potential to be an innings eater, which can help overcome a middling strikeout rate.
Because he's always had really impressive peripherals, it's never been hard to buy into Michael Pineda. When things are going well, he absolutely looks like one of the best pitchers in baseball, and things have gone very well over his past two starts. Of course, we've seen stretches like this from Pineda before, and then never amounted to much moving forward:
Last June, Pineda had 20 K, 4 BB and 2 ER allowed over 12 IP in two starts. He allowed 10 ER in his next 2 starts. 4.94 ERA over next 10. https://t.co/LgTWRvzE4w — Chris Towers (@CTowersCBS) April 17, 2017
In 2015, Pineda had a 4-start stretch with 34 K, 1 BB, and 4 ER over 28 1/3 IP. 5.04 ERA over his next 20 starts. — Chris Towers (@CTowersCBS) April 17, 2017
So, the question is, why is this time supposed to be different? Pineda hasn't introduced a new pitch, and he hasn't really changed up his usage rates for his pitches either. The ERA is pretty, but I'm not sure it indicates that he is somehow a new pitcher. Maybe this time is different, but I'd rather someone else in my league buy in, so I'm looking to trade if I can. The next blowup is always around the corner with Pineda.
Who needs secondary pitches? Not Kendall Graveman, apparently. Not when you come to the mound armed with a heavy sinker you can run up there in the mid-90's like he can.
Graveman has thrown his sinker roughly 90 percent of the time in his first three starts, and he has used it to get out of a ton of jams, stranding every runner who has reached base against him this season. That has led to a 2.00 ERA, which is great, but his 4.76 FIP and 4.28 xFIP show he's probably been the beneficiary of quite a bit of good luck.
Graveman is a different pitcher than the one we've seen before, but I'm not buying that he's the next Keuchel, or anything.