Vince Velasquez
Nothing really exciting here? Career low groundball rate will lead to another year of being very home run prone, but the strikeout rate will continue to make him a high upside play when he's cheap.
Nathan Eovaldi
Having his best year of his career by many accounts. Been unlucky with home runs but been very lucky with LOB rate, so we should continue to see this general level of production unless something drastically changes
Eric Lauer
What the fuck is this Lauer season? lol Career low groundball rate is a bit scary but he basically looks like prime Verlander at the moment and it's coming from an increase in FB velocity paired with a rise in offspeed offerings. Don't think we continue to see him light the plate on fire but this is an ace's profile.
Jesse Chavez
Looks similar to last year though his BABIP is a bit inflated. Barrel rate allowed is up and his velocity is down as well. He removed his slider from his pitch mix which is good because the slider was a bad pitch, but it's worth worrying about his effectiveness against LHH without it.
Beau Brieske
Minor league numbers look good but it hasn't translated to the majors and he looks prime to get beat up by top teams in the league.
Luis Garcia
So usually I use the phrase “Sold out his strikeout numbers for more groundballs” but Luis Garcia here said “nah bro fuck that” and dropped both his strikeout rate AND his groundball rate like a true chad. Underlying metrics are concerning here and the profile is starting to look a lot like Vince Velasquez but without the raw strikeout upside.
Zach Logue
Only have one inning from Logue? Is that like the kind of spitting on someone? Houcking a Logue? How do you spell that? Anyway he looks like he will profile as a home run prone guy that relies on command and pitch mix to find success so we will have to wait on him to see how that plays in the majors.
Josh Winder
Low upside guy that has been mostly lucky in terms of BABIP and LOB rate. Has a really strong pitch mix that he utilizes well. Seems like a strong middle of the rotation dude for the Twins.
Joan Adon
walk rate above 11%, xFIP at 5.01, and not a lot of optimism from projection systems all speak to the same idea that this guy is an immobile ADC in the assassin jungler meta from last year.
Jaime Barria
Just copy and paste the note on Josh Winder and post it here. I'll do it for you hold on.
Low upside guy that has been mostly lucky in terms of BABIP and LOB rate. Has a really strong pitch mix that he utilizes well. Seems like a strong middle of the rotation dude for the Twins.
Okay yeah and just he plays for the Angels so change that last part to Angels instead of Twins.
Chad Kuhl
Just copy and paste the note on Josh Winder and Jaime Barria and post it here. I will note do it for you this time, you have to earn your keep at some point.
Merrill Kelly
Nothing surprising or impressive here that we haven't seen from Kelly before, who is a slightly above average strikeout arm with middling rates elsewhere. Has been lucky with LOB and HR rates, but not egregiously so. What you see is what you get here.
Matt Wisler
lol in 12 innings so far this season Wisler has a 17% groundball rate that is just hilarious. I mean obviously if you have a groundball rate that low you are going to get worked sooner or later and nothing in the underlying metrics says that we can expect the damage to be mitigated. Little Whistling timebomb here.
Logan Gilbert
I really don't like Gilbert's profile all that much and he's got a 99% LOB rate which is screaming for regression. Low GB rate guy with slightly above average strikeout numbers. I think overall he will continue to produce some good outcomes but he's certainly going to get blown up here pretty soon.
Sandy Alcantara
Strikeouts rate is down a tad and the walk rate is way up into the danger zone at 11% though the rest of his profile looks about the same. Seems like he's having some command issues on the slider which he needs to make his fastball effective, so there's genuine worry here until he can get that under control.
Yu Darvish
Strikeout rate is way down and it looks like it stems from hitters not chasing as much out of the zone, but it's hard to tell why that is. Likely a command thing and maybe a bit of him using more cutter? Less slider? I'm not sure. He's still strong and the baserates are above average, but this is not the typical ace you think of when you hear Darvish.
Jordan Hicks
Still being stretched out to be a full rotational arm but he will never get there if he can't reign in the walk rate (currently 16%). Maybe one of the highest upside arms in the league when he has a good start but against patient teams he's going to get eaten alive.
Alex Cobb
Whew 452 BABIP and a 42% LOB rate are really fisting poor corn here. underlying stuff is really solid and we could expect him to produce significantly better moving forward even if the strikeout rate comes back down to earth. That said, there's a non-zero chance that the strikeout rate maintains a high mark with a 2mph gain in velocity, so take advantage while people are low on him I think?