Our review of the 2016 fantasy baseball season continues with a look at some of the breakout  performances by starting pitchers.

Breakout Starting Pitchers in 2016

Kyle Hendricks, Chicago Cubs

“Hendricks could be one of the few fantasy bargains to be found in Wrigleyville this year,” is a thing I wrote back in February. As justification for this assertion, I pointed to Hendricks’ drastic improvement in K% from his rookie year. He maintained that gain, and actually boosted his swinging strike rate by nearly two percentage points. That, along with a low BABIP and above-average strand rate, helped him post a league-best 2.13 ERA.

The Cubs’ BABIP suppression in 2016 has been well-covered by smarter people than yours truly. Suffice it to say that while we can’t necessarily expect them to be that good again, they’ll probably still be well above average. With the probable exception of Dexter Fowler, Chicago appears set to return all of their regulars. There’s also the fact that Hendricks has demonstrated an ability to limit high-quality contact; he led all qualified pitchers in Soft% and was among the leaders in average exit velocity.

In contrast to last season, however, Hendricks seems like a prime candidate to be overvalued in 2017 drafts. His strikeout rate is good rather than great, and even regression to something closer to his 2015 batted ball fortune would put his ratios in that same class.

Kenta Maeda, Los Angeles Dodgers

Only two qualified starters allowed a lower exit velocity than Hendricks. Maeda was one of them. The Dodgers were quite good defensively, which helped, but again we have to give credit to the pitcher for limiting contact quality. Maeda also missed plenty of bats in his rookie season, ranking 12^th in whiff rate among all qualified starters.

Much of Maeda’s success can be traced to his extreme and unconventional approach. Regardless of the handedness of the hitter at the plate, Maeda greatly prefers throwing on the outer half. This isn’t the only way to reliably generate soft contact, of course, but it’s easier than trying to bust hitters inside when your fastball barely averages 90 miles per hour. It’s also an approach that wouldn’t be as effective if Maeda didn’t have impeccable command, or a wide enough repertoire to keep hitters off balance.

It’s fair to question whether Maeda can maintain this level of deception as the book on him grows thicker. There are also concerns about his durability. Including the postseason, he pitched to a 4.57 ERA after the All-Star break and averaged fewer than five innings per start.

Aaron Sanchez, Toronto Blue Jays

As a rookie in 2014 and 2015, Sanchez pitched well out of the bullpen, but his performance as a starter left much to be desired. In 11 starts, he threw 66 innings with only 42 strikeouts and 37 walks. So how did he go from that lackluster showing to posting the best ERA in the American League last season?

The most critical improvement Sanchez made was getting ahead of hitters more often. His F-Strike% increased by over seven points, although this still only put him in the middle of the pack among qualified starters. While Sanchez continued to make his living primarily with his fastball, he showed greater consistency with his secondary offerings. Only his little-used slider was a negative according to PITCHf/x values.

ERA estimators still don’t love Sanchez. A glance at his BABIP marks to this point in his career would suggest he has some suppression ability, but Statcast data doesn’t really support that assertion. His exit velocity metrics were nothing special, and groundball-heavy pitchers don’t tend to consistently post low BABIPs, since groundballs are more likely to go for hits than fly balls. He is only 24, however, and we’ve already seen him make adjustments. Another leap forward could well be in the cards – just don’t pay an expectant price.