Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 12

Elliott Baas looks at starting pitchers who turned in surprising starts recently. These SP could emerge as waiver wire targets and sleepers for Week 12, or simply mirages.

Welcome back to "Are You For Real?", a weekly column where we take starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legit or just smoke and mirrors.

We only had space for two pitchers this week, but we were able to go deep on two arms that have been on a roll as of late. David Peterson of the Mets has stepped up big time while the club battles pitcher injuries and Minnesota's Chris Archer looks to have revitalized his career in the Twin Cities.

Roster percentages are taken from Yahoo and are accurate as of 6/27/22.

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David Peterson, New York Mets – 35% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 45.1 IP, 3.18 ERA, 3.92 FIP, 10.3% K-BB%

6/26 @ MIA: 7 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 8 K

Peterson stepped up big time on Sunday, giving the Mets seven strong innings while fanning eight batters. It was the second straight impressive start for Peterson, who pitched 5.1 scoreless innings against these same Marlins on June 20. With injuries to the likes of Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Tylor Megill, the Mets are in desperate need of reliable arms to go along with their powerhouse offense, giving Peterson a golden opportunity to become an impact starter this season. Can the big lefty come through, or is he nothing more than a temporary fix for a contending club?

Originally a first-round pick by the Mets back in 2017, Peterson was one of the highest-rated prospects in the Mets’ farm system. The Mets had a strong organizational reputation for producing high-quality pitchers at the time, so many expected Peterson to come up and be an effective starter right away. As a rookie in 2020 Peterson performed well on the surface, posting a 3.44 ERA in 10 games, but a 5.11 xFIP and 1.67 K/BB ratio painted a much less rosy picture of Peterson’s sparkling ERA. Struggles with control and the long ball bit Peterson hard in 2021, as he put up a 5.54 ERA in 15 games before ending his season in early July with an oblique injury. Peterson’s stock had fallen so far that he began the year in the minor leagues and was not expected to be much more than a long reliever.

Peterson works with a five-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, sinker, slider, changeup, and curveball. He mixes in all five pitches semi-regularly, using each at least 5% of the time and using all but the curveball at least 14% of the time. His best pitch has been his slider, an offering that has downright embarrassed opposing hitters to the tune of a .169 AVG, .292 SLG, and .263 xwOBA. The slider also has an astonishing 25.6% swinging strike rate and 41.6% chase rate on the year, with Peterson racking up nine of his 16 whiffs with the pitch on Sunday. It’s a more traditional, sweeping slider with an exceptional horizontal break. Here’s an example from this start.

It does have the look of a classic slider, and its side-to-side movement makes the pitch an effective breaking ball against batters on both sides of the plate, allowing Peterson to maintain even platoon splits throughout his career. Peterson is performing much better against right-handed hitters this season (.288 wOBA vs. R, .331 wOBA vs. L), though the relatively small sample size of 52.1 innings leaves doubt as to whether Peterson can sustain that performance over time. As it stands, his slider looks like a bona fide strikeout weapon that should continue to serve Peterson well on the mound.

Outside of the slider, none of Peterson’s pitches stand out. His average fastball velocity of 93 MPH is about in line with the league average, though his 2080 average RPM is far below average. Peterson’s changeup offers little help as a strikeout pitch with a pitiful 5.1% swinging strike rate and 20% chase rate on the year, making the pitch little more than a tool to use against opposite-handed batters and forcing him to rely almost exclusively on the slider for strikeouts. This is why there’s such a gulf between the awesome strikeout numbers we see on Peterson’s slider and the so-so strikeout numbers (8.6 K/9, 11.1% SwStr) we see from him overall. Peterson has a 30.6% strikeout rate over his last two starts but has rarely gotten his strikeout rate above 24% at any level. Managers adding him for a boost of strikeouts should temper expectations.

Perhaps Peterson isn’t the strikeout king some were hoping for, but there is one skill he’s been consistent with almost every year of his professional career, and that’s power suppression. Peterson knows how to keep the ball in the yard, having surrendered just four home runs in total this year, and routinely keeping a home run rate below 0.7/9 at all professional levels, including the major leagues. Peterson has groundball-heavy tendencies, with groundball rates typically above 50% in the minors, and all five of his pitches have a groundball rate above 50% this season. The only time Peterson has ever struggled with the long ball was his poor 2021 campaign when he allowed 1.49 HR/9 and a 22.4% HR/FB rate and posted a 5.54 ERA despite a 3.93 xFIP. That season appears to be an aberration, and managers can expect Peterson to excel at home run suppression going forward.

One last issue that must be raised with Peterson is his control, or the lack thereof. Peterson’s walk rates have risen at every level, and have typically been in the double digits as a major leaguer. His career walk rate is 10.5%, and he has a 10% walk rate this season, including multiple four-walk outings this season. It was great to see him issue zero free passes in this game, but that was only the second zero-walk outing in Peterson’s career, which spans 36 outings as of writing this. His ability to limit power will ensure that big damage is rarely done against Peterson, but his combination of a high walk rate and moderate strikeout rate means there will be a lot of baserunners for Peterson, and his WHIP may be elevated relative to his ERA. His current 1.24 WHIP is barely lower than league average (1.27) despite his 3.10 ERA being nearly a run lower than league average (4.00). This will likely be an issue that dogs Peterson throughout his career.

Verdict:

The former first-round pick was an afterthought coming into 2022, but injuries paved the way to a second chance for Peterson, and he’s seized that opportunity and run with it. His slider boasts some disgusting underlying numbers that have the pitch looking like a KO punch, though the remainder of his arsenal lacks the same oomph and Peterson is a middling strikeout pitcher. His other skill comes in the form of power suppression, as Peterson’s large arsenal is built for keeping the ball on the ground. His control problems are worrisome, and there aren’t many signs of a remedy at the moment, despite allowing zero walks in this most recent start. Even with those flaws, Peterson shapes up as a solid add even if the top-level upside isn’t there. He has a strong base of skills with his slider, groundball tendencies, and home run suppression, and he’s on a club that will provide him ample offensive support. His rotation spot is secure at the moment, and with Jacob deGrom and Tylor Megill out for extended periods, only a trade or Peterson’s own performance would get in the way of his starting gig. Peterson should be a solid source of wins and ERA, though not as strong in strikeouts or WHIP. If that fits your team’s needs, he’s worth the add.

Chris Archer, Minnesota Twins – 9% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 52.1 IP, 3.44 ERA, 5.02 FIP, 7.6% K-BB%

6/25 vs. COL: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

The Minnesota Twins have had a remarkable turnaround this season after finishing last in their division in 2021, While their performance has been driven more by their offense, their pitching has sneakily been much better than expected coming into the year. Archer is one of the unsung heroes behind Minnesota’s success on the mound, and his 3.14 ERA through 14 games represents the first time since 2015 that Archer has posted an ERA below four. There’s a long way to go for both Archer and the Twins this season, but after another strong outing this weekend, we’ve got to wonder whether Archer’s actually here to stay.

It may seem like a lifetime ago, but there was a time when Archer was considered a high-end fantasy asset and one of the best strikeout pitchers in the league. Between 2013-15 Archer posted a 3.26 ERA, 3.36 FIP, and 2.99 K/BB ratio in 323.1 innings. Not quite Cy Young material, but an early draft pick and someone who fantasy owners relied on and trusted. The rise in strikeouts across baseball makes Archer’s numbers look less impressive when compared to today’s top strikeout pitchers, but Archer was one of the top strikeout pitchers during this time, hanging with the likes of Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer in that department.

Things started to trend downwards for Archer in 2016 with a 4.02 ERA that season, and in just a few years Archer would be totally irrelevant, with him missing the entire 2020 season due to surgery for Thoracic Outlet system, often seen as a death knell for pitchers. Even when he did pitch the results were iffy, with Archer posting a 4.70 ERA over 287.1 innings between 2018-2021. Now that Archer is pitching well again, some may be wondering whether he’s finally healthy after years of injury battles.

There is something important to understand about Chris Archer during his peak of success back in the early and mid-2010s, and that is that Archer’s career was doomed from the start. I don’t mean in the existential sense, where the passage of time would eventually erode Archer’s physical skill and corporeal form as it does to every other pitcher who’s ever thrown a baseball, and as it does for every human who’s ever walked the earth, whose consciousness will inevitably fade when their body reaches its biological limits and ceases animation, and whose remains will decompose year-after-year, century-after-century, before being reduced to nothing but dust on a rock in a universe filled with an infinite number of rocks and an infinite amount of dust, a universe whose scope no human currently alive can ever dream of comprehending. Not like that. It’s Archer’s pitching style and his inability to adapt along with shoulder troubles that caused his downfall.

At his peak, Archer was the textbook example of a two-pitch pitcher, throwing either his fastball or slider between 92-95% of the time. While the fastball was a solid mid-90s offering, the slider was Archer’s real gem, with some considering it among the best sliders in the league. Great as his stuff was, two-pitch pitchers often have short-lived success, leveraging the strength of their stuff along with unfamiliarity to carve up opponents, but if the pitcher goes on with just two pitches for too long the league eventually catches up to them. A limited arsenal can cause issues in a variety of areas for starting pitchers, but two of the most common pain points are home run susceptibility and struggles third time through the order. This is true in Archer’s case, and his home run issue appears exacerbated by the juiced ball, as Archer served up a whopping 1.36 HR/9 between 2017-2021 between Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh. Archer was already on shaky ground, and leaguewide shifts intensified his shortcomings.

Now, you may have reached this point in the piece wondering why so much space has been dedicated to Archer’s career as a whole rather than focusing on his most recent start or just his 2022 performance, but the context of Archer’s career helps us examine his 2022 performance more succinctly. That is to say, despite the ups-and-downs and time that’s passed, not much has changed for Archer. In fairness, Archer has begun using his changeup more frequently this season at 12.5%, though increased changeup usage is something Archer has been trying for years (10.4% usage since 2016) and Archer uses the pitch exclusively to left-handed hitters. While a rise in changeup usage should help him with platoon splits, it has fallen short of solving the two-pitch problem in the past and there’s not much reason to believe this time will be different.

Maybe the style hasn’t changed, but is Archer perhaps finally healthy and capable of spinning sliders as he did in the past? From a numbers standpoint, the answer is a definitive no. Archer’s slider has lost six inches of drop since 2018 and has an underwhelming 13.1% swinging strike rate, nearly 6% lower than his career average. He only got four swinging strikes with it in this start against Colorado, and this was one of his better starts this year in terms of whiffs. This merely looks like a diminished version of Chris Archer, which makes him tough to trust for fantasy.

Then how’s he doing it? How does he have a 3.14 ERA over 14 starts? After spending a few hours thinking of nothing but Chris Archer, from this writer’s perspective his success appears to be the result of black magic, voodoo, and the oh-so-generous will of the baseball gods. And some clever shielding by the Minnesota staff. Archer has been coasting thanks to a .233 BABIP and 78.9% LOB rate, and his 4.73 FIP and 4.77 SIERA suggest a rocky road ahead for Archer. His 18.6% strikeout rate and 1.88 K/BB ratio are by far the worst of his career, and quite frankly there isn’t much redeeming in this picture.

Part of the reason Archer’s sustained success this deep into the season is how the Twins are managing him. Minnesota is limiting the 33-year-old’s exposure by removing him from the game at any sign of trouble, rarely allowing him to reach the fifth inning. He is averaging just a hair over four innings per start and hasn’t thrown more than 79 pitches in a game yet this season. He’s not having blow-up games because the Twins are making darn sure it doesn't reach that point. That may preserve his ratios and benefit the Twins in the real baseball world, but it means an already questionable pitcher has even fewer opportunities for wins and strikeouts and is thus an unappealing fantasy option.

Verdict:

Is Chris Archer back? That depends on which version you’re looking for. If it’s the early to mid-2010s ace, unfortunately, those days seem long gone. If it’s the low volume and undistinguished veteran with a balky shoulder, then Archer is your man. He’s still primarily a two-pitch pitcher who’s experienced immense physical decline exacerbated by injury. He’s not able to rack up the strikeouts like he used to, and he doesn’t pitch deep enough into games to reliably secure wins. That leaves us with someone whose main benefit would be ratios, but a 4.73 FIP portends disaster. Unless you're in desperate need of a starter, avoid using Archer.

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