2 years agoChicago White Sox starter Michael Kopech had a baffling 2022 season. He posted a solid 3.54 ERA and 1.19 WHIP but posted a head-scratching 21.3% strikeout rate and could only muster five wins in 25 starts. Kopech's typically nasty slider had 2.5 inches below average of horizontal movement, and its whiff rate went from 36% in 2021 to 21.3% this season. The 26-year-old's flamethrower fastball lost 2.4 MPH (97.3 MPH to 94.9 MPH) and 6.1 percentage points in whiff rate from last season. Kopech could always find the strikeout stuff that made him a top prospect, but there are definitely concerns. His run prevention helped mitigate the low punch-out numbers, but don't count on that again in 2023. Kopech ran a .223 BABIP and 9.4% HR/FB, so there will be a jump in that department, especially considering his 15th-percentile average exit velocity and 24th-percentile barrel rate from 2022. And considering the righty's career 9.8% walk rate, he'll hardly be a help in WHIP. Kopech will be another year older and another year removed from his 2018 Tommy John surgery, but he's never thrown more than 134.1 innings as a professional. He averaged just 4.77 innings per start this year, so fantasy managers should be weary of his volume output in 2023 and, subsequently, his victory total. Kopech still has a high ceiling, but Steamer projects him for a 4.57 ERA and 23.1% strikeout rate. Those numbers make his cost (309 ADP) a bit too high for the former first-rounder's potential.--Spencer Seguin