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Jarod Rupp looks into some of the more fantasy baseball relevant starting pitchers that saw their K-BB% decrease the most year-over-year between 2022 and 2023 and what their outlook might be for 2024.
Uncovering trends and identifying a potential hidden gem late in a draft or identifying a player you should draft ahead of their ADP will help you be prepared when it comes time to make your selections. Of course with better preparation, the better chance you have to win. So, conversely, knowing which players to shy away from is an important component of drafting as well. In this article, we'll look at pitchers that had the most dramatic decreases in K-BB% from 2022 to 2023.
If you're unsure why we're using K-BB%, then read this article, it'll explain everything in clear and simple terms. And if you're looking for the Risers List, you'll find it here.
Note that for this exercise, only starting pitchers with a minimum of 50 innings pitched were used as the universe of players analyzed. Also, we skipped over some of the more fantasy-irrelevant players, focusing on just those names in red below:
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Biggest Year-Over-Year K-BB% SP Fallers of 2023
Andrew Heaney, Texas Rangers, -15.2%
In some respects, Andrew Heaney had one of the better seasons of his career in 2023. The slender lefty posted a 4.15 ERA versus a career ERA of 4.49, and he recorded 10 wins -- a career-best. This was done over 147 1/3 IP while recording 151 K, which were both second-best career finishes. However, the K-BB% of 14.2% was the lowest since posting an 11.4% mark back in 2015. So why was it so low and why did it drop the most out of any qualified pitcher? Well, part stems from his 2023 performance and part stems from 2022.
The sample size we're drawing from in 2022 is about half of what we can analyze from 2023 (16 G, 72 2/3 IP vs 34 G, 147 1/3 IP), so one could surmise that if the sample size were larger in '22, the strikeout numbers may have come down a bit from their lofty peak. The peak in reference was the unsustainable 35.5% K% that was third-best in the entire universe of starting pitchers analyzed that had 50+ IP in 2022, which was behind only two of the best to do it -- Spencer Strider and Jacob deGrom.
In 2023, the K% normalized to an above-average 23.6%, although below his career average of 25.1%. That accounted for an 11.9% drop right there, but the BB% ballooned to 9.4% from 6.1%, comprising the other 3.3% drop.
Assuming Heaney can get back to around 25% K% as his FGDC projections suggest, and assuming he can clean up the walks (career 7.1%), he'll get back to around an 18% K-BB%, making him a viable spot starter if needed. That is, of course, if the southpaw is deemed a starter in 2024; six of his last seven regular-season appearances last year came after he was transitioned to the bullpen. He has largely been going undrafted per his 500-range NFBC ADP, however, so we've probably already spent too much time on him.
Carlos Rodon, New York Yankees, -13.5%
Carlos Rodon will be a better use-case for this exercise since his NFBC ADP is 176, so he is certainly a draftable fantasy asset. He finished top-six in Cy Young voting in 2021 and 2022, earning All-Star selections both seasons as well. As with many other seasons for Rodon, 2023 was marred by injury though and it's logical to wonder if that led to the dropoff we saw.
Rodon suffered a forearm injury in spring training and then a subsequent back issue that resulted in a major delay in his 2023 debut. His first start was on July 7 and despite some decent starts sprinkled in, he never really got going. His season culminated in a final start where he gave up 8 ER on 6 H, 2 BB, and 0 K without even recording a single out. After averaging around 95.5 mph on his fastball for most of the season, it sat closer to 94 over the final two starts, which of course would have made him more hittable.
As it relates to the drop in K-BB%, becoming more hittable was a big part of the problem. K% went from an excellent 33.4% in 2022 to 22.4% in 2023. Command was an issue, too. His BB% swelled to 9.8%. With full health in 2024, Rodon will likely boost his strikeout numbers, but asking him to clean up the walks might be a problem with a career BB% of 9.0% (10.0%+ in four other seasons!). While he had excellent seasons in 2021 and 2022, those are starting to look more like outliers than the norm.
FGDC projections suggest the former first-rounder will clean up the walks, forecasted to be around 7.6%, but that seems overly optimistic. NFBC ADP has him going at pick 176 with RotoBaller currently ranking him at 174. Other options like Nick Pivetta (who appeared in the Risers article) or Eduardo Rodriguez (who might be undervalued) are being drafted after Rodon and could be pivots.
Alek Manoah, Toronto Blue Jays, -11.6%
Wow, speaking of high walk rates, let's touch on Alek Manoah. Manoah was an All-Star and finished third in Cy Young voting in 2022, but the amount of walks skyrocketed to an unacceptable 14.2% in 2023. Going from 6.5% to 14.2% in the walk department accounted for 7.7% of the total drop in K-BB%. The former All-Star was demoted twice last season, refusing to report to Triple-A the second time, putting himself and the organization at odds. Manoah believed he should have been placed on the IL instead of demoted.
Rather than reporting to the minor league squad, Manoah underwent various tests to see if an injury was to blame, but no structural damage was found. He eventually reported, but was shut down for the rest of 2023. RosterResource currently has him projected as the fifth starter for the Jays in 2024. Top prospect Ricky Tiedemann may have something to say about that come spring though.
If Manoah can return to 2022 form, he'd be rosterable, but we won't know which version of Manoah we'll get until spring training at the earliest, so watch his starts closely. For now, he's not draftable.
Cristian Javier, Houston Astros, -10.2%
Most of the pitchers we've looked at here and in the Risers article had some combination of change in K% and BB%, but not Cristian Javier. His BB% stayed basically the same from 2022 to 2023 (8.9% to 9.0%). The drop in K% alone is what puts him on this list; it went from 33.2% to 23.1%. So, we need to determine how he became more hittable. We can see that his pitch mix didn't change, but it's worth noting he does rely heavily on just two pitches -- the four-seamer (58.4%) and the slider (30.0%):
Checking in on Baseball Savant, we can see that the righty's four-seam fastball velocity in 2023 was down a full mph on average from 2022. We can also see that the amount of spin he can generate on that four-seamer is down from 2353 RPM on average over the prior three seasons to 2255 last season.
Javier is known to have a "rising" four-seamer, which makes his ~93 mph fastball look faster than it is and it induces lots of fly ball outs. With reduced velocity and spin, he's able to get less rise, which in turn makes his ball more hittable. Look at the table below and you'll see it everywhere: wOBA on the four-seamer from .282 to .331, xBA from .181 to .233, and K% from 28.9% to 21.8%.
The fastball issue seems to be at least part of what made him a bit less effective in 2023. If he can correct this, then there's a good chance he can get back to some semblance of the form he had in 2021 and 2022. But, as you can also see in the table above, he also saw a dip in effectiveness on his slider as well. Hard-hit% on the slider went from 22.6% in 2022 to 33.7% in 2023.
For a pitcher that relies on just two pitches, there are bound to be struggles if one or both are ineffective and maybe one begets the other. If a major league hitter knows Javier is struggling with his fastball, they could easily sit, wait, and ambush a slider. It may not be a surprise to see the rise of a third reliable pitch in 2024 to help keep hitters off balance.
Hopefully, Javier can have things corrected from the get-go this spring. If he does, he'll easily outproduce his NFBC ADP of 170. RotoBaller currently has him ranked at 178 around the likes of the aforementioned Carlos Rodon, as well as unproven youngsters Shane Baz and Bryce Miller.
Justin Verlander, Houston Astros, -8.6%
The last one we'll touch on is the aging Justin Verlander. You hate to bet against a competitor like Verlander, but not only did his K-BB% have one of the biggest drops in the league, it was the fourth consecutive season it has dropped. Granted, the 2020 season contains just one data point, but that is because he had Tommy John surgery and missed the rest of the COVID-shortened season plus all of 2021:
This trend doesn't necessarily mean the K-BB% will drop again, as there are other times in his career where it has dropped in consecutive seasons (four consecutive drops from 2011-14) only to bounce back again. However, those bounces happened when he was a much younger man. That also doesn't necessarily mean he can't put up meaningful fantasy numbers in 2024. The veteran won a Cy Young award just two seasons ago in 2022. But Father Time catches up to us all, just ask Adam Wainwright.
Wainwright had a fantastic 2021 where he finished seventh in NL Cy Young voting, then 2022 wasn't as great, and 2023 was clearly the end. It can happen fast, which is why you want to pay attention to these types of stats so closely. Verlander has an NFBC ADP of 118, and RotoBaller has him ranked similarly at 115, but if the age-related drop-off scares you, young fireballer Hunter Greene is going a couple of rounds later at 132 and with arguably more upside.
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