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When it came time to lock down the opening roster for this season, the Washington Nationals showed faith in a middle-of-the-road right-handed pitcher named Jake Irvin. He logged 121 MLB innings in 2023, resulting in a 4.61 ERA, 99 strikeouts, 54 walks, and 20 homers allowed.
Irvin opened 2024 in Washington, and the results have been promising for the 27-year-old. His ERA is down to 3.13, he's cut his walk rate in half, increased his strikeout rate, and allowed fewer homers. Though he's just 92 innings into what appears to be a breakout campaign, there are surely more questions to be answered for the 2018 Oklahoma grad and fourth-round draft pick.
Is this Nationals right-hander for real, and should you look to acquire his services via trade while there's still value? Or might it be time to sell high with some regression surely coming soon? Let's take a deeper look!
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Jake Irvin (SP, WAS)
2024 Breakout
The most impressive stat to summarize this breakout from Irvin is simply that he's logged 10 quality starts in 16 starts. He hasn't missed a start, and he's provided much-needed stability to a Nationals rotation that was extremely questionable coming into the year.
While there were a few bumps in the road to start the year and the strikeouts were fluttering in the 7.00 K/9 in the first half, Irvin has started to blossom in his last seven starts, boosting his K/9 up to 9.36 in that span while allowing just five homers and walking only 11 batters in just over 41 innings.
The highlights of this most recent stretch are clearly his 10-strikeout games, which show that strikeout upside is attainable for the youngster along with his incredible consistency from start to start. The fact that one of those games happened at Coors Field and the other took place at Truist Park boosts Irvin's strikeout prospects even further.
Jake Irvin's 9th and 10th Ks pic.twitter.com/cyYsiIhcbF
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 23, 2024
Adjustments to Arsenal
The biggest adjustments in Irvin's arsenal in 2024 have been his addition of a cutter that pairs well with his upper-90s four-seam fastball. He cut down on his sinker usage in order to add the cutter. While those work nicely to mix it up in the second and third turns through the order, it's always the four-seam and curveball combo that allows the righty to miss bats.
Irvin's fastball and cutter have both shown incredible results as far as pitch values go. When we pair those jumps with a swing-and-miss curveball, we can see why 10-strikeout games are in the pool of outcomes while still allowing the 27-year-old to consistently avoid crooked numbers.
So, everything sounds good... But can Irvin sustain this, and what does it mean for fantasy managers?
Rest of Season Outlook
All of the possible regression signs look very promising. There's merit behind this breakout. Irvin's hard-hit percentage has dropped over five points. His ground-ball percentage went up two points, and he's allowing nearly 5% fewer fly balls.
Irvin is managing to walk almost half as many batters in 2024, and he's striking out over 3% more of those batters, which we can attribute to positive arsenal changes.
Yes... This is a breakout!
A 74.1% LOB rate along with a .278 BABIP show us that luck is hardly a factor in this success, so it makes sense that Irvin boasts a 3.73 xERA and a 3.57 xFIP. The numbers are strong. The consistency is there. We see flashes of upside here and there, and this kid is young enough to keep developing.
Jake Irvin's 5Ks in 4 ip. pic.twitter.com/gnWfjg5WXf
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 8, 2024
If you weren't lucky enough to scoop him off the waiver wire, now might be the time to buy Irvin. Unfortunately, there's no way of knowing how long the Nationals let him go this season. After throwing 121 innings last year, do they let him go much past 150? It's tough to say.
All in all, it appears like we have at least 60 more innings of great pitching coming from Irvin. He showed us he can be dominant in Atlanta and Denver. He's consistently going six innings, and he's continuously working to find more strikeouts in his game.
There's no reason that Irvin can't be just as good as arms like Jose Berrios, Mitch Keller, and Kutter Crawford while he's still throwing in 2024. That puts him in the top 50 for sure, and he potentially even cracks the top 40 in the starting pitcher rankings. Now would be the time to sell a pitcher with regression signs or a hitter at a position of strength for a pitcher that can bring stability and upside to any rotation.
Go buy Jake Irvin while you can! He's still only 58% rostered in Yahoo! leagues.
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