January 4, 2019

New York Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino followed up his 2.98 ERA in 2017 with a 19-win season in 2018. Severino did see his ERA rise to 3.39 and allowed one more hit per nine than 2017 (173 in 191 1/3 innings), but has continued his assent to the lower tier of SP1. On top of his solid ERA and WHIP (1.14), Severino also struck out 10.3 batters per nine (a career-low) while posting a career-best 2.2 walks per nine. On July 1, Severino was 13-2 with a 1.98 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and 138 strikeouts in 118 1/3 innings after pitching 6 2/3 scoreless innings against the Red Sox. After that, though, Severino allowed at least three earned runs in each of his next seven starts, posting a 6-6 record and 5.67 ERA over his last 14 starts. He did still have five starts where he topped eight strikeouts in that span, and had three quality starts, but it was truly alarming how quickly Severino’s season changed. Since his season was so firmly segmented into the first and second half, it is important to look at his splits to show what went wrong. His 5.43 K:BB ratio in the second half (on top of his 10.86 K/9) shows that he was still a lethal pitcher, but his batting average against jumped from .208 to .290 and his strand rate dropped from 83.1 to 63%. A .379 BABIP and 1.29 HR/9 in the second half likely were from poor batted ball statistics; he had a 31.9% line drive rate allowed, 37.6% hard hit ball rate allowed, and allowed 15.3% HR/FB. Considering that Severino had such a good first half last season, and still had amazing control and command of his pitches in the second half, fantasy owners should bet on more of the first half Severino than the second half Severino in 2019. The biggest issue for Severino is that he is a power pitcher that plays in a ballpark that is unforgiving and saw his GB% drop from 50.6% in 2017 to just 41.1% last season. Much of that came from a 36.2% GB rate in the second half, but Severino still needs to limit damage by keeping the ball on the ground. There were only five pitchers with a K% over 27.5 (Severino was at 28.2%) and a GB rate over 45% last season (and only one with a GB rate over 50%), so Severino can get close to SP1 value if he maintains his strikeouts while retaining his 2017 form in inducing ground balls.--Chris Zolli