January 27, 2021

Red Sox right-hander Nathan Eovaldi bounced back from an injury-shortened 2019 season to pitch to a 3.72 ERA, 3.32 xFIP, and 1.20 WHIP with a 9.68 K/9. Perhaps most importantly, the veteran reverted back to his 2018 form and pitch mix, further putting his rough 2019 in the rearview mirror. Eovaldi went back to throwing his cutter more, tossing it 31.1% of the time, after dropping to 22.5% in 2019 while dealing with an arm injury. Even though it didn't produce the same results as it did in 2018, the impact of the cutter is in how it sets up Eovaldi's four-seam fastball, which he can throw up in the zone as a strikeout pitch. An interesting wrinkle in his pitch mix is that Eovaldi continued to introduce his curveball more often, throwing it 17.1% of the time, and it wound up being his best pitch, inducing a .121 xBA with a 44.7 Whiff% and 28.9 Put Away%. With the cutter back in the repertoire and a swing-and-miss curveball added to it, Eovaldi's 26.1% strikeout rate doesn't seem like much of an aberration. When you add the return of his impressive control, Eovaldi put up an elite 22.6 K-BB%, which was top-20 in the league, right behind Max Scherzer and ahead of Luis Castillo, Blake Snell, and Zack Greinke. Given his pitch mix, strikeout ability, and role pitching in front of a solid Red Sox lineup, I think Eovaldi can be counted on for double-digit wins, an ERA around 4, and a K/9 above 9. That makes him good value at pick 230, going after Michael Pineda, Brady Singer, and John Means. I'd draft Eovaldi in front of all of them in the early 200s.--Eric Samulski