Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 23

Elliott Baas looks at starting pitchers who turned in surprising starts recently. These SP could emerge as waiver wire targets and sleepers, or simply mirages.

Welcome to Are You For Real?, a weekly column where we look at pitchers who turned in surprisingly good starts and try to determine whether they are the real deal. This week we're looking at some of the young arms that non-contending teams are using to fill out their rotation for the end of the season. At this point in the season, many teams that have no chance at the playoffs are willing to see what they have in younger, unproven pitchers. This can prove to be a boon for the diligent and informed fantasy player who's on top of these unheralded or underproducing arms down the stretch.

This week we're looking at a fine start from former top prospect Mitch Keller of Pittsburgh, a 19-swinging strike effort from Eli Morgan of Cleveland, and diving into a recent hot streak from southpaw Taylor Hearn in Texas. Those in deeper leagues may appreciate these players, as they are all available in 85% of leagues or more as of writing this, and both Keller and Morgan are out there in more than 95% of leagues.

Roster percentages quoted in this piece are based on Yahoo availability and are accurate as of 9/06/2021.

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Mitch Keller, Pittsburgh Pirates

3% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 72 IP, 6.75 ERA, 4.87 FIP, 1.8 K/BB ratio

09/02 vs. CHC: 6 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 8 K

The name Mitch Keller probably elicits a collective groan among fantasy players of the late 2010s, and for good reason. Keller was once the most prized pitching prospect in all of baseball, leaving Pirates fans and fantasy players alike dreaming of his potential. It was easy to expect stardom from Keller, because not only did scouts drool over the Cedar Rapids, IA native, but Keller tore through the minor leagues, with a 3.13 ERA and 9.6 K/9 across all minor league levels. It’s impossible to understate just how hyped Keller was, but for newer fantasy players it might seem absurd that Keller ever got any attention. He has been a punching bag at the major league level. Through three seasons Keller is 6-16 with a 6.03 ERA and 2.18 K/BB ratio. He showed us some signs of life on Thursday, with six shutout innings and eight strikeouts against the Cubs. Keller has put up zeroes in two of his last three starts, and with September call ups no longer bringing a bounty of exciting young prospects, could Keller be the September difference maker we need?

Originally drafted in 2014 the second round out of high school, Keller’s stock skyrocketed after a breakout 2016 campaign at A ball. His mid-90s fastball velocity and nasty wipeout slider was a winning combination for scouts, and the 20-year-old soon became one of the games top pitching prospects. Unfortunately, Keller’s control disintegrated as he progressed through the minors, only getting worse in the majors with a 10.6% career walk rate. The four-seam fastball and slider are Keller’s bread and butter on the mound, though he does throw a slower curve about 15% of the time and a show-me changeup 4.5% of the time. Even through his struggles, the slider has still been Keller’s best pitch, and was the key to his success in this most recent start.

Keller racked up the swinging strikes with his slider in this start, notching seven whiffs on 14 swings, and after punching those numbers into the calculator we see that he had a dominating 50% whiff rate with his slider in this start. That whiff rate was nearly double his season-long slider whiff rate of 28.7%, which is rather underwhelming for a slider in today’s game. Altogether, batters have hit .261 against the slider with a .413 SLG and .315 wOBA. These aren’t great results by any means, but when you consider that batters are hitting over .400 off his curveball and over .550 off his changeup, the slider results suddenly don’t look too bad. If we look at his slider in a vacuum, however, it doesn’t seem all that impressive. He’s been steadily losing movement with the pitch year-over-year, and is now straddling the league average line on both vertical and horizontal movement. Take a look at how Keller's slider movement has changed over the course of his career.

Vertical movement graph:

Horizontal movement graph:

Both break and drop are trending in the wrong direction. This effect is showing both in his surface level results such as ERA and strikeout rate and his underlying numbers. Keller had an outstanding 26.8% swinging strike rate with his slider in his rookie 2019 season, but only has a 13.9% swinging strike rate with it this season. His slider spin rate has cratered as well, going from 2661 average RPM in 2019 to a 2382 average RPM this season. These downward trends began in 2020, but it was easy to write off because Keller only made five starts and dealt with an oblique injury last season. It was kind of a mystery as to whether he’d move back towards his 2019 numbers, or continue the slide into irrelevancy. After making 18 starts this year it’s pretty definitively the latter.

When I look at and analyze Keller, I see a broken player. The slider he’s throwing now is not the slider we were excited for back between 2016-19.  Even though Keller had a 7.13 ERA in 11 starts in 2019, he was actually doing a lot of things right. He had a monster 4.06 K/BB ratio, a manageable 1.13 HR/9, and a 3.19 FIP. He was also throwing over 1 MPH harder with all of his pitchers, and was able to touch 97 on the fastball and 90 on his slider. If we’re speculating on what went wrong, I’m thinking it’s one of two things: either he/coaches/the organization got spooked after he posted a 7.13 ERA and have made too many tweaks, or he’s playing with an injury. This would be a pretty long time for him to pitch through an injury, especially while he’s still young and on a rebuilding club, so I’m leaning towards tweaks. Let’s look at his delivery from 2019 compared to this most recent start.

2019:

2021:

I’m not going to pretend to be a mechanics expert, and I’m sure there are a million little things former pitchers can see in that delivery that I can’t, but it does look like his arm slot is higher in 2021 compared to 2019. He’s a high three-quarter arm slot pitcher, but that arm seems to have risen even higher, and his extension to the plate has risen by half an inch since his rookie season. Theoretically, a closer extension to the plate increases perceived velocity of the pitch, and allows it to break closer to the plate. However, that effect is nullified if the mechanical change does not allow the pitcher to throw the pitch at optimal speed with optimal grip. Anyone could take an extreme forward lean or even kind of hop or jump off the mound to maximize release point (in fact, ex-Marlins reliever Carter Capps is the most extreme example in recent history), but it doesn't matter if it compromises velocity and movement.

Keller had a lot of variance between his release points on each pitch in 2019, which can make it easier for a hitter to recognize what’s coming, so it’s possible either he or the organization identified this as his problem back then and have hammered him on correcting it. This is pure speculation of course, but from a big picture perspective I’m wondering if the Mitch Keller problem is fixable with mechanical tweaks. Remember, Tyler Glasnow had a 5.97 career ERA in Pittsburgh before they traded him to Tampa Bay. Perhaps a change of scenery could help Keller as well, though the rebuilding Pirates have the most to gain by trying to rehabilitate Keller themselves and unlock his talent, rather than sell him at his lowest value point.

Verdict:

For this season, it’s impossible to trust Keller. He has given us these flashes of brilliance a couple times already, and even put up zeroes in two of his last three outings. Unfortunately, he was hammered for seven runs in the other of those three starts. He’s just too volatile to use in anything beyond deep league desperation. There’s still a glimmer of long-term hope, and I wouldn’t mind spending a dollar on him in NL-only leagues or 15-team leagues next season, but for 2021 steer clear. He may never be the top-end starter we were once hoping for, but there's clearly talent in this arm and the 25-year-old could still come around as a back-end or mid-rotation piece in the future.

Eli Morgan, Cleveland Indians

4% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 61.2 IP, 5.98 ERA, 5.22 FIP, 4.1 K/BB ratio

09/04 @ BOS: 5.2 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 4 BB, 7 K

Morgan went into the Lion’s Den known as Fenway Park and held the mighty Boston Red Sox lineup in check, blanking them over 5.2 innings and striking out seven in the no-decision. Morgan was one out away from his fourth quality start of the season, but Cleveland didn’t trust him to face Bobby Dalbec with a runner on second and two outs, which is surprising since Morgan had already struck out Dalbec once and Dalbec is hitting just .211 with a 35.3% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching this season. We may have missed out on the quality start, but it was still an impressive outing for Morgan, who piled up a whopping 19 swinging strikes on 96 pitches. Morgan has had a rough season prior to this game, but Cleveland has a strong reputation for pitching development, so any time a young starter shows promise they are worthy of a deeper dive to see if there’s anything under the hood.

Originally drafted in the eighth-round by Cleveland back in 2017, the former Gonzaga Bulldog pitched well in the lower levels of the minors, showcasing excellent control as a prospect. That control wavered as Morgan progressed through the minor leagues, and he had a 12% walk rate at Triple-A this season. Unlike Mitch Keller, Morgan is not the prototypical front-line starter and didn’t have much prospect hype. Morgan is undersized for a pitcher at 5’10” and 190 pounds, and his low 90s fastball velocity doesn’t excite many scouts. The 25-year-old was ranked 42^nd on Cleveland’s prospect list by Fangraph’s Eric Logenhagen coming into the season, with Logenhagen projecting him as a multi-inning reliever. Altogether, Morgan uses a four-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup. His stuff hasn’t graded or performed all that well this season outside of one pitch, and that is Morgan’s downright filthy changeup.

The changeup has been a standout offering for Morgan since his days as a prospect, and that pitch’s dominance has carried over to the major leagues. Batters are hitting .188 with a .265 wOBA and a 13.6% swinging strike rate on the year. Those numbers are even more impressive when you consider that Morgan was carrying an ERA close to six coming into this start. What makes his changeup so special are two things: first, Morgan throws it with an average velocity of just 75 MPH, creating 15 MPH of separation between his fastball and curveball. He might not be able to toss fire like his teammate Emmanuel Clase, but that type of separation can really keep hitters off balance and overcome some of the pitfalls of weak velocity. In fact, among starters that have thrown at least 60 innings, Morgan has the third-most separation between his fastball and changeup behind just Dylan Cease and Logan Gilbert, both of whom throw over 95 MPH and have solid changeups.

The second thing that makes Morgan’s changeup special is the drop. Morgan isn’t quite in the magical Devin Williams territory with his changeup, but with above average drop coupled with low velocity, the pitch can act as a true breaking ball rather than a show-me pitch to use against opposite handed hitters. Here’s a few of Morgan’s changeups in action.

There is so much drop on these pitches they could be mistaken for curveballs, but the lack of spin makes it more deceptive than a curveball to hitters because it appears to be a meaty fastball served in their wheelhouse, only die centimeters before reaching the plate. Poor Brent Rooker really didn’t know what hit him this day. This pitch looks like it could be an excellent strikeout weapon, and may be the key to Morgan remaining a big league pitcher. That being said, the changeup was not the catalyst behind his success on Saturday, as Morgan only threw it seven times against Boston.

If I was told Eli Morgan had a 19-whiff start without any context, I would assuming his changeup was responsible for the bulk of the whiffs. It’s his best pitch, and it’s his second-most used pitch after his fastball. That wasn’t the case in this start, as he only used it 7% of the time and relied heavily on his fastball and slider. Given how poorly Morgan’s season was going prior to this start one can’t fault him for trying a new approach, but this approach doesn’t play into his strengths, plus Morgan had been pitching better as of late with a 4.45 ERA in August. Regardless, Morgan racked up 14 whiffs with his fastball alone in this game, and had four whiffs on seven swings with his slider, both rates far exceeding his overall season whiff rate.

Often times when a pitcher gets an inordinate amount of whiffs on a fastball like Morgan did in this start, the quality of the opposing lineup should be brought into question. Due to their COVID outbreak, Boston’s lineup was really top-heavy in this one, with the likes of Bobby Dalbec, Jack Lopez, and Jonathan Arauz rounding out the bottom of the lineup. There were more strikeouts in the top-half of the lineup, but this monster swinging strike game looks like more of an aberration than a trend that will continue. Still, Morgan’s fastball and slider are his two best pitches after the changeup, and if he ends up consolidating his repertoire to those three pitches, he should be able to maintain a sub-5 ERA over the course of the season. That makes him a rather boring streaming option, and he’s probably only useful in AL-Only leagues.

Verdict:

Cleveland finds a way to milk every last ounce of productivity out of pitchers with substandard stuff, and Morgan seems like he could follow their typical mold. He’s got solid control and a really strong changeup. These two skills means he's got a place in the big leagues, but probably as a back-end starter or swingman. The rest of his game leaves much to be desired, and he has been too bad in the bad starts to outweigh the good ones for now. He could have a Zach Plesac or Cal Quantrill-esque hot streak in him, but those types of pitchers have inevitably come crashing back to Earth at some point. Like with Mitch Keller, I wouldn't hate the idea of spending $1 on Morgan in a deep league next season if he's got a shot at making the rotation, but he's far from standard mixed league viable. As it lines up currently, his next two starts are home versus Milwaukee and at the Yankees, and I wouldn’t trust him in those matchups.

Taylor Hearn, Texas Rangers

15% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 77.1 IP, 3.96 ERA, 4.79 FIP, 2.26 K/BB ratio

09/05 @ LAA: 7 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 4 K

Hearn pitched the longest start of his young career on Sunday, completing seven frames for his second career quality start against the Angels. Hearn has been slowly progressing over the second half of the season, and may turn into quite the find for a rebuilding Texas organization that’s been throwing all sorts of mid-20s career minor leaguers into their lineup to see if anyone can stick. It was a rough start to the year for Hearn, but since July 1 he has a 2.45 ERA in 40.1 innings between the bullpen and rotation, and he has a 2.92 ERA in August, where each of his outings were at least four innings. Is Hearn the deep-league diamond in the rough that can help us down the stretch, or is this relatively unknown lefty best left on the wire?

It’s a been a long, winding, and somewhat serendipitous path to the major leagues for Taylor Hearn. Hearn was originally drafted out of high school in the 22^nd round by the Pirates, but said no thanks and decided to attend college instead. Then he was drafted in the 36^th round back in 2013 by the Reds, but again told them no thanks and stayed in college. Then he was drafted for a third time in the 25^th round in by the Twins, but told a MLB team to pound sand for a third time and transferred colleges. His perseverance paid off, as Hearn eventually did sign with the Nationals after they drafted him in the fifth round in 2015. Hearn has twice been traded at the deadline in exchange for a closer as well, since he was traded at the 2016 deadline from Washington to Pittsburgh, the organization that originally drafted him, in the Mark Melancon trade. He was then traded from Pittsburgh to Texas in the Keone Kela trade at the 2018 deadline. All this to say, Hearn has really clawed his way to even make it in an MLB rotation.

Hearn uses a four-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, a sinker, a slider, and a changeup. He throws rather hard for a left-hander, averaging 95 MPH with his fastball and even maxing out at 100.1 MPH, though those numbers are likely influenced by his time in the bullpen. He slows it down to around 93 MPH as a starter, which is still a strong number for a left-handed starter. His slider is his primary breaking ball and source of strikeouts when he gets them, while the changeup is more of a neutralizer against right-handed batters. Out of all his pitches, Hearn himself attributes his recent success to a new and improved sinker he began throwing around the end of July, coinciding with his recent hot streak.

Hearn wasn’t using a sinker at all during the beginning of the season, and has slowly been ramping up his sinker usage over the summer until it’s become nearly equal with his four-seam fastball in terms of usage. In fact, Hearn’s sinker eclipsed his four-seamer by quite a bit in this start, as he threw 40 sinkers compared to just 15 four-seam fastballs. Batters have struggled to make decent contact off Hearn’s sinker, with a .211 AVG and .255 wOBA against. Hearn has allowed an astonishing zero extra base hits off the sinker, though it’s kind of hard for batters to get an extra-base hit since Hearn has an 85.1 MPH average exit velocity against the pitch. The pitch has brought much-needed balance to Hearn’s batted ball profile, as he had been a flyball-heavy pitcher throughout his professional career, but has a 55.1% groundball rate and 5-degree average launch angle against his sinker. Make no mistake, this won’t bring anywhere near the elite groundballers like Framber Valdez and Logan Webb, but it should help him keep the home runs in check. Hearn halved his home run rate over the latter part of the season, going from 2.2 HR/9 between opening day and June 30 to 1.1 HR/9 between July 1 and this most recent start. Clearly, the sinker is the reason behind his recent success, though this type of success has questionable long-term viability.

Hearn’s recent string of good outings can be best defined as a contact management approach. He doesn’t have the big strikeout ability that keeps balls out of play, and while his sinker has helped balance his profile out, he’s not a groundball machine. He’s been reliant on favorable outcomes of balls-in-play, with a .265 BABIP on the season and a .214 BABIP since July 1. He has been good at inducing weak contact, but this type of pitcher offers low upside, especially when pitching for a bad team like Texas. Hearn doesn’t have many opportunities for wins, and the combination of excess balls-in-play and his walk issues (10.4% walk rate on the year) means he’ll likely have an elevated WHIP even when he keeps runs off the board. Bad teams also typically have poor defenses, and while the Rangers have graded near the top of the league in defensive metrics, those numbers are driven up by their catchers. Their infield, outside of defensive wizard Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, leaves much to be desired. Hearn’s ceiling in any given start would likely be around his line in this one, which is three runs allowed on seven hits over seven innings, with a mediocre four strikeouts. That’s fine in a pinch or in a deep league, but that’s the upside with Hearn. The volume and reliability he provides in real life baseball far outweighs his fantasy value, and I don’t think he’s worth the risk in anything other than AL-only leagues or deeper leagues.

Verdict:

Hearn’s new sinker has turned him from a middle reliever/swingman type into a back-end starter for Texas. His lack of strikeouts, poor control, and BABIP luck make him an unappealing option for fantasy, and bring into question his long term viability. This could be a sneaky AL-only or 15+ team league add, especially for dynasty leagues because I think Hearn has pitched himself into a starter’s role for next season. For standard leagues he doesn’t quite bring us the upside we want from a streamer.

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