Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 24

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 a trio of pitchers who have been around the block for a while, but have come alive recently with some impressive hot streaks. With the fantasy playoffs upon us, we need to be extra judicious about who we trust in our lineups, which is why each of these players warrants a deep dive.

Reynaldo Lopez is pitching well for the South Siders and has found his way back into the White Sox' rotation after pitching well on Thursday, while Colorado's Antonio Senzatela has quietly become a quality starts machine over the last month, notching another over the Phillies on Thursday. Eric Lauer is the latest Brewers' pitcher to emerge as a fantasy option, and put up eight strikeouts in a dominating performance on Sunday.

Roster percentages quoted in this piece are based on Yahoo availability and are accurate as of 9/13/2021.

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Antonio Senzatela, Colorado Rockies

21% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 132 IP, 4.16 ERA, 3.60 FIP, 3.3 K/BB ratio

09/09 @ PHI: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K

Senzatela kept his quality start streak going on Thursday, holding the Phillies to just two runs over six innings in an eventual Rockies victory. He has been a quality start machine as of late, with six consecutive quality starts and notching the QS in nine of his last 11 outings. A low strikeout Colorado pitcher doesn’t usually garner much excitement from fantasy players, but with a dearth of quality pitching available on waivers coupled with Senzatela’s quiet reliability, the 26-year-old righty is looking more and more appealing on the waiver wire. Can Senzatela help get your team to the finish line, or is he best left out in the cold?

Originally signed as an international free agent, Senzatela was never known as a prospect on a national level, but did make it as high as the 11^th-ranked prospect in Colorado’s system in 2015, ranking ahead of Rockies’ ace German Marquez. Senzatela did made his debut as a 22-year-old back in 2017, and has been a staple on the back-end of Colorado’s rotation ever since. He uses a four-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, and a changeup. Senzatela has been defined by the fastball-slider combo throughout his major league career, often coming in as one of the most two-pitch reliant starting pitchers in the big leagues. Senzatela has tried incorporating the curveball and changeup more often over the last few seasons, but he has gone back to basics over his recent hot streak, leaning heavily on his four-seamer and slider.

It’s hard to blame Senzatela for relying on his fastball because his mid-90s heat is one of his standout traits. Senzatela has averaged 94.6 MPH with his fastball this season, which is already a career high, plus Senzatela has routinely kept his average fastball velocity above 95 MPH during his hot streak, and can touch 99 MPH on the gun. There’s more than heat behind this four-seamer, as Senzatela’s fastball has proven to be a groundball machine, with a 4-degree average launch angle against and a 56.9% groundball rate this season. This exceptional groundball rate has helped Senzatela curb power against despite pitching in Colorado, as batters have just a .372 SLG off his fastball this year along with a 0.72 HR/9 overall, which would be tied for the third-lowest home run rate among qualified pitchers if Senzatela had enough innings to qualify.

Senzatela also commands his fastball very well, pounding the zone staggering 61.7% zone rate on the fastball this year. This is a 5% leap in zone rate from last season and a career high for Senzatela, which has been a big reason for Senzatela’s microscopic 4.9% walk rate. His home run rate would be an elite number and tied for second-best among qualified pitchers if Senzatela had enough innings to qualify as well. Which, by the way, Senzatela is only four innings shy of qualifying and his 138 innings logged this season are already a career high. Given the shortcomings of his secondary stuff, Senzatela is never going to be a big strikeout pitcher. He will likely never have a strikeout rate above 20%, and will likely struggle to keep it much higher than 15% during his career. That’s why it’s so important that he remain elite in the other aspects of his game, such as limiting walks and preventing the long ball. Given the tools in his toolbox, Senzatela is doing a darn good job on the mound.

The larger problem with Senzatela are the tools in his toolbox because outside of his above average fastball velocity, his stuff leaves a lot to be desired. His fastball spin is in the 20^th percentile, and he has a whiff rate below 28% on all three of his secondary pitches. His most used secondary pitch, his slider, has a .280 AVG against this season and painfully average horizontal and vertical movement. It would be easier to overlook these shortcomings if Senzatela had a more well-rounded approach, but since he throws his slider 31.5% of the time, and throws either his fastball or slider 87.8% of the time.  The fact that his slider is an objectively weak pitch creates a gaping hole in his game. Senzatela is already walking a tight-rope as a pitch-to-contact starting pitcher pitching half his games in Coors Field, and the fact that’s he’s a two-pitch pitcher with one good pitch makes him incredibly hard to trust on a start-by-start basis.

Verdict:

Senzatela’s 3.67 FIP might make him look like an undervalued option on waivers, but that FIP is so heavily influenced by an elite walk rate and an elite (though likely unsustainable) home run rate. He does a good job of generating groundballs and weak contact with his fastball, making him a low-end streamer if you’re desperate, but he hasn’t earned must-start status by any means. He has been better at home (3.89 home ERA vs. 4.40 road ERA), but do you really want to trust him in Coors Field with the fantasy playoffs on the line? I know I wouldn’t unless the league was very deep and the situation was dire. His next start his on the road against the Braves, though Atlanta has been the 11^th-best lineup against righties this season and they have a .766 OPS as a team over the last 14 days. He shouldn’t be used in that outing if you can avoid it.

Reynaldo Lopez, Chicago White Sox

25% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 39 IP, 2.08 ERA, 3.16 FIP, 4.8 K/BB ratio

09/09 @ OAK: 5 IP, 6 H, 3 R (1 ER), 3 BB, 2 K

Lopez flamed out as a member of Chicago’s rotation, but has experienced a breakthrough season out of the pen for the White Sox and has since earned himself another crack at a starting role. Lopez has seized that opportunity as well, posting a 3.00 ERA in six starts this season. He was a tough-luck loser in this start against Oakland, but still only allowed one earned run and has done enough to make Chicago implement a six-man rotation going forward even with Lucas Giolito’s return imminent. No one expected much out of Lopez this season, but could the former top prospect be a surprise playoff contributor?

Originally acquired from the Nationals along with Lucas Giolito and Dane Dunning as a part of the Adam Eaton trade, Lopez was a highly touted prospect coming up, ranking as high as the 30^th overall prospect in the game by Baseball Prospectus back in 2017. He showed some promise in 2018 with a 3.91 ERA over 32 starts, but poor control and home run issues did him in and Lopez was crushed to the tune of a 5.52 ERA between 2019-20. Scouts loved Lopez for his big fastball velocity, and that velocity has been one of Lopez’s most consistent strengths throughout his big league career. This year is no different as he has averaged 95.7 MPH on the gun this season. The rest of his pitching profile has been less consistent, as Lopez has tried out many different options as a secondary pitch to compliment his fastball, going from a curveball, to a changeup, to a slider. He’s settled on the slider this season, and the pitch could finally prove to be the answer for Lopez.

Lopez has relied heavily on his slider this season, using the pitch a career-high 35.3% of the time. It’s not just that Lopez has increased his slider usage this much, but he’s also stopped throwing his other offspeed pitchers, using his changeup and curveball a combined 6.6% of the time. Perhaps Lopez saw the opportunity to feature his fastball-slider combination out of the bullpen, but he has still used both pitches over 90% of the time even as a starter. It has been about more than the usage, however as Lopez has seen a spike in velocity, spin rate, and movement with his slider this year. His slider velocity is up 4 MPH from last season, the average spin rate is up 134 RPM, and he’s gained an inch of drop and half an inch of break this season. Below are graphs charting these improvements.

So, on paper the pitch looks better in every conceivable way, but has it actually performed any better? The answer is…sort of. The batting average against on Lopez’s slider is roughly the same, with opponents hitting .233 off Lopez’s slider this season compared to .235 last season. He has significantly reduced the power against the slider, shaving over .150 points off the SLG against, going from a .618 SLG against in 2020 and a .467 SLG against this year. The driver behind the reduction in slugging percentage was a reduction in flyball rate for Lopez, who allowed a 42.3% flyball rate with his slider last season compared to a 29.5% flyball rate this season.

This is a positive trend for a pitcher who allowed 1.9 HR/9 between 2019-2020 and pitches his home games in hitter-friendly Guaranteed Rate Field, but this shift is less encouraging when you consider that most of those flyballs have turned into line drives. The line drive rate off his slider has gone up 7% this season, and his overall line drive rate is up 10%. Sure, line drives are better than home runs, but it’s hard to buy into Lopez’s .204 BABIP against when he’s experienced such a spike in line drives. Line drives are far and away the most likely type of batted ball to fall for a hit, and Lopez has a .480 BABIP on line drives this season, which is nearly .200 points lower than the league mark of .677. Even if Lopez has a preternatural ability to direct line drives and the White Sox defense shifts perfectly, this low of a BABIP on line drives and his overall .204 BABIP are not sustainable long term.

Lopez’s slider also fails to excite in the strikeout department, as he only notched two swinging strikes with the pitch in this start and has a middling 13.5% swinging strike rate on the year with this pitch, an especially underwhelming number when you consider how often Lopez was pitching out of the bullpen. As a starting pitcher, Lopez has only managed more than five strikeouts once against the post-deadline Cubs, a team with the highest strikeout rate in the majors over the last 30 days, and has a pathetic 6.75 K/9 and 2.0 K/BB ratio out of the rotation. As I mentioned with Antonio Senzatela, two-pitcher pitchers have such a thin margin for error, and the fact that Lopez seems to be riding some BABIP luck and cannot generate a passable strikeout rate make him look like mostly smoke-and-mirrors. Add in a poor track record and suspect peripherals in his one good season, and Lopez is tough to trust in fantasy crunch time. The one saving grace for him is matchups, as the White Sox are finishing the year with series against bottom-feeder lineups such as Texas, Cleveland, and Detroit twice. If you can catch him in one of those matchups he might prove an adequate streamer, but he’s a low-upside option.

Verdict:

Lopez has reworked himself into a two-pitch pitcher, and while that may be an effective approach out of the bullpen, his two pitches simply aren’t good enough for him to thrive as an MLB starter. The White Sox look to be using him as a band-aid for their rotation as they look to preserve the health of their top-flight pitchers such as Carlos Rodon, Lucas Giolito, and Lance Lynn. Lopez is startable if he’s facing one of the many cupcake opponents the White Sox will face during the final three weeks, but he’s nothing more than a matchup play.

Eric Lauer, Milwaukee Brewers

45% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 96.1 IP, 3.18 ERA, 4.12 FIP, 2.8 K/BB ratio

09/12 @ CLE: 5.1 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

The Milwaukee magic has extended to Eric Lauer, who has been on fire as of late, pitching to a 2.05 ERA over his last 10 apperances. This past Sunday may have been his best showing of all, as Lauer held Cleveland hitless over five innings and struck out a season-high eight batters. It may not be much of a feat to hold Cleveland hitless these days, but this type of dominance was rather encouraging to see from Lauer, who has a well-earned reputation as a pitch-to-contact type of hurler. With oft-injured lefty Brett Anderson on one of his frequent trips to the injured list, Lauer has seized the fifth spot in Milwaukee’s rotation and will likely hang onto a starting role for the rest of the season. Could the young southpaw prove to be another reliable fantasy option from the Cream City?

Drafted 25^th overall in 2016 by the Padres, Lauer came over to Milwaukee along with Luis Urias back in 2019 in exchange for Trent Grisham and Zach Davies. While that trade looked like an utter disaster for the Brewers last season, it’s seemingly a lot more balanced based on the recent performances of the players involved, especially Lauer. Lauer uses a five-pitch mix consisting of a fastball, cutter, changeup, slider, and a curveball. While he throws a lot of different pitches, Lauer has been overly reliant on his fastball-cutter combination in the past, but the tides have shifted over his recent hot streak, with Lauer using his four-seamer less often and incorporating his slider with more regularity.

Lauer’s slider usage has skyrocketed over the last two months, as he went from never throwing the pitch prior to outing on July 3 to throwing it 18.55% of the time since July 3. The pitch has been nothing short of a revelation for him, with batters hitting a measly .137 with a .216 SLG and 86.2 MPH average exit velocity off Lauer’s slider this season. Lauer does have above average movement with the pitch, though his 13.5% swinging strike rate with his slider doesn’t jump off the page. It’s a sharp, hard slider that comes in just a tick slower and with more downward movement than his cutter. Here’s an example from this start.

It’s a solid slider that should increase Lauer’s strikeout ability as a starter, but it’s never going to be an elite strikeout pitch and even with this in his repertoire Lauer will likely hang around the 19-22% strikeout rate range as a starter, making him slightly below league average for a starter. Our standards for strikeouts are even higher in fantasy baseball, so Lauer can be considered a strikeout liability despite notching eight Ks in this outing.

While the slider has been the catalyst for Lauer’s recent success, what’s funny about this outing is that Lauer dialed back on his slider usage, throwing just 10 sliders compared to 16 curveballs and 26 cutters. This may have been situational or game-planning for Lauer, as Cleveland started either a righty or switch-hitter at all nine spots on Sunday, meaning Lauer may have been less willing to lean on a slider. Even though we’ve raved over Lauer’s slider, his curveball has also performed well this season, with batters hitting .130 against the pitch with a .204 SLG. Even if Lauer doesn’t have or doesn’t trust his slider on a given day, he can still lean on his curveball as a primary breaking pitch and find success.

While he’s been outstanding as of late, there are some shortcomings in Lauer’s game that will likely lead to regression over time. As mentioned earlier, he doesn’t really have the big strikeout stuff we like to see from a fantasy pitcher, and he’s going to struggle to get away with a lack of strikeouts given his poor command. Whenever a starting pitcher is insufficient in strikeout rate, they need to make up for it with exceptional skills in other areas, but unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be the case for Lauer. He has posted the best walk rate of his career at 3.01 BB/9, but that number is still below league average and gives him a painfully average 2.91 K/BB ratio. Those metrics haven’t budged much during his hot streak, and Lauer has an ugly 4.61 xFIP since July 3 despite a 2.05 ERA. Lauer’s slider usage indicates actual change was made, but like with Reynaldo Lopez and Antonio Senzatela, this appears to be the product of BABIP magic, and Lauer seems unlikely to sustain a sub-4 ERA over an extended period.

Verdict:

Lauer has made real adjustments to his pitch mix, which have helped him find success. However most of his success has been driven by the good fortune of a .243 BABIP and 85.5% LOB rate over his last 10 outings. Lauer does draw a favorable matchup against the Cubs next time out, and he is usable in that matchup though he’s hard to trust against more difficult opponents. I’d prefer him to Reynaldo Lopez or Antonio Senzatela because Lauer’s arsenal is more well-rounded, but all three fall in the same tier of unexciting streamer that I’d deploy cautiously.

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