RADIO
RotoBallers Andrew Le and Matt Wilkes recently faced off to discuss two strikeout-savvy pitchers, Robbie Ray and Yu Darvish. ADPs for both pitchers are eerily close and we hope the following battle helps fantasy managers make a (slightly) more educated decision.
In the red and black jersey playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks, standing 6'2" and weighing in at 195 pounds, from Brentwood, Tennessee, ladies and gentleman please give a warm welcome for Robbie Ray. Also in Ray's corner is his representative, Andrew Le. Hailing from Osaka, Japan wearing the Chicago Cubs' blue and white, checking in at 6'5", 220 pounds, let's hear a round of applause for Yu Darvish. On behalf of Darvish, we have the esteemed Matt Wilkes.
Now, let's get ready to rumble!
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Robbie Ray (SP, ARI)
(NFBC ADP 47, RotoBaller SP15 / 59th Overall)
While he'll never match the facial hair of teammate Archie Bradley, Robbie Ray evolved last season from a middling pitcher to a 15-win strikeout specialist (12.11 K/9) with a 2.89 ERA and 1.15 WHIP. Dermatologic attributes aside, these numbers yielded lucrative returns for his back-end ADP. This season, Ray projects to go at least 10 rounds earlier as 2017's revelation becomes the expectation.
Prior to 2017, Ray was a career 14-31 starter. Despite the miserable record, Ray progressed in K/9 each season. He parlayed the breakout 11.25 K/9 in 2016 into a superior 12.11 in 2017, 2nd best in the majors. Ray made notable strides in his 14th ranked slider by pitch value, which he threw almost 20% of the time. His fastball and curveball also went from common to above-average. These trends led to a 14.2% SwStr% which graded 5th. Ray's stable year-on-year metrics in BB/9 and HR/9 alongside the aforementioned K/9 suggest improvements were underway before last season. The 2016 headline horror (8-15, 4.90 ERA) could be credited to the underdeveloped pitch quality he enjoyed in 2017, a high .352 BABIP and atrocious 68.7% LOB%. In fact, Ray's xFIP in 2016 of 3.45 was inline with his 14th best 3.49 last season.
Ray enters 2018 as the Diamondbacks No. 2 pitcher with a power profile paired with a dominant slider. Two external circumstances continue to work in his favor: he pitches in the NL West and usually won't face other staffs aces (that task is Zack Greinke's). The Padres, Rockies and Dodgers all ranked in the top-half of NL teams in strikeouts last season while the Padres and Giants scored the fewest runs in all of baseball. For his part, Ray needs to work on inducing softer contact and pounding the strikezone. The 32.8% K-rate is special, but hitters hammered the ball when they made contact. His 40.4% Hard% rated last amongst qualified starters last year leading to a 15.6% HR/FB. Ray also displayed wildness; his 3.94 BB/9 was last in the majors which diluted the still-impressive 1.15 WHIP.
The key risk with Ray is that advances in areas like walks and pitching to contact will diminish strikeouts, his primary asset. Ray lived outside the zone last year, throwing only 43.8% of pitches for strikes. 21% of his pitches went low and away (for righties) which resulted in a .087 BAA in that quadrant. Ray still enjoyed mostly decent success pitching in the zone, implying more strikes wouldn't necessarily result in a worse ERA, but possibly a higher contact rate. Ray's .267 BABIP was also favorable. While some of that could be due to weak contact outside the zone, a higher BABIP appears more reasonable. The anomaly with Ray's peripherals was the incongruity of the low .267 BABIP and league-leading Hard%. One of those factors may give and either break could be a large swing factor in Ray's effectiveness.
Yu Darvish, Ray's dance partner in the discussion, also has several factors working against him. Five years older than Ray, Darvish showed alarming signs of possible father-time last year. His sinker and curveball deteriorated meaningfully and his slider, while still excellent, faded from a career high pitch value of 3.00 in 2012 to 1.78 last season. Erosion in these pitches coupled with an ordinary fastball led to career worsts in K/9, HR/9 and Hard%.
With ADPs only a few picks apart, Ray and Darvish are similar. Both pitchers possess mid-90s fastballs and killer sliders to boot. Each have a shot at over 15 wins and league-leading K-rates. For their modest flaws, both should deliver workable ERAs and WHIPs. However, instead of risking Darvish's continued regression, the 26-year-old Ray presents an opportunity to advance on last season's career year.
Yu Darvish (SP, CHC)
(NFBC ADP 51, RotoBaller SP12 / 45th Overall)
Unlike Ray, Yu Darvish has essentially dominated since he stepped foot on a major-league mound. Yes, 2017 was his worst healthy season of his career. But if a 3.5-fWAR campaign is the career low, fantasy owners can work with that all day. Splitting time with the Rangers and Dodgers, the right-hander posted a 10-12 record with a respectable 3.86 ERA (3.65 xFIP) in 186 2/3 innings. His top-10 status as a fantasy starting pitcher has dipped slightly, but he's still being drafted as a top-12 option heading into the 2018 season, his first in a Cubs uniform.
Darvish's primary fantasy asset, though he brings several, is his ability to strike batters out. Since his debut season in 2012, no other active starting pitcher has a better K/9 (11.04), and only Max Scherzer (30.4%) boasts a better strikeout rate (29.7%). Both rates dipped in 2017, Darvish's age-30 season; that alone might be alarming. However, his strikeout totals steadily rose throughout the year, which was easy to ignore given his 4.50 ERA in the second half. However, his xFIP (3.12) was far better than his first-half mark (3.90), in part because he started punching hitters out at an elite rate again (29.7 K% vs. 25.9 K% before the All-Star break). As further evidence his stuff didn't severely diminish, Darvish's swinging strike rate (12.3%) dipped only slightly from 2016 (12.6%) and was above his career mark of 12.2%.
But let's say Darvish's overall strikeout rate for the season (27.3%) is what we can expect moving forward. That was still one of the best percentages in baseball, ranking 12th among qualified pitchers. His fastball velocity (94.3 mph) hasn't gone anywhere, and his slider, while it did see a dip in swing strike rate and an uptick in wOBA against, was still seventh-best in the league in pitch value. Ray's 32.8 K% outpaced the Cubs' new ace, but Darvish also doesn't come with the extra risks. His walk rate, while fairly mediocre for his career (8.9%), has steadily gone down in his last three healthy seasons, sitting at a below-league-average 7.5% since 2016.
Darvish also gives up far less hard contact. Although his Hard% rose to a career-high 33.1% in 2017, that paled in comparison to Ray's league-worst percentage. While Darvish's results reflected the uptick in hard contact allowed, Ray's did not. In other words, if those numbers carry over into 2018, Ray is going to give up a whole lot more hits than he did in 2017; his unsustainably low BABIP and high strand rate also reflect that possibility. And with his poor walk rate, that's going to lead to trouble in both the ERA and WHIP categories in standard leagues. Moreover, Darvish still managed to post the second-best Soft% of his career (20.5%) and ranked 15th in the league. As a result, his overall average exit velocity was still passable at 85.6 mph, coming in at 31st out of 128 pitchers who allowed 300 or more batted balls.
Home runs were a problem for both pitchers last year; given that both have below-average groundball rates and surrendered a lot of hard-hit balls, that's not a huge surprise. Wrigley Field can both help and hurt Darvish in that regard. When the wind is blowing out, it may not bode well for the right-hander. If the wind is blowing in, however, hitters will be the ones at a disadvantage. His new home ballpark is slightly tougher on lefties when it comes to suppressing the long ball, which should benefit Darvish since he has performed slightly worse (though still very, very well) against them for his career (.305 wOBA vs. .269 wOBA vs. righties).
The argument essentially comes down to risk, as the two pitchers are being drafted right next to one another. Darvish is an established performer at the big-league level, while Ray has only one elite season under his belt. Darvish showed signs of regression last year, but even in a down year, he was still a top pitcher in the game. Ray, meanwhile, is a top candidate for regression; he'll be a prime source of strikeouts, but his penchant for allowing hard contact and walking a ton of hitters will likely come back to bite him unless something changes. Darvish's World Series performance may have left a sour taste in your mouth, but he's still a top fantasy pitcher heading into 2018.
