Are You For Real? Surprising Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Starts From Cole Irvin and Alec Marsh

Elliott Baas looks at starting pitchers who turned in surprising starts recently. These SPs could emerge as fantasy baseball waiver wire targets and sleepers for Week 8, or simply mirages.

Welcome back to "Are You For Real?", a weekly column where we take starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legit or just smoke and mirrors.

This week we're looking at a pair of AL hurlers who have gotten the job done despite lower strikeout rates. First, we'll look at Baltimore's Cole Irvin, who's been on a tear over his last five starts. Then, we'll break down Alec Marsh's hot start for the Royals.

Roster percentages are taken from Yahoo! and are accurate as of May 13.

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Cole Irvin, Baltimore Orioles – 38% Rostered

2024 Stats (prior to this start): 34.2 IP, 2.86 ERA, 3.33 FIP, 10.9% K-BB%

5/10 vs. ARI: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

Irvin has been rolling as of late, this time holding the Diamondbacks to just two runs over 5.2 innings en route to his fourth straight victory. A solid start from Irvin, who allowed an earned run for the first time since April 15 in this start. Irvin is 4-1 with a sparkling 2.90 ERA, which looks like a huge step forward from the 4.42 ERA he had last season. Has Irvin turned a corner, or will this hot streak fade?

Originally a fifth-round pick by Philadelphia back in 2016, Irvin was never much of a prospect. His lack of prospect pedigree was due to his lack of velocity. Irvin was throwing 90 mph when he was coming up, although he’s added a little velocity and now throws 92 mph. Velocity has never been Irvin’s game, with Irvin sporting a deep arsenal of secondary pitches. Altogether, he throws a four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, changeup, and curveball.

Irvin may use a lot of different pitches, but the curveball has stood out as his most-used pitch this season. Irvin has thrown his curveball 28.5% of the time thus far. A low vert, 79 mph offering with low spin, Irvin’s curveball is more of a slurve than a true curveball. Batters have fared alright against the pitch with a .267 AVG, but Irvin has limited hitters to a .333 SLG and .292 wOBA with his curveball. Irvin doesn’t miss many bats with his curveball, but he’s a soft contact king, allowing an 85.6 mph average exit velocity against his curveball. He also has a solid 43.8% groundball rate and a 25% infield flyball rate with the pitch. It’s a passable offering that should induce outs, though he may be limited in the strikeout department.

The curveball may be Irvin’s most used pitch, but is it his best? Probably not, as those honors belong to his changeup. A relatively hard changeup at 85.2 mph, Irvin has dominated hitters with this pitch thus far. Batters are hitting .154 against Irvin’s changeup along with a .154 SLG and .138 wOBA. The changeup is also Irvin’s best strikeout pitch, with Irvin sporting a 15.7% swinging strike rate and 35.6% chase rate with his changeup thus far. It remains to be seen whether Irvin can sustain these results on his changeup. A .291 xBA, .440 xSLG, and .314 xwOBA portend doom, and the pitch is allowing a 91.4 mph average exit velocity against. He currently has a .190 BABIP against his changeup but a .268 career BABIP against, further suggesting that Irvin’s changeup is overperforming.

Another pitch that’s performed well for Irvin would be his sinker, a pitch he throws 18.8% of the time. Batters are hitting just .219 against the pitch with a .375 SLG and .316 wOBA. Unlike his changeup, the expected stats don’t suggest regression is coming. Irvin has a .220 xBA, .329 xSLG, and .297 xwOBA with his sinker this season. Batters also have an 85.9 mph average exit velocity and a 7-degree average launch angle against the pitch. Irvin is hammering the pitch in the zone and up in the zone more this season. His sinker zone rate is currently at 72.1%, 10% higher than his career mark. Here’s a comparison of his sinker usage this season compared to previous seasons.

2019-2023:

2024:

He's attacking hitters high and away this season, and it’s helped him produce a 55.9% groundball rate with the pitch, up nearly 13% from his career average. Overall, Irvin’s groundball rate is at a career-high 49.2% and his home run rate is at a career-best 0.67 HR/9. Irvin has become more of a groundball pitcher, and this represents a legitimate improvement if he can maintain this success.

Verdict:

There are some little things to like about Irvin’s game, such as his changeup whiff rate or improved groundball rate on his sinker, but the total package lacks upside. Irvin has a double-digit swinging strike rate with just one of his pitches, the changeup, and has a pitiful 6.8% swinging strike rate and 17.5% strikeout rate overall. Strikeouts aren’t everything, but Irvin will be deficient in that category all season long. He’s been riding a .194 BABIP over his last four starts and has a .267 BABIP on the season. On the bright side, Irvin pitches for a good team and should have plenty of win opportunities throughout the season. Wins and volume, that’s what Irvin provides, making him a decent streamer in standard leagues or a back-end starter in deeper leagues.

Alec Marsh,  Kansas City Royals – 15% Rostered

2024 Stats (prior to this start): 26.2 IP, 2.70 ERA, 3.25 FIP, 9.3% K-BB%

5/10 @ LAA: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

Marsh returned from the IL in style Friday night, allowing just one run on four hits over 5.1 innings in Anaheim. Marsh had been rolling prior to being placed on the injured list, going two straight starts without allowing a run. Altogether, Marsh has allowed one or fewer runs in four of his six starts this season and owns a sparkling 2.53 ERA on the year, yet he remains a low-rostered player. Does Marsh deserve some love, or is he swamp water?

Drafted in the competitive balance section of the second round back in 2019, Marsh wasn’t known as a prospect on a national level, but he did rank as highly as third in Kansas City’s system by FanGraphs in 2023. A solid 6-foot-2, 220 lbs righty, Marsh works with a five-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, sinker, and changeup. Even though he throws a lot of different pitches, Marsh incorporates them all somewhat equally in his game, throwing each pitch at least 13.1% of the time. His most used pitch is his four-seam fastball, which Marsh throws 35.9% of the time.

Marsh peppered the Angels with fastballs on Friday, throwing the pitch 43% of the time and earning 10 of his whopping 19 whiffs with the pitch. A mid-90s offering, Marsh has averaged 93.9 mph with the pitch on the year, but his velocity was up in this start at 94.5 mph. He also threw his hardest MLB pitch ever at 98.4 mph. Marsh’s fastball is also a high spin offering at 2,502 RPM, and has plus horizontal break. Marsh has been challenging hitters more with the pitch this season, with the zone rate on his four-seamer going up more than 10% from 50% in 2023 to 60.7% in 2024. Here’s a heatmap comparison of his fastball usage.

2023:

2024:

He's still attacking hitters high, but he’s keeping the pitch in the upper part of the zone more frequently. Batters seem to have a hard time squaring up his new approach, as Marsh has allowed a 79.9 mph average exit velocity against and a 19-degree average launch angle against with this pitch. That means he’s inducing plenty of weak flyballs, which is practically a synonym for an out.

His chase rate has improved despite (or perhaps because of) his increased zone rate, going from 21.6% to 25.8%. His swinging strike rate with the fastball has also gone up from 9.4% to 11.9% this season. With this approach, Marsh may continue to get more swing-and-miss from his fastball going forward. He won’t be a Tyler Glasnow, but I think he can do better than his current 18.5% strikeout rate.

If this strikeout rate were to improve, it would likely be due to improvements in his slider, which is his best strikeout pitch. A sharp 86.6 mph offering, Marsh’s slider has slightly above-average vertical movement and spin at 2,506 RPM. Batters have struggled with the pitch, hitting just .182 with a .455 SLG and .221 wOBA. The expected stats support this performance with a  .197 xBA, .397 xSLG, and .268 xwOBA. Marsh has a solid 14.9% swinging strike rate and 32% chase rate with the pitch thus far. It’s definitely not a dominant, wipeout slider that’ll have Marsh racking up the Ks, but again he could be better than his current 18.5% strikeout rate.

Then there’s the luck of it all. Ernest Hemingway wrote that you make your own luck, but Hemingway didn’t have access to FanGraphs. Even a cursory look at Marsh’s page will let you know that he’s been fortunate. Marsh currently sports a .234 BABIP against, an 80.1% LOB rate, and a 5.4% HR/FB rate. That’s a big reason why he has a 4.21 xFIP and 4.34 SIERA despite a 2.53 ERA. Marsh’s .266 xBA this season is actually higher than the .257 xBA he had last season when he had a 5.69 ERA. It’s true that Marsh is making his own luck to some degree, as the weak contact he’s induced with his fastball would lend itself to a lower BABIP, but we cannot expect him to maintain a .239 BABIP against all season. Marsh has certainly made some improvements and can be a better pitcher this season than he was last season, but there’s no denying that Marsh has been lucky through his first six starts and will likely regress to an ERA above four.

Verdict:

Marsh has produced some great results thus far, and he has done a good job of inducing weak contact and whiffs with better fastball location. Marsh has gotten a solid number of whiffs on his fastball and slider this season, and he could have a better strikeout rate going forward. He’s also cut down on the walks big time this season, going from 11.4% last year to 6.9% this year. Luck has played a significant role in Marsh’s early season success, and regression is likely coming for him at some point. He just won’t be able to sustain a .239 BABIP, 5.4% HR/FB rate, and 80.1% LOB rate all season long. Marsh is firmly in the streamer category, and I’d mostly try and use him against soft opponents like the Mike Trout-less Angels. His next matchup comes against Seattle, who is ranked 25th in wOBA and last in strikeout rate against right-handed pitchers this season, making it a fine matchup for Marsh.

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