Are You For Real? Surprising Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Starts From Jack Kochanowicz and Matthew Boyd

September 4, 2024

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 24, or simply mirages.

Welcome back to the "Are You For Real?" series as we dive into Week 24 of the 2024 fantasy baseball season. We've got two AL arms to break down this week, a rookie and a veteran. First, we'll deep dive into Angels rookie Jack Kochanowicz's hot stretch. Then, we'll look at the return of veteran lefty Matthew Boyd in Cleveland.

For those who are not familiar, this is 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.

Roster percentages are taken from Yahoo! and are accurate as of September 2.

Jack Kochanowicz, Los Angeles Angels – 2% Rostered

2024 Stats (prior to this start): 26.2 IP, 6.08 ERA, 5.65 FIP, 0.9% K-BB%
8/29 @ DET: 6 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K

Kochanowicz had the best start of his young career on Thursday, blanking the Tigers over six innings while striking out four. It was Kochanowicz’s fourth straight quality start and he has a 2.45 ERA over his last four outings. He had a rough start to his career, but Kochanowicz seems to be turning a corner. Could he be useful down the stretch, or is this a landmine waiting to blow?

Originally a third-round pick by the Angels back in 2019, Kochanowicz wasn’t much of a prospect on a national level, but he was ranked as the Angels’ 13th-best prospect by Fangraphs this year. Tall and lanky at 6-foot-7 and 228 lbs, Kochanowicz works with a four-pitch mix consisting of a sinker, curveball, changeup, and four-seam fastball.

Kochanowicz may have four pitches in his arsenal, but he relied heavily on two in this outing. He threw his sinker 79% of the time and his curveball 19% of the time, mixing in just one four-seamer and zero changeups. The sinker is Kochanowicz’s specialty as he’s thrown the pitch 69.3% of the time this season.

If a sinker’s purpose is to induce groundballs, then Kochanowicz’s sinker does an excellent job. A 95.7 mph offering, he has an incredible -5-degree average launch angle against with his sinker along with a 64.4% groundball rate. Overall, Kochanowicz has a 59.3% groundball rate, which would be second-highest in the league if Kochanowicz had enough innings to qualify.

Unfortunately, the extreme groundball rate hasn’t translated to positive outcomes for Kochanowicz. Opponents are hitting .326 with a .457 SLG and .361 wOBA against his sinker this season. The expected stats are nearly identical to the actual stats at a .317 xBA, .455 xSLG, and .357 xwOBA against. Things have been better for Kochanowicz over his last four starts, with a .275 AVG and .350 SLG against since August 11.

I’m usually a fan of pitchers who possess extreme skills, and that’s certainly the case for Kochanowicz with his groundball prowess. With this sinker, he has the potential to be one of the best groundball starting pitchers in MLB. Here’s an example of the pitch.

Jack Kochanowicz, Nasty 97mph Sinker. 😨 pic.twitter.com/ed1f1userj

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 11, 2024

Nasty stuff, and Kochanowicz has 5.8 inches of drop above average on his sinker. The sinker looks like a major league caliber pitch.

The sinker may be solid, but what else does Kochanowicz have to offer? His second-most used pitch is his curveball, an 85.6 mph offering with solid spin at 2,729 RPM. Batters are hitting just .208 against the curveball, along with a .458 SLG and .329 wOBA. The curveball has proven to be Kochanowicz’s best strikeout pitch as well, as he’s sporting a 13.8% swinging strike rate and a 29.1% chase rate with the pitch.

The curveball is undeniably Kochanowicz’s best strikeout pitch, but that doesn't make it a good strikeout pitch. A 13.8% swinging strike rate is okay-ish, but a sub-30% chase rate is pitiful. Speaking of pitiful, Kochanowicz has a comically low 3.31 K/9 at the major league level. This is one area that Kochanowicz hasn’t improved in over his hot four-start stretch. He has a 2.5 K/9 over his last four starts. It’s almost hard to believe a major league pitcher has a strikeout rate that low in 2024.

Perhaps Kochanowicz is capable of a better strikeout rate—he did have a 7.59 K/9 at Double-A prior to his promotion—but it’s hard to believe he has the potential for even a passable strikeout rate given his limited repertoire. Kochanowicz throws his sinker and curveball a combined 93% of the time. He’s a two-pitch pitcher, and while the two pitches aren’t bad offerings, they aren’t good enough to carry him at the major league level either. He needs to flesh out his arsenal if he hopes to succeed.

Therein lies the crux of the problem in rostering Kochanowicz; he’s incredibly limited. Sure, you might luck out with another quality start, but he has no strikeout upside and he pitches for a terrible team. At best you’re getting six innings and two to four strikeouts, along with limited win potential given the state of the Angels roster. At worst, you’re getting tagged for seven runs and watching your ratios balloon.

Verdict:

Kochanowicz is an excellent groundball pitcher with a nasty sinker at his disposal, but ultimately he has some growing to do before he’s fantasy-viable in standard mixed leagues. He’s effectively a two-pitch pitcher between his sinker and his curveball, and while they aren’t bad pitches by any means, neither pitch is good enough to carry him.

The risky floor isn’t worth the limited ceiling in Kochanowicz, who has a 5.49 xERA and 1.71 K:BB ratio. He reminds me a little of Dakota Hudson because he can get groundballs, but can’t do much else. That’s not someone I’m interested in rostering, especially as playoffs roll around.

Matthew Boyd, Cleveland Guardians – 26% Rostered

2024 Stats (prior to this start): 16.2 IP, 2.70 ERA, 4.19 FIP, 10.8% K-BB%
8/31 vs. PIT: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K

Boyd had his best start of the season on Saturday, fanning eight Buccos and holding Pittsburgh to just one run over six innings. It was a tough luck loss however for Boyd, who is now 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA over four starts with Cleveland.

Boyd hasn’t been fantasy-relevant since the 2021 season when he posted a 3.89 ERA over 15 starts. Since then it’s been nothing but injuries and poor performances for Boyd, but he’s performing well and has certainly piqued the interest of many fantasy players. Is Boyd back to being an asset, or should we avoid the veteran southpaw?

A longtime Detroit Tiger, Boyd struggled to get a major league opportunity this season, only getting the chance thanks to the pitching-needy Guardians giving him a contract. Boyd works with a five-pitch mix, consisting of a four-seam fastball, changeup, slider, sinker, and curveball.

Boyd may have a deep arsenal, but some of the pitches stand out over others. One of those would be his changeup, which is Boyd’s best strikeout pitch. He earned 10 of his 18 whiffs with the changeup in this start, and he has an 18.8% swinging strike rate with the pitch thus far. Opponents are hitting .250 against the changeup along with a .458 SLG and .315 wOBA. Here’s an example of the pitch from this start.

Ironically, while the changeup is Boyd’s best strikeout pitch it’s also been his worst-performing pitch in terms of outcomes. Boyd has a sub-.200 AVG against all of his other pitches, along with a sub-.400 SLG and sub-.300 wOBA. His best two performing pitches have been the four-seam fastball and the slider, both of which have a .118 AVG against.

The batted balls against Boyd’s four-seamer have been wild, with batters putting up a 90.9 mph average exit velocity, but a whopping 35-degree average launch angle. Boyd has a 53.3% flyball and an impressive 62.5% infield flyball rate with his fastball thus far. He’s always had flyball tendencies, but he’s taken it to the extreme.

With all these flyballs it’s a wonder that Boyd has just a 0.79 HR/9, especially considering his career 1.57 HR/9. He may be inducing a lot of infield flyballs, also known as popups, but he’s also surrendering his fair share of hard contact. His 4.15 xFIP should scare fantasy managers a bit because xFIP normalizes HR/FB to league average, so if Boyd had a league average HR/FB ratio, his ERA would likely be north of 4.00.

The changeup isn’t Boyd’s only good strikeout pitch, as he’s gotten plenty of whiffs with his slider thus far. He has a 12.9% swinging strike rate and a 35.1% chase rate with the pitch. He notched four whiffs on eight swings against Pittsburgh, which, after breaking out the calculator, comes to an impressive 50% whiff rate. Boyd put up some solid strikeout numbers during his peak with Detroit, and it looks like he might be able to replicate past success with his deep arsenal.

Unfortunately, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for Boyd. Yes, his surface-level stats look great, but there’s reason to be skeptical of this performance. There are three important stats to look at when evaluating how lucky a pitcher has been, and Boyd is overperforming in all three. He has a .203 BABIP against, an 80.2% LOB rate, and a 6.5% HR/FB rate. All of those are large deviations from league average in Boyd’s favor, and it’s unlikely that he can maintain any of those numbers over a longer period of time.

There are plenty of factors working in Boyd’s favor as well. He’s displayed some impressive control thus far, posting a career-low 5.8% walk rate. He had a 9.3% walk rate between 2022-2023, so it’s nice to see Boyd find some control on the mound.

Boyd also happens to pitch for one of MLB’s strongest teams this season, and even though he was a tough-luck loser this time around he should have plenty of win opportunities for the first-place Guardians. As a 33-year-old rental, Boyd should have zero innings restrictions and seems to have a relatively long leash, going six innings in each of his last two starts. Boyd isn’t that exciting, but he represents a solid streaming option in the right matchup.

Verdict:

Is Matthew Boyd back? Depends on your definition of back. He’ll likely never replicate the 11.56 K/9 he posted over 185.1 innings in 2019, but he also looks like a much better pitcher than he has been over the past few seasons. That may not be saying much as Boyd has struggled to stay healthy and struggled to keep a rotation spot when healthy, but for now, he’s got a stable job and a deep arsenal of solid pitches.

Don’t rush out and blow all of your FAAB to acquire Boyd, but Boyd could be a solid streamer down the stretch. He has decent strikeout upside with his changeup and slider and he has good win potential pitching for Cleveland. His next start is scheduled for Friday against the Dodgers, so he’s an avoid there, but after that, he lines up to face the lowly White Sox, the juiciest matchup in baseball.

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