Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 14

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. As we trudge towards the All-Star break the waiver wire feels thinner by the week, and we aren't flush with as many exciting, fresh young arms to break down this week. This week there's a common theme connecting all three pitchers we're looking at, and that is resurgence. Each pitcher has been fantasy viable to varying degrees at some point in their careers, but have had had a rough first half until this week.

Drew Smyly outdueled Pablo Lopez, who only lasted one pitch for some strange reason. Smyly earned his fourth straight win against the Marlins on Friday. Kyle Freeland tossed his his second straight scoreless start in Coors by blanking the Cardinals over six innings. Brad Keller put an awful June behind him quickly with his first quality start in over a month Sunday against the Twins.

Roster percentages quoted in this piece are based on Yahoo availability and are accurate as of 7/5/2021.

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Drew Smyly, Atlanta Braves

34% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 67.2 IP, 4.79 ERA, 5.42 FIP, 2.5 K/BB ratio

07/02 vs. MIA: 5.2 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

There were hopes among many for a Drew Smyly renaissance coming into 2021 after his strong but brief stint in San Francisco last year. Those hopes were quickly dashed after Smyly posted an 8.05 ERA and 8.52 FIP in the month of April. He remained in Atlanta’s rotation out of necessity through an iffy May, but Smyly has begun to turn things around as of late. Over his last four starts, Smyly has a 1.21 ERA, 2.08 FIP, and 3.5 K/BB ratio in 22.1 innings. The best start of of the hot streak was against Miami on Friday, where he struck out seven and kept the Marlins off the scoreboard for 5.2 innings. Were the Drew Smyly believers right all along, or is this merely a fleeting stretch of success?

Smyly has spent his entire career toying with fantasy players, always appearing on the cusp of a breakout only to fall to pieces when all said and done. It’s not all his fault, as Smyly has dealt with shoulder issues and underwent Tommy John surgery during what should’ve been the prime of his career. Even so, it’s easy to see how many fantasy players, including yours truly, were enticed by Smyly’s talent even from his early days in Detroit. Smyly has an impressive three-pitch arsenal which is anchored by a 92.5 MPH four-seam fastball and paired with the dual threat of his cutter and curveball, two pitches that Smyly has used to generate strikeouts with great success at certain points of his career.

Smyly’s signature pitch this season has been his curveball, which he has thrown a career-high 38.4% of the time. Smyly’s curveball usage has been creeping up since 2019 when he returned from Tommy John surgery, but it has reached its apex in 2021. He’s been using it even more recently, as Smyly threw his curveball 47.7% of the time in this start, and generated 10 of his 16 whiffs with the pitch. On the season, Smyly has a 17.7% swinging strike rate with the curveball, which is above his career mark by 2% but lower than his 2020 mark by 4.7%. Even when batters make contact they can’t do much with it, as opponents are hitting .205 with a .263 wOBA and 85 MPH average exit velocity against Smyly’s curve this season. Smyly’s curveball has some incredible movement, especially it’s vertical movement, with 8.7 inches of drop above league average. Here are a few examples from this start.

Those look downright filthy, and hopefully looking at these allows newer fantasy baseball players to understand why Smyly has been the subject of hype pretty much throughout his career. He’s got one of the more effective swing-and-miss curveballs of any starter in the majors. One might wonder if Smyly will suffer as a result of MLB’s crackdown on foreign substances, and it does look like Smyly’s lost a little spin on his curveball (roughly 100 RPM) since the rules were enacted. Fortunately for Smyly, the strength of his curveball is in the vertical movement and break, not the spin. His average spin of 2131 RPM is pretty darn low for a major league curveball, so Smyly may be able to withstand a lack of sticky stuff more than the average pitcher, especially one who relies heavily on a curveball.

The curveball looks as good as ever with Smyly, yet he’s been so inconsistent throughout the year. What gives? One puzzling change Smyly has made in 2021 is a reduction in cutter usage. Smyly had used his cutter around 18% of the time over the previous two seasons, but he’s thrown it just 8% of the time this year and threw just four cutters total in his most recent start against the Marlins. His cutter has performed well this season with a .208 AVG against, but the expected stats paint a much more pessimistic picture, as Smyly’s cutter has a .344 xBA, .754 xSLG, and .500 xWOBA on the year. That could be one reason why Smyly isn’t using the cutter, and his cutter has been the source of power against over his career. Batters have a .279 AVG and .503 SLG against Smyly’s cutter all time.

Smyly may have reduced his usage to avoid giving up homers, but it’s not exactly working. He has a 1.84 HR/9 thus far, the second-highest of his career. The only other explanation for reduced cutter usage would be to preserve his arm since Smyly is one of the more fragile pitchers in the majors. He didn’t pull back cutter usage last season, but he also threw just 26.1 innings and the Giants weren’t expecting much of him coming into the year. The Braves need Smyly to be a veteran innings-eater on a team that expects to be competing for a playoff spot down the stretch. That means they may be willing to live with him posting a higher ERA and lower strikeout rate if it means he stays healthy all season, especially given the tumult and turnover Atlanta has experienced in their rotation this year with injuries to young pitchers.

Verdict:

Whether it’s the Braves’ prerogative or Smyly’s own approach, a lack of cutter usage essentially makes Smyly a two-pitch pitcher. Smyly is throwing his fastball harder this season at 92.5 MPH, which is unusual for a 32-year-old pitcher, but it’s not been enough to help the results because opponents are hitting .283 with a .503 SLG and .367 wOBA against Smyly’s heater this season. The expected stats predict even worse outcomes for Smyly’s fastball, and with a 91 MPH average exit velocity and 19-degree average launch angle against it’s easy to see how Smyly’s fastball has been crushed for seven homers this season. Smyly’s curveball is a great pitch, but he’s not good enough to survive as a two-pitch pitcher (few are) and unless the cutter returns, we’re going get this ho-hum low strikeout, mid-fours ERA version of Smyly. He’s a streamer at best.

Brad Keller, Kansas City Royals

9% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 81 IP, 6.67 ERA, 5.17 FIP, 1.6 K/BB ratio

07/04 vs. MIN: 6.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

Keller quietly posted a 2.47 ERA over the COVID-shortened 2020 season, but he has not been able to carry over even a modicum of that success in 2021. This season has been a disaster for Keller who has thus far posted the worst ERA, FIP, walk rate, and home run rate of his career. He has posted his highest career strikeout rate at 17.7%, but it’s hard to take solace in that when everything else has gone so poorly. June was especially bad for Keller, has he posted an 8.31 ERA with a .367 AVG against. If he was on a team with more options, Keller likely would’ve lost his rotation spot, but luckily for him prospects such as Jackson Kowar and Daniel Lynch flopped and the Royals don’t have any other options. Keller has gotten a longer leash than he probably deserves. That long leash may pay off for him and Kansas City since Keller posted his best start in over a month and may finally be turning things around.

Despite being just 25 years old, Keller is a seasoned veteran in his fourth year in the bigs with Kansas City. Keller may have come up at a young age, but he never fit the young and exciting mold. He uses a pitch-to-contact style predicated on groundballs and power prevention, foregoing sexy stats like strikeouts, strong K/BB ratios, and low ERA predictors like FIP and SIERA. Keller primarily uses a three pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, sinker, and slider. He does throw a show-me changeup about 4% of the time, but it’s not a major part of his game. Keller really comes up short in the strikeout department, as previously mentioned his career high is 17.7%, which is still the seventh-lowest strikeout rate among qualified starters. Most of the pitchers that have sub-20% strikeout rates do a good job of preventing walks, but that’s not the case with Keller. He has a 10.6% walk rate on the year. He is neck-and-neck with Boston’s Garrett Richards for worst K/BB ratio among qualified starters this year, which is last place any pitcher should want to be as K/BB ratio is one of the most telling metrics when it comes to a pitcher's true skill.

Keller has made one noticeable change to his pitch mix this season, using his sinker more than ever at 33.7% of the time. Keller may have made this shift to help induce more groundballs since his sinker is a groundball machine. He has a career 59.4% groundball rate and .113 ISO with this sinker, but the pitch has underperformed this season. Batters are clobbering the pitch for a .349 AVG and .391 wOBA, and Keller has a career worst 55.2% groundball rate with his sinker this season. Because of this, Keller’s overall groundball rate is below 50% for the first time in his career despite throwing his best groundball pitch more than ever. Keller’s best skill has been inducing groundballs, and with just a 48.5% groundball on the year ,Keller is no longer special in that department. He’s still above average, but not special, and he doesn’t make up for it enough in other areas to overcome this dip. Most of those grounders have turned into line drives as well, since Keller has a 25.1% line drive rate on the year, a career high and tied for the third-highest among qualified starters. Yet again, Keller is towards the bottom on an important and telling figure.

Keller is using his sinker more, but it’s not having the desired effect in inducing groundballs. That means he has to pivot to another approach, but he can’t lean on his four-seamer either as batters are pulverizing the pitch for a .351 AVG, .596 SLG, and .443 wOBA. The Statcast expected stats suggest Keller’s earned every bit of this pounding as well, and his Statcast page is blue as an ocean as all of his Statcast metrics and expected stats are at or near the bottom of the league. That leaves just one option for Keller to right the ship, and that’s his slider.

Keller leaned heavily on the slider in this start against Minnesota using it 55% of the time, which was the highest slider usage of his career and the only time he’s ever been above 50% slider usage in a game. He also generated 15 whiffs with the slider and 16 total, giving him a 16.7% swinging strike rate for the entire start, his highest mark in any start since 2018. Even though Keller isn’t a big strikeout pitcher, this slider has strong drop and can look really good at times. Here are a few examples from this start.

It's hard to believe those pitches were thrown by someone with a career 6.57 K/9, but Keller’s slider has above average vertical movement and its diving action can deceive batters into thinking it’s a juicy Brad Keller fastball. Despite the strong movement, batters have still managed a .261 AVG and .429 SLG against the pitch this season. Better than his fastballs, but those outcomes are still much higher than we’d expect or hope for in a slider. All of his pitches have underperformed this season. That's why he has an ugly .364 BABIP against, but the slider is the one pitch I think could lead to better days ahead for Keller. It’ll be interesting to see whether his slider usage stays this high over his next few starts.

Verdict:

Keller may have merely taken advantage of a Twins lineup that was missing its best two hitters in Nelson Cruz and Josh Donaldson (they were hitting Trevor Larnach third in this game for crying out loud), but I’ll at least be observing from the outside at his next start. Even at his best, I’ve never dug Brad Keller. He’s basically a one-category pitcher, and that’s ERA. His high groundball rate and walk rate means his WHIP is usually around 1.30 or higher. It’s rare that he gives you more than a few strikeouts in a start and he’s on a team that won’t give him much win opportunities. Furthermore, he’s demonstrated that his downside can be 5+ earned runs on any given day against any given team. Seriously, he’s allowed five earned runs or more in 23% of his career starts. I’m not taking a greater than 1/5 shot at a blow up for a pitcher with a 1.81 K/BB ratio unless I’m desperate.

Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies

4% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 31.2 IP, 6.54 ERA, 6.72 FIP, 2.0 K/BB ratio

07/03 vs. STL: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

It wasn’t that long ago that Freeland posted one of the best seasons by a starter in Rockies franchise history, going 17-7 with a 2.85 ERA in 202.1 innings back in 2018. He finished fourth in Cy Young voting that year, and it looked like the Denver native was the pitcher to finally crack the Coors Field code. Unfortunately for Freeland, Coors field bit back after that season, and since 2018 he has a 5.71 ERA in 212.2 innings. The bulk of that damage came in his dreadful 2019 season, but Freeland hasn’t come close to recapturing the glory 2018. We know he likely won’t ever post a sub-3 ERA again, and he won’t sniff 17 wins on this club, but is there a path back to fantasy viability for Freeland?

Freeland may have impressed by blanking the Cardinals on Saturday, but he’s been on something of a hot streak lately, allowing one earned run combined over his last three starts despite two of those starts being at home. Even with his recent hot streak ,the needle hasn’t moved much on Freeland and it’s hard to blame fantasy players. It’s not easy to drop FAB dollars when a 5.50 ERA is staring you in the face, especially on a Colorado pitcher.

Freeland has a pretty deep repertoire, using a four-seam fastball, a sinker, a slider, a changeup, and a curveball. He utilizes the entire arsenal pretty evenly too, throwing each pitch over 10% of the time. The four-seam and slider have been his two most commonly used pitches and the only two Freeland throws over 25% of the time. Lots of different pitches and varying pitch mixes isn’t always a good thing. In fact, it’s a common trait among junk-ball pitchers who just toss a whole bunch of junk because they don’t have those one or two great pitches they can rely on for outs. That description has fit Freeland at certain points in his career, but he has two pitches that look like they could provide the foundation for a decent starting pitcher, including one he recently developed.

Freeland’s two breaking balls, the slider and the curveball, stand out among all his pitches as the two that could serve as strong offers and the basis of his entire profile. Just a note for clarity’s sake, some websites refer to Freeland’s harder breaking ball as a cutter and his slower breaking ball as a slider, while others refer to them as a slider and curveball. I’m going to call his hard, 85-87 MPH breaking ball a slider and his slower 79-80 MPH breaking ball a curveball in this piece. Freeland only started throwing his curveball last season, but it’s been his best pitch. Batters are hitting .233 with a .126 ISO and 75 wRC+ against the pitch all time, and in 2021 the numbers are even better. Opponents have an 083 AVG, .362 OPS, and 6 wRC+ against Freeland’s curveball this season, along with an 11.9% swinging strike rate. Here’s an example of the curveball from this start.

With it’s sweeping horizontal movement it easy to see how the pitch might be categorized as a slider instead of a curveball. The pitch is probably best described as a slurve, but sadly pitch-tracking software isn’t hip to baseball portmanteaus yet. With how effective the curveball has been, the question remains, why isn’t Freeland using it more? He’s only throwing the curveball 12.9% of the time this season. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to maintain an .083 AVG against if he were throwing it more, but his other pitches are getting hammered and one would think he’d lean on anything that’s working. Freeland has increased his curveball usage over his last three starts, throwing it at least 15% of the time in each outing. Hopefully, Freeland continues to increase his curveball usage because this pitch looks like one of the best he has to offer.

The other pitch that’s been crucial to Freeland’s success is his slider, which is a harder offering with less drastic movement. Like how his curve is more of a slurve, Freeland’s slider is more of a slider-cutter hybrid, or slutter. Batters have handled Freeland’s slider well this season, hitting it at a .333 clip with a .694 SLG and .452 wOBA. The expected stats paint a much rosier picture for Freeland’s slider, with a .233 xBA, .420 xSLG, and .317 xwOBA. I’m usually a little skeptical of expected stats when it comes to Colorado players because anecdotally I’ve observed a lot disparity between expected stats and actual stats for Colorado players. Check out the Statcast pages for Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, or Carlos Gonzalez to see some examples for yourself. I mention this because I don’t expect Freeland’s numbers on the slider (or any pitch) to revert at or near their Statcast expected values. Even so, there is still plenty to suggest Freeland has been unlucky on the slider this season, and I would expect better days ahead for the pitch going forward.

Freeland has begun using the slider more as of late too, throwing it over 39% of the time in his two starts prior to Saturday against the Cardinals. St. Louis used all right-handed or switch hitters in this start, which may be why Freeland only used the slider 19.4% of the time and used his changeup 24.5% of the time, which is far more than he had been using it. Freeland’s slider isn’t an amazing offering by any means, but the more he uses his slider and curveball the less he’s using the fastball and changeup. Considering opponents are hitting over .400 against both the change and sinker, that can only be good.

Verdict:

There has been a noticeable shift in Freeland’s pitch mix and sequencing over his last three starts, and while I don’t think he’s going to return to 2018 form or a must-add player, I must admit I’m more intrigued by Freeland than I expected to be in the year of our Lord 2021. If nothing else, he belongs on NL-Only rosters and deeper leagues. Heck, even in 15-teamers he could be a sneaky add. Of course, there’s always the Colorado issue, and he hasn’t earned trust in Coors Field yet for me. He’s usable against weak opponents and I would prefer him over Keller in deep leagues.

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