Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 7

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.

We're about a quarter of the way through the fantasy season, which means standings are beginning to set, numbers look a lot more real, and it may be starting to sink in for Patrick Corbin owners that he's not bouncing back this season. Fortunately, it also means there's still a ton of exciting pitchers to break down this week, and many fantasy managers in need of healthy, productive arms. This week we're looking at a grab bag of pitchers, breaking down recent hot starts from Zach Eflin of Philadelphia, Brady Singer of Kansas City, and Martin Perez of Texas.

Roster percentages are taken from Yahoo and are accurate as of 5/23/22.

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Zach Eflin, Philadelphia Phillies – 16% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 30 IP, 3.90 ERA, 2.60 FIP, 14.4% K-BB%

5/22 vs. LAD: 7 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 12 K

Eflin was incredible on Sunday, mowing down a stacked Dodgers lineup for a career-high 12 strikeouts over seven innings in a no decision. It was the second straight quality start for Eflin, who now sports a 3.65 ERA and 2.91 FIP over seven starts this season. Eflin has flirted with strong stretches of play in the past, only to flame out over the long haul. Will this recent hot streak continue, or are we wasting our Eflin time with Zach?

Originally drafted in the second round in 2014 by the Padres, Eflin was traded twice that year for a fading superstar, once to the Dodgers in the Matt Kemp deal, and again to the Phillies in the Jimmy Rollins swap. While not much of a prospect on the national scale, Eflin was a decent prospect in the Phillies system and someone they saw as either a back-end starter or long reliever. Eflin has been a fixture in Philadelphia’s rotation for several years now, and with a career 4.50 ERA he has really fit the back-end starter archetype thus far. He throws six different pitches, including a four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter, slider, changeup, and curveball. His fastball velocity sits around 92-93 MPH, though he threw a bit harder when he first arrived to the majors and was throwing his four-seamer more often. Nowadays Eflin has shifted towards a more sinker and curveball-heavy approach, and those two pitches were his bread-and-butter on Sunday.

Though Eflin has six pitches at his disposal, he leaned on his sinker and curveball in this one, throwing the two pitches a combined 70% of the time. This is the continuation of a trend we’ve seen from Eflin all season, who is throwing is curveball nearly 8% more often this season compared to last for a career high 18.1% usage rate. The curveball has worked well for him thus far, with batters hitting just .148 off the pitch with a .222 SLG and .182 xwOBA. Dodgers hitters certainly couldn’t handle it either, as Eflin earned 12 of his 19 whiffs on the curveball alone in this start. Here's an example from his most recent outing.

Averaging 78.5 MPH on the gun, Eflin’s curveball is sort of a unique offering. It has well above average drop and can look like an absolute beauty of a pitch at times, but also has relatively low spin for a curveball and has also been hit hard at times in the past.  I wouldn't quite call it a slurve, but it's definitely got some slurve-like tendencies. Still, the shift towards his curveball should be a net positive for Eflin, who now relies less on his weak slider in favor of the curveball and new cutter. While I wouldn’t expect double digit strikeouts very often, Elfin should be able to maintain a strikeout rate above 22% with the curve as his primary breaking ball, a solid mark for a mid-rotation guy, especially considering Eflin’s exceptional walk rate.

One of Eflin’s biggest strengths has been his ability to command his pitches and limit walks, and that skill has allowed him to get by with average or maybe slightly above average stuff for so long (the curveball looks good, but it’s far from elite). It’s one thing to throw six different pitches, it’s another to command them, and that’s where Eflin really thrives. Eflin was always able to maintain walk rates below 7% in the majors, but he’s taken it to another level starting last year. In 2021 he had a microscopic 3.6% walk rate, which would’ve been tops in the majors had Eflin thrown enough innings to qualify. He’s got a 4.6% walk rate this season, which puts him in the top-10 among starting pitchers. Eflin accomplishes this by pounding the zone with his fastballs, including a 59.3% career zone rate on his four-seamer and a 59.8% zone rate on his cutter this year. This ability to prevent free passes should help Eflin maintain a solid WHIP even when things aren’t going his way.

Verdict:

Altogether, Eflin profiles as a mid-rotation piece who can occasionally pop for big starts like he did on Sunday. His stuff doesn’t blow anyone away, both from the numbers test and the eye test, and he’s always sort of hanging around in the 3.75-4.25 ERA range by the end of the season. Increased curveball usage is a good sign, but hardly indicative of a star turn. Eflin has a long enough track record as a mid-rotation starter that we can trust him in most matchups, but should still avoid against the truly tough lineups. He’s got widespread availability, so if you’re in a deeper league he’s a good player to add for some end-of-the-bench stability. If you aren’t all that interested in playing the SP streamer roulette, he’s someone you could add and roll with all year and probably be okay with using most of the time even if the overall ceiling is low compared to other waiver wire adds.

Brady Singer, Kansas City Royals – 21% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this week): 5.2 IP, 6.35 ERA, 4.33 FIP, 19.2$ K-BB%

5/17 vs. CWS: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 9 K
5/22 vs. MIN: 7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 3 K

It was a heck of a week for Brady Singer, who was thrown into the Royals’ rotation due to a doubleheader on Tuesday just to dominate the White Sox, and went at it again on Sunday for seven more shutout innings against the Twins. A permanent rotation spot seems all but a certainty for Singer now, especially given the state of Kansas City’s current roster. Can the young righty keep up the good work, or will his fantasy managers be Singing the (powder) blues after picking him up?

A first-round pick by the Royals back in 2018, Singer was part of a crop of young KC arms ready to come up and take the major leagues by storm. While things haven’t quite worked out for Jackson Kowar or Kris Bubic yet, Singer has shown us at least some promise in the past, even posting a respectable 4.06 ERA over 12 starts in his rookie year back in 2020. He posted an ERA near five in his sophomore campaign however, which is why he was on the outside looking in for the Royals’ rotation to begin the year.

Singer works with a three-pitch arsenal consisting of a sinker, slider, and changeup. He’s always had the changeup, but past seasons he’s used the pitch under 5% of the time, making him effectively a two-pitch pitcher for the first two years of his career. This year has been different, however, as Singer has begun using the changeup much more frequently, throwing the pitch roughly 17% of the time in these two starts. Batters are hitting just .200 off the pitch so far, but have a .381 xBA and .573 xwOBA. He’s only thrown 33 changeups this year so these numbers are certainly influenced by a small sample and should be taken with a grain of salt, however the disparity between the actual results and expected results does illustrate how an increase in changeup usage may not be the key to long-term success for Singer. It would be outrageous to predict a full regression to the xBA and xwOBA on Singer’s changeup, but it’s clear from these numbers that the pitch has overperformed to a degree thus far.

Even if the changeup isn’t a world-beater for Singer, an increase in usage does give him something his game has been sorely lacking, and that’s a third pitch. Singer has been trying to skate by on his sinker and slider to this point, and while his slider is a decent pitch, his fastball is about average (though he is throwing slightly harder this season at 94.1 MPH) and he didn’t have the raw stuff to overcome wielding just two pitches as a starter. Incorporating a changeup more frequently should enable him to generate more swings-and-misses off his slider, which is his money pitch.

When Singer is at his best, his slider is working fantastically for him. That was the case for Singer in both of these starts, as he racked up a whopping 16 whiffs with his slider alone on Tuesday against the White Sox. He only got six on Sunday versus Minnesota, but that was still good for a 40% whiff rate in that game and a 42.9% whiff rate with his slider on the year. It’s a plus offering with 85.5 MPH velocity above average break. Here’s an example from this start.

It's a traditional, sweeping side-to-side slider that’s especially tough on right-handed batters. Opponents are hitting .294 against the pitch this season, but one can expect an unlucky .435 BABIP against Singer’s slider to correct, especially since batters never had a BAIBP over .300 or a batting average over .241 off Singer’s slider in previous years. Whereas we can expect regression towards more hits and balls-in-play off Singer’s changeup, we can also expect fewer hits and better results from Singer’s slider going forward.

Verdict:

It would be hard to declare Singer fixed after just two starts, but the addition of a changeup used more regularly can only benefit him. In the past he was something of a discount Dinelson Lamet, living off the fastball-slider and being extremely volatile from start to start. Singer didn’t have the top-level upside of Lamet, making him much less interesting in fantasy because he carried all the risk of a two-pitch pitcher with less reward. Now he’s someone fantasy managers should be very interested in keeping an eye on or adding in deeper leagues. There’s still quite a bit of risk with Singer and I’d be hesitant to start him against tough lineups or lineups that feature a lot of left-handed batters, but the addition of his changeup is a promising sign and could make Singer an effective mid to back-end rotation piece if he keeps it up.

Martin Perez, Texas Rangers – 60% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 40.1 IP, 2.01 ERA, 2.43 FIP, 13.8% K-BB%

5/20 @ HOU: 9 IP, 8 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

Boy oh boy, Martin Perez is pitching well for the Texas Rangers. This sure feels like a blast from the past. Between he, Yu Darvish, and Derek Holland, Rangers fans sure have a lot of great pitching to look forward to in the 2010s! What could possibly go wrong? Well, let’s digress back to 2022, where Perez has led a so-so MLB career bouncing between a few AL teams and bouncing between working as a starter and reliever, but appears to be in the midst of a breakout season at age 31. Through eight starts Perez sports a 1.64 ERA (fifth-best among qualified starters), a 2.41 FIP, and a 3.17 K/BB ratio. Perez is also rostered in more Yahoo leagues than struggling stars like Hyun-Jin Ryu and Kyle Hendricks, and is rostered in more leagues than exciting youngsters like George Kirby and Hunter Greene. Is this finally the breakout for Perez, or is this yet another case of smoke-and-mirrors from the veteran southpaw?

While his prospect days are long behind him, Perez was considered a top pitching prospect in Texas’s system and reached the majors by 21-years-old. In my research for this piece I visited Perez’s Wikipedia page and came across this article, where one scout is quoted as saying Perez was a “cross between Johan Santana and Greg Maddux”, which sort of feels like me calling my writing for RotoBaller a cross between James Joyce and William Faulkner. Sure, a lot of this is stream-of-consciousness and I am a drunk, but it’s a stretch of a comparison to say the least. Perez may not have Santana’s or Maddux’s game, but as a left-hander with a mid-90s fastball and plus control, it’s easy to see how scouts were enamored so long ago. These days Perez is working with a five-pitch arsenal consisting of a four-seamer, cutter, sinker, changeup, and curveball. He’s shifted the way he’s used these pitches over the course of his career, adding the cutter in 2019 with Minnesota while ditching his slider, and leaning more heavily on his sinker in later years.

The sinker has been integral to Perez’s success thus far in 2022, as Perez is currently sporting a 55.8% groundball rate (his highest since 2015) and has yet to allow a home run this season, making him the last remaining qualified pitcher yet to surrender a long ball. He’s throwing his sinker 39.7% of the time, which is 14.5% more than last year and his highest sinker usage rate since 2018. Batters have just a 2-degree average launch angle and a 62.1% groundball rate off Perez’s sinker this season and a 59.1% groundball rate off the pitch all time.  By contrast, batters have a 34.3% groundball rate and an ugly 29.4% line drive rate off Perez’s four-seam fastball for his career, along with a brutal .893 OPS. Perez has only thrown his four-seamer 7.3% of the time this season, and this shift towards his sinker should help Perez limit power and induce low-quality contact. Perez excelled at limiting home run at the early stages of his career, but struggled with the long ball beginning in the late 2010s. Perhaps he was a victim of the juiced ball era, but with a deadened ball and new, sinker-heavy approach Perez could be an effective groundball pitcher going forward and therefore could be a much better fantasy option than he has been in previous seasons.

While the groundball rate is nice, there’s still reason to be skeptical of Perez. His secondary offerings are weak and he’s proven unable to consistently generate whiffs at the major league level. He did get 13 whiffs in this start against Houston, but it did take him 108 pitches to get there. He’s also been coasting off a .273 BABIP and 0% HR/FB ratio, both of which will surely regress even with his improved groundball rate and increased sinker usage.  Nobody expects him to maintain a 1.64 ERA, but don’t be surprised when it jumps two full runs when these underlying numbers begin to regress.

Verdict:

Perez’s 2022 season reminds me a bit of Wade Miley’s resurgence circa 2018. Both are veteran left-handers who had promising starts to their careers but faded quickly and toiled in mediocrity for years, only to reemerge as a sinker-heavy groundball pitcher that consistently outperformed their advanced metrics thanks to limiting walks and home runs and generating favorable contact. It would be foolish to predict Miley’s level of success for Perez based on eight starts, but the two are quite similar and a season of sub-4 ERA ball seems possible for Perez, something no one would’ve said before this season began. He’s not the league winner his stats make him appear to be, but Perez has gone from someone I’d never trust in fantasy to usable in the right situation. A nice bonus for Perez is the Rangers’ willingness to let him pitch deep into games. Not only did he finish this one out against Houston, but he’s averaged over six innings per start this season and has gone at least six innings in each of his last six starts. The strikeouts might not be there, but it’s hard to beat that volume in today’s game, and Perez could earn himself more quality starts and wins than pitchers of similar skill due to his long leash.

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