Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 9

Elliott Baas looks at starting pitchers who turned in surprising starts recently. These SP could emerge as waiver wire targets and sleepers for Week 9, 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.

We only had room for two pitchers this week, but we were able to go super deep on both and both pitchers are doing really interesting things on the mound, whether it be a shiny new prospect flexing his muscles, or a former prospect reinventing himself for late career success. This time around we're looking at Roansy Contreras's arrival in Pittsburgh and Jakob Junis's revival in San Francisco.

Roster percentages are taken from Yahoo and are accurate as of 6/6/22.

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Jakob Junis, San Francisco Giants – 28% Rostered

2022 Stats (before this start): 37 IP, 2.68 ERA, 3.73 FIP, 13.9% K-BB%

6/05 @ MIA: 6 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K

The good times continued to roll for Junis on Sunday when he put up a season-high eight strikeouts while earning his third victory of the season over the Marlins. The 29-year-old righty is in the midst of a breakout season, with a sparkling 2.51 ERA and 3.89 K/BB through 43 innings. After revitalizing the careers of Kevin Gausman, Alex Wood, and Anthony DeSclafani, the San Francisco Giants appear to have another reclamation success on their hands with Junis, a former top prospect who flamed out with Kansas City. The aforementioned DeSclafani is on the injured list until at least the end of June, making June a make or break month for June-is if he wants to keep his rotation spot when the Giants are at full strength. Whether he keeps that rotation spot is one aspect, but given his horrendous track record (4.82 ERA going into 2022) many fantasy managers are wondering if Junis can help their team at all.

Originally drafted in the 29^th round by Kansas City back in 2011, Junis had a bit more prospect pedigree than your typical late-round pick. He was rated as a much higher prospect by scouts but fell because Junis was originally going to pitch in college. Junis had some decent prospect buzz as he advanced through the Royals’ system, reaching as high as the top-50 on some expert prospect ranking lists. Junis uses a three-pitch arsenal consisting of a fastball, slider, and changeup, and while Junis has been pretty consistent as a three-pitch guy over his career, how he uses those pitches has changed quite a bit this season. Junis has begun throwing a sinker instead of the four-seamer he used in the past, and he now features his slider more prominently, throwing it 54% of the time. These are two major changes, and it seems like there’s an obvious correlation between the tweaks Junis has made and his newfound success. It seems obvious, but could things really be that simple?

Let’s start with Junis’s fastball because Junis’s fastball usage has varied wildly at different points in his career. He started out throwing a four-seamer and sinker, then leaned more heavily on the four-seamer, then shifted to a four-seamer and cutter approach last year, and has now eschewed the four-seamer entirely in favor of the sinker. The impulse is to connect his sinker usage with his breakout, but I’m not quite sure that’s the case here. Batters have hit .286 with a .476 SLG off the pitch, and have an ugly .404 xwOBA. It’s been hammered by opponents for a 93.2 MPH average exit velocity as well.

The only strong attributes of Junis’s sinker are a 54% groundball rate and a 65% zone rate, so Junis does a pretty good job of getting the pitch in the zone and keeping it on the ground, but when batters can elevate…look out below. It’s worth noting that Junis’s four-seamer has performed equally as poorly throughout Junis’s career, and when it comes down to it, Junis is a bad fastball pitcher. Increased sinker usage has helped raise his groundball rate to 47% this season, but any way you slice it, Junis’s fastball is weak and will likely be a liability throughout his career, even when he’s on a hot streak like this and aided by a .224 BABIP and 85.3% LOB rate.

As a prospect, Junis’s standout pitch was his slider, and it’s quite a unique one. It comes in rather soft at just 82.1 MPH – nine MPH slower than his fastball – and has above average spin at 2463 RPM. It also has drastic horizontal movement, sweeping away from right-handed hitters for an especially devastating pitch. Here are a few examples from this start.

That second slider was especially filthy for poor Jesus Aguilar, but those clips really showcase the oddity of Junis’s slider. Its frisbee-like nature of spinning from side to side downward makes it look more like a slurve than a traditional slider, but however it’s classified, the pitch has been fun to watch and dominant for Junis. Opponents are hitting just .168 off the pitch with a .274 SLG and .290 xwOBA this season. Some may be a little underwhelmed by the 11.8% swinging strike rate, which is admittedly low for a slider, but Junis makes up for it in part with a monster 38.2% chase rate. So, he isn’t getting batters to swing through the pitch as much as we’d like to see, but he is getting batters to swing at bad pitches and (ideally) inducing weak contact. Junis has always excelled at forcing poor contact, and this year’s been no different so far as opponents have an 87.4 MPH average exit velocity off his slider and an 89.6 MPH average exit velocity overall. A high chase rate is also partly responsible for Junis’s microscopic 5.4% walk rate on the year. Junis already has exceptional control, and it’s hard to walk hitters when they are chasing balls.

While the slider is undoubtedly Junis’s best pitch, his best skill has long been his control. This is what scouts really raved about when Junis was a prospect, and even at his worst Junis has never been wild. He’s never had a walk rate above 7.5% or a zone rate lower than 51%, the latter being an especially strong outlier for starting pitchers. It’s reasonable to expect some regression from Junis, but if he can keep this up to some degree he would almost certainly be a contributor in the WHIP category. His 1.32 career WHIP might suggest otherwise, but if Junis has successfully reinvented himself his WHIP should be much lower this season even when things inevitably regress for him.

Verdict:

The next Kevin Gausman? Probably not, but the Giants may have salvaged another arm off the scrap heap with Jakob Junis. A stark increase in breaking ball usage is the main factor behind Junis’s success, as he’s been slinging sliders at a 55% clip this year, a 15% increase from the year before. This should make Junis a better pitcher than he was in past years, and he could go from an afterthought to someone we can trust to stream or use in favorable matchups. Junis’s fastball is still weak and he’s been coasting off a .224 BABIP and 85.3% LOB rate, so expect regression going forward even with the improvements Junis has made. Overall, he could put an ERA in the 3.75-4.25 range, above average in WHIP and wins (if he remains a starter), and below average in strikeouts. A permanent rotation spot is still iffy for Junis, but if he continues to pitch well and neither Alex Cobb nor Alex Wood can turn things around, Junis could become a full-time starter.

Roansy Contreras, Pittsburgh Pirates – 38% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 17.2 IP, 2.55 ERA, 3.76 FIP, 16.9% K-BB%

6/04 vs. ARI: 5.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R (0 ER), 2 BB, 8 K

Contreras has pitched well since being added to the rotation back in late May, but this Saturday was his best start yet as Contreras fanned eight Diamondbacks and allowed zero earned runs while falling one out shy of his first career quality start. Contreras now owns a 1.93 ERA on the year between the bullpen and rotation, and with how he’s been pitching, it’s hard to envision him heading back to the pen anytime soon. Contreras may have a firm grasp on his role with Pittsburgh for the moment, but does he deserve a role on your team?

Originally signed by the Yankees as an international free agent in 2016, it wasn’t until his trade to Pittsburgh that Contreras’s star really began to shine. Contreras had been seen as a fringe major leaguer in New York, but his fastball velocity jumped to around 96-97 MPH on average following the trade, and the ability to pair that heat with two solid breaking balls in his slider and curveball and a formidable show-me changeup had many scouts and experts looking at Contreras as a future rotation mainstay. The stuff has been as advertised thus far, with Contreras throwing fire and piling up whiffs. His fastball velocity gets a lot of well-deserved attention, but let’s focus a bit on his slider, which has been a dominant offering thus far.

The slider has been the main source of strikeouts for Contreras, as he has a monster 24.3% swinging strike rate with the pitch and notched 10 whiffs with it in this start. Even when they do make contact, batters aren’t able to do much. Opponents have a .103 AVG and .241 SLG off the pitch, along with a .191 xwOBA and 81 MPH average exit velocity. He’s only thrown 23.1 innings, so this is of course a small sample size and will regress towards more realistic numbers, but it is telling how much the slider outpaces his other pitches, which are also performing well. Like Jakob Junis, Contreras’s slider has a high spin rate of 2446 RPM, but Contreras throws his slider harder and has a less sweeping break, instead breaking downward sharply. Here’s an example from this start.

It looks much more like a traditional slider when compared to Junis’s above, and sliders like this are generally better for strikeouts compared to the slow, slurve-style slider that Junis throws. In addition to its above-average spin, Contreras’s slider also has an above-average break, which should help him maintain a healthy strikeout rate over the long run, even if his current 27.4% strikeout rate is a little inflated thanks to his time in the bullpen.  The fact that he also has a high spin (2816 RPM) curveball as another viable secondary option should keep hitters guessing, which is big trouble for hitters when the man on the mound has 97 MPH heat at his disposal.

Speaking of that heat, let’s have a look at Contreras’s fastball, which is the reason for his prospect buzz in the first place. Contreras went from throwing a reported 92-95 MPH with New York to 97 MPH with Pittsburgh. It was hard to find information online about what catalyzed this spike in velocity, but it may have been Contreras growing into his full potential. He wasn’t even 18 when the Yankees signed him, and he spent a lot of crucial development time at the Yankees 2020 alternate site, where little information was shared with the public about players and their performances. He went from age 19 to age 21 over that time, and the combination of his physical development and hard work has blossomed into something special.

Even if Contreras trained and grew over that time, he’s still considered undersized for a starting pitcher in general, but especially a flamethrower. He is listed at 6’0” and 175 pounds, making him quite an outlier for a pitcher sitting 96-97 MPH as a starter. There aren’t many pitchers throwing this hard that weigh under 200 pounds, and the ones that do emerge are usually at least a few inches taller than Contreras. His size brings to mind the question of durability and Pittsburgh’s approach for Contreras this season. Contreras dealt with a forearm strain last season, and forearm injuries are often a precursor to Tommy John Surgery, so the rebuilding Pirates may want to limit his innings this season to allow for major league development without exposing him to excessive long term injury risk given how we expect their season to play out. He threw 98 pitches in this start, which is a good sign, but also probably around his limit for a start. Contreras has the stuff to give us high-quality innings, but the volume likely won’t be there this season.

Verdict:

Scouts fell in love with Roansy Contreras during the 2021 season, and it’s easy to see why. Throwing upper 90s heat will always garner attention, but Contreras pairs that heat with a plus slider and solid curveball, giving him a deadly arsenal. Contreras has the talent to be a solid starter long-term, perhaps as a three or even as a number two. The biggest obstacle for him might be staying healthy, as he dealt with a forearm injury last season, throws really hard, and is undersized for a starting pitcher. Pittsburgh will likely want to limit his pitch count and innings this season to preserve his arm, so we probably won’t see many starts reach or go beyond the sixth. Even with those limits in place, Contreras looks quite promising and is someone worth an add in most standard leagues. He should be a positive contributor in ratios and strikeouts, even if the volume isn’t there yet.

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