May 23, 2017

Billy Stonick examines whether starting pitchers (SP) Tyler Anderson and Zach Godley are real fantasy baseball contributors, or have been getting lucky.

In fantasy baseball, owners can often spends weeks or months preparing for the draft. Many will pore over websites and lists and spreadsheets and forums and magazines for hours upon hours to ensure they make the right choices. But once draft day comes and goes, what’s next?

As the saying goes, you can’t win your league during the draft. The moves owners make during the season are the ones that will determine who wins. The art to winning at fantasy baseball is being able to determine who should be added to a roster and should be bypassed. In order to do that, an owner needs to be able to tell if someone is for real or not.

This weekly column will focus on some pitchers who have recently thrown their hats into the ring for consideration. These pitchers will be available in many leagues, and we’ll dig a little deeper to determine whether you should be picking these guys up or leaving them be.

Slowing It Down

Zack Godley, Arizona Diamondbacks

2016 Stats: 74.2 IP, 6.39 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 60 K (7.23 K/9), 25 BB (3.01 BB/9)

May 21, 2017 at San Diego: 7.0 IP, 3.86 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 1 K (1.29 K/9), 1 BB (1.29 BB/9)

Zack Godley originally made it to the big leagues in late 2015 for a short stretch in which he looked like a pretty good pitcher. He went 5-1 with a 3.19 ERA and 1.25 WHIP through six starts, and it seemed like the jump from Double-A to the bigs might not be too much of a problem for him. He started 2016 in the minors again, bouncing from Double-A to Triple-A in short order. In Triple-A, Godley had an ugly WHIP, but his sinker was good enough to get him another call-up anyway. This time, the wheels fell off. Godley worked as a spot starter and long reliever, but just about every start came with a minimum of a handful of runs. It really bottomed out when he gave up 16 earned runs over a five-day stretch in August of 2016, and he was permanently relegated to the bullpen. Even there, he regularly gave up runs and it appeared the magic of 2015 was nothing but a memory.

However, in 2017, Godley has regained his 2015 form. He carried a 2.25 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in a couple starts at Triple-A, so he got the call once again. Since returning to the major league club as a starter, he’s notched a 7.01 K/9 and 2.45 ERA on the way to a 1-1 record after four starts. His sinker has continued to be his signature pitch, leading to an outstanding 65.1 percent ground ball rate. He’s also generating swinging strikes on 13.7 percent of his pitches, the highest rate of his career. With all that said, the question remains. This time, is Zack Godley for real?

On May 21st, Godley took to the mound in San Diego. He would end up taking his first loss of the season, but that hung more on his run support than anything he did. Godley tossed seven quality innings, allowing three earned runs on eight hits and one walk. He only struck out one, but this was his first outing with less than six strikeouts, so it seems reasonable to expect this is more of a fluke than the new standard. He stuck to what he knows best, focusing mainly on his sinker. He threw it 39.33 percent of the time, mixing in his cutter and curveball regularly. His sinker and cutter also do double duty as his “fastball,” and they range in the 90 to 91 MPH zone. This focus on excessively throwing pitches that were falling once again pushed his opponents into an above average ground ball rate, putting 50 percent of their balls in play on the ground. His only real mistakes came in the fifth inning when he grooved a few of his sinkers and cutters. All three runs were scored off pitches that were in the middle of the strike zone, as opposed to his more favored locations at the bottom of the zone. Overall, while he took the loss and the lack of strikeouts is always concerning, this was a pretty strong outing for Godley.

Verdict

Unfortunately, while this outing carries some promise for Zack Godley, the truth is that he isn’t the real deal (at least, not this good of a deal). Godley’s 2.45 ERA is riding on the back of a super low .224 BABIP combined with an 82.6 percent LOB%. Even if he were to get the benefit of the doubt regarding his BABIP, labeling him as capable of leading the league in the category (Marco Estrada had the best BABIP last season at .234), his LOB% will eventually correct itself down to around 73 percent. This is part of the reason Godley’s FIP is currently at 3.66. That’s still not bad at all, but there are still other reasons to be concerned.

His ground ball rate of 65.1 percent would have been the best in the league amongst qualified starters last season. That’s unlikely to continue, especially since it’s 12 percent better than his rate last year. While his 13.7 percent swinging strike rate is phenomenal, his K-rate of just 7.01 per nine innings is the lowest of his career. This shows that his out pitches simply aren’t getting the job done. Only one pitcher in the top 40 starters in ERA last season had a K/9 lower than 7.01, and that was Bartolo Colon, who should be used as a measuring stick amongst pitchers the same way Keith Richards should be used as a measuring stick amongst drug users. Some people are truly anomalies. Godley’s walk rate is also worse than average, and his outing against the Padres that resulted in only one strikeout also happened to be the first time this season that he had faced a team for a second time. While it’s easy to dismiss the game as a fluke, it’s also possible that it’s an indicator that once a team has seen him, they aren’t getting fooled. That could turn into a big problem for Godley. Make sure that doesn’t also turn into a big problem for you by avoiding Godley for now.

Tyler Anderson, Colorado Rockies

2016 Stats: 114.1 IP, 3.54 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 99 K (7.79 K/9), 28 BB (2.20 BB/9)

May 19, 2017 at Cincinnati: 6.0 IP, 3.00 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 7 K (10.50 K/9), 2 BB (3.00 BB/9)

Tyler Anderson is another one of the Colorado Rockies pitchers who is finally going to be the one to solve the riddle of air density. Every season, a couple new ones are introduced and a few scouts or analysts here or there say they’ve got the right combination of stuff to do it. Eventually, they get blown up at home and everyone comes to their senses that even Clayton Kershaw has a history of struggling in Colorado (career 4.58 ERA and 1.29 WHIP). Strangely enough, Anderson has been quite the opposite so far. He loves home cooking! In 100 and 1/3 innings at home, Anderson has an impressive 3.50 ERA with an 8.43 K/9. In 62 innings on the road, his strikeouts drop to 7.84 per nine innings, and his ERA skyrockets to 5.52. So maybe this is a Rockies pitcher who should only pitch home starts?

Anderson was originally drafted in the first round of the 2011 amateur draft, Anderson was tagged as a likely back-end starter who specialized in excellent control. He suffered a stress fracture in his elbow during the 2013 season, and it would go on to end his 2014 season early and cause him to miss all of 2015. When he returned to the mound in 2016, he was basically given a red carpet to the major league rotation. He logged six minor league starts over all three levels combined before being ushered to the big league squad. Once there, he looked like he had belonged there all along. He started his career off by not allowing more than three earned runs in 10 of his first 11 starts, and he finished 2016 with a handsome ERA of just 3.54. It was an extraordinary debut, and Anderson was penciled in for big things in 2017.

Unfortunately, he bombed. He surrendered four or more runs in his first six starts in 2017, and it looked like the major leaguers had finally caught up to Anderson. Then, May came around, and it was like he woke up. After allowing six earned runs in his final April start in Arizona, Anderson has allowed just six earned runs in the entire month of May. His strikeout numbers have jumped, he’s lasted deeper into games, and he’s won two of the three games he’s started.

In one of those games, May 19th in Cincinnati, Anderson put in a fine performance against the Reds. He threw six innings of two-run ball, striking out seven and walking two. He also only allowed four hits, his smallest game total this season. His only real mistakes in the game came when he gave up a solo shot to Eugenio Suarez in the fourth inning and a double to the red hot Zack Cozart to lead off the sixth inning. He even followed the Cozart double with a strikeout of Joey Votto before giving up a soft liner to Adam Duvall that found a hole and scored Cozart. This outing was a strong one, and with the Rockies offense doing what they’re known for, Anderson easily scored a win on the day. The real key here though is Anderson’s shift at the start of May, and how he suddenly went back to being the pitcher he was in 2016. He did it the old-fashioned way, by throwing more change-ups than any other pitch. Including his fastball. That seems counterintuitive, but that’s a signature move for Anderson.

In 2016, when he was so successful, he threw his fastball 38% of the time and his change 29 percent of the time. He also mixed in a cutter 26 percent of the time. This type of mixing meant the hitter could never get comfortable with any particular speed. While Anderson isn’t overpowering with his 92 MPH fastball, his cutter averages 87 MPH and his change averages 82 MPH. All three pitches use the same arm slot and come out of his hand looking like the same pitch. This mixing of speeds leaves hitters off balance, and that makes the change-up the true weapon of the three because most hitters want to hit fastballs. This leaves them vulnerable to a strong offspeed pitch that leaves them out on their front foot and swinging at a ball that simply hasn’t arrived yet.

Verdict

Tyler Anderson is absolutely the real deal. That said, he’s probably still going to have some struggles at Coors Field (eventually?) and likely won’t ever be a true ace, but he’s certainly good enough to be rostered in most leagues. The key for Anderson is that he relies very heavily on his change of speeds. When he was struggling in April, he was throwing his fastball nearly 50 percent of the time, and he was getting rocked. 35 percent of contact being made against him in that month was classified as hard hit and more hitters were putting balls out to the center of the field than anywhere else. In the month of May, Anderson is throwing his fastball just 28 percent of the time. This has led to a jump of 18 percent in the number of hitters pulling the ball, and his hard hit percentage has dropped 21 percent. He’s also struck out 25 batters in 17 and 2/3 innings as compared to 24 batters in 30 and 1/3 innings pitched in April. When it’s all said and done, Tyler Anderson just needs to throw less fastballs.

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