Trading Up - Miles Mikolas

The legend of the Lizard King begins in 2011 when a young Miles Mikolas, a self-described picky eater, accepted a teammate’s bet to eat a live lizard in exchange for paying Mikolas’ Arizona Fall League dues. Mikolas agreed, coated the lizard in Moutain Dew, tasted it quickly, and paced for a moment. Then he crammed the lizard in, taking vigorous if anxious bites the whole time, and downed it in a matter of moments. At that moment, a legend was born.

The video link is here. Warning, it is almost exactly what you expect.

It took several years and a sabbatical overseas in Japan, but Mikolas has now emerged as a dominant Major League starter. Earlier this season, Mikolas looked like a potential SP3 who could be purchased at a significant discount because he is old(er), relatively unknown, and doesn’t strike out many players. Then on May 21st, he threw a complete-game shutout, striking out nine Kansas City Royals, and the landscape changed. Following that start, I saw Mikolas being traded straight up for players drafted in the top 60. What's his true worth for the remainder of the 2018 season?

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What's the Value of the Lizard King?

The brief history here is that in 2014 Mikolas was a poor pitcher for the Texas Rangers, got released, and signed with the Yomiuri Giants. While in Japan, Mikolas transformed into a 2.18 ERA, 8.0 K/9 pitcher who was widely regarded as one of the best arms in the league. In 2017, Mikolas signed with the St. Louis Cardinals but was seen as a minor human-interest side story to the hot-stove season. A few scouts and analysts identified him as a value, but mostly the book was written: Miles Mikolas wasn’t very good, but maybe he had become good enough to work as a backend starter. Fast forward to Monday, May 21 and Mikolas was presenting himself as a legitimate 1A for the Cardinals and ruining a perfectly nice evening for the Kansas City Royals. Six days later on Sunday, May 27, Mikolas gave up four runs on five hits, a walk, and an error, and his stock has settled back down.

In that recent Pirates start, three of those runs came in the fifth inning when Mikolas walked Elias Diaz on a pitch that StatCast showed as a clear strike. Jordy Mercer followed it with a grounder between the shortstop and third baseman. Jameson Taillon popped out. Adam Frazier then worked an 11-pitch at-bat into a rising liner, which Tommy Pham misplayed into a triple. Mercer and Elias scored. Then Frazier scored on an Austin Meadows sacrifice fly. Notably, towards the end of Frazier’s at bat and on Meadow’s second pitch, Mikolas did something he hasn’t done much this season. He threw bad pitches into the center of the strike zone. The hits he gave up were not barreled, but they did come on poorly executed pitches. The rest of the start looked like what Mikolas has been the rest of the season. I would regard the outing as a below-average start and nothing more. It undermines any sense that Mikolas is a clear SP1, but it doesn’t expose him as a mirage.

Mikolas is now 66 innings into the 2018 season, and he’s managed a 2.58 ERA with a 3.15 FIP, and a .98 WHIP. His K/9 is a mere 6.95, but he limits walks and homeruns with Glavine-like skill. His peripherals largely match his performance, but he’s achieving that performance in a manner that is unconventional for 2018. Given baseball’s hard turn to strikeouts, the best contemporary comparisons seem to be Kyle Hendricks and Dallas Keuchel.

There are clear similarities: low K/9, low BABIP, high LOB%, high GB%, low SwSt%. So far though, Mikolas has enjoyed more success than Keuchel and Hendricks by limiting walks and homeruns. His HR/FB rate is league average (11.5%), and his LOB% will regress some, but even FIP and xFIP support that Mikolas has been a great pitcher so far this season.

Rest-of-Season Profile

Even with a full run of ERA regression, Mikolas would easily be a top-30 pitcher. In 2017, there were only 21 qualified pitchers with an ERA under 3.6. Steamer projects him for 3.86 ERA and a 3.71 FIP, but that seems to improve with each start. Mikolas appears poised to rack up wins and quality starts while offering a strong ERA and WHIP. Those attributes and Mikolas’ lack of name-brand still make him an attractive “buy-high” candidate.

Some words of caution: Part of Mikolas’ ranking comes from his six wins. He’ll keep winning games, but probably not at the same rate, and he obviously has marginal control over that anyway. Additionally, Mikolas’ opponents so far have averaged a wRC+ of 96. He has faced only two top-15 offenses (Cubs and Pirates), though he has held his own against both. There may not be enough of a scouting report on Mikolas yet. There are plenty of pitchers who perform well for a month or even half season until the league catches up with them. It’s possible we saw that in the Pirates game on Sunday, but as described above, it’s not as though the Pirates were crushing the ball. Mikolas’ batted ball profile on Sunday was better than his average this season. We’ll get a better sense of how the league is reacting to Mikolas when he pitches against the Pirates, Brewers, Reds, and Cubs again in the next month.

For now, there is also Mikolas’ concerning xwOBA of .311, which sits right between Blake Snell and Luke Weaver. For perspective last year, a .311 xwOBA would have put Mikolas in the neighborhood of 2017 versions of Jameson Taillon (4.44 ERA; 3.48 FIP) and Michael Fulmer (3.83 ERA; 3.67 FIP).

Mikolas throws hard, but he hasn’t blown away hitters. Mikolas’ carrying tool is his command, and we don’t have great measurements for that, though Eno Sarris just did an excellent write up on that. It doesn’t look likely he’ll fall apart, but there’s no clear evidence that he’s going to maintain this level of performance either.
Here are my updated projections for Mikolas:

So what is he worth?

Before the Royals’ start, it might still have been possible to buy low on Mikolas. After that, Yahoo was flooded with trades that seemed to value him as a low-end SP2. Following this start against the Pirates, I’m sure it will swing back the other way. Managers get anxious about players who lack a clear track record.

Trade Value Around the Diamond

C - Low End: Yasmani Grandal, High End: Buster Posey
Who do you want? Buster Posey? Like Simmons last week, Mikolas is likely to outperform the catchers available, so a trade here doesn’t make sense. If you can buy Mikolas for anything less than Sanchez, it’s a reasonable price. If you’re selling Mikolas, Gary Sanchez is the limit, but most owners aren’t likely to deal him because they see Sanchez as a cornerstone of their offense. However, you can ask, especially if you have a useful catcher to send back. Sanchez’s average will rebound as his BABIP normalizes, and the power and plate skills are obviously there.

1B - Low End: Jose Martinez, High End: Edwin Encarnacion
Martinez and Encarnacion might well end up as similarly valuable players, so the difference here is perception. Both players have potentially low floors: Martinez lacks track record, and Encarnacion is 35. Both players have the potential to be top-five first basemen. Rhys Hoskins is another name worth mentioning here. Hoskins’ recent struggles mean he could be available at a two or three round discount, but his projections and peripherals still look excellent.

2B - Low End: Whit Merrifield, High End: Ozzie Albies
Whit Merrifield is always an interesting player given that his value is so tied up in his steals in combination with modest production everywhere else. Albies is similar to Mikolas in that his value has soared since the start of the season. His pedigree and hype are higher, but the nature of the concerns about Mikolas apply to Albies as well, a short track record, concerning peripherals, and taking advantage of weaker opponents. That aside, if the question is who I’d rather own, I’ll take Albies over Mikolas ROS.

3B - Low End: Rafael Devers or Mike Moustakas, High End: Anthony Rendon
The honeymoon for Devers is over, but the hype lingers. Plus his tools are still there, so he’s not going to come cheaply. When Devers’ BABIP returns to his standard, the batting average will recover, making him a .275, 25 HR player in Boston’s lineup where he’ll likely generate just under 95 Rs and RBIs. Alternatively, Moustakas offers more established power with a clearer floor than Devers, but his R and RBI totals will likely be closer to 80. If you’re aiming high, Anthony Rendon has already dealt with a DL stint and has been cold lately. There’s no reason not to kick the tires on him.

OF - Low End: Eddie Rosario, High End: Lorenzo Cain
Eddie Rosario continues to perform nicely in Minnesota just as Lorenzo Cain has been in Milwaukee. The ceilings for both players seem similar, but the floor is likely higher for Cain, who is doing exactly what he’s done for the last three years. Another interesting trade option here is Mitch Haniger, whose stock has followed a similar trajectory as Mikolas’. Unfortunately, Haniger enjoyed that torrid start to the season, which will color the perceptions of most owners. Still, that’s a good value for Mikolas.

SP - Low End: Jose Berrios, High End: Patrick Corbin
Full disclosure: at the start of the season, I owned Mikolas everywhere. Two weeks ago I started selling him and executed a trade with Mikolas and Francisco Mejia for Jose Berrios and Carl Edwards in a dynasty league. I do not feel as good about that trade as when I made it. Patrick Corbin has enjoyed a development like the one many players were looking for from teammate Zack Godley. Corbin’s FIP and peripherals look solid (except for his hard-hit rate), but when you’re dealing pitcher for pitcher, it’s a bit of a push. If you’re more comfortable with the known quantities, you could always move Mikolas for Hendicks or Keuchel, but I’m not sure why.

RP - Low End: Sean Doolittle, High End: Kenley Jansen
I love the idea of buying Mikolas with an RP, but if you’re selling, I wouldn’t aim lower than Jansen or maybe Edwin Diaz.

A Final Note: Low-strikeout pitchers, like low-power hitters, rarely get the attention they deserve, but that’s bound up in the fact that strikeout pitches, like power bats, tend to be fairly stable skills. With a low-K pitcher, there’s less room for error. That presents a buying opportunity if the player can maintain their performance. Hendricks and Keuchel are consistently undervalued. If you’re selling, the focus has to be on that 2.58 ERA and sub-1 WHIP, which are attractive enough to cover the K/9 numbers. Long live the Lizard King!

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