When we were looking for breakout young pitchers, we looked for good stuff with fastball (or slider command) — we were being greedy. Now that we are looking for end-game, dollar-in-the-auction, last pitcher types, we can soften the requirements a little. Maybe the stuff isn’t quite as good, or the command, or their opportunity on the depth chart is more obscured. You can’t get everything you want once 300 players have already been taken in your fantasy draft. At that point, you’re just looking at something to be positive about.
With these six pitchers, there’s more than one thing that speaks in their favor. None of them is lower than sixth on their starting pitcher depth charts, and all of them have at least one good out pitch, and at least one pitch they can command. They’re all cheap. That’s enough to take a chance on them.
We’ve listed their average draft position in drafts (ADP), as well as their projected ERA and strikeout rates using Jordan Rosenblum’s projections, which are powered by Stuff+. Stuff+ uses the physical characteristics of a pitch to assess its quality. Last year, this effort netted Braxton Garrett, Mitch Keller, and Tyler Wells, which isn’t bad for the bargain bin.
ADP: ~300
ppERA: 4.26
ppK%: 21.6 percent
The arsenal seems like it’s ready to rock. He’s got a 95 mph four-seamer with good ride (108 Stuff+) that he can command (111 Location+) as the base. The slider is average-ish (101 Stuff+) with good sweep and again he commands it well (105 Location+). The 89 mph cutter is only OK by stuff (94 Stuff+) but, and there’s a theme here, he can command it well (106 Location+). Take a look, he’s good at avoiding the heart of the zone and also seems to have a couple of locations he can throw to with ease for each of these primary pitches.
Unfortunately, his changeup isn’t really good by either measure, as he hung it and it was below-average by movement and velocity. Hitters slugged .599 off of that pitch.
With all that command, maybe it doesn’t matter. With any more sweep on the slider, he could basically feature the cutter more against lefties and the slider more against righties and be a 2.5-pitch pitcher to each hand. His fastball is the kind that works to both hands. Without any improvement in the slider, he does have the risk of sliding into a relief role, especially since Simeon Woods-Richardson or David Festa (or even a healthy Anthony Desclafani) could push him for the fifth-starter role in Minnesota.
But Varland has the best fastball of that group. And when the slider looks like this and has 12 inches of horizontal movement, it looks like a real weapon.
There’s enough of an arsenal and opportunity to take a shot.
ADP: 337
ppERA: 4.62
ppK%: 20 percent
Speaking of arsenals, Kremer’s got a wide one. He threw six pitches at least 100 times last season. The quality of each … well, that’s TBD, as you can tell from the mediocre projections. Check out the full appraisal from the model:
Pitch | Number | Stuff+ | Location+ | Pitching+ |
---|---|---|---|---|
4-Seam | 1081 | 98.7 | 102.9 | 103.1 |
Cutter | 699 | 100.2 | 104.8 | 99.6 |
Sinker | 426 | 81.9 | 105.7 | 98.8 |
Changeup | 357 | 88.4 | 91.4 | 92.8 |
Curveball | 260 | 91.3 | 97.9 | 99.6 |
Sweeper | 100 | 126.0 | 95.0 | 104.0 |
He has the makings of a three breaking ball approach, it looks like. A little more command of the sweeper, a little more improvement of the curveball’s stuff, and he can throw two fastballs and three breaking balls with above-average command of three or four of them. The fact that he throws so many pitches alone makes him an interesting candidate for improvement.
But which pitch will take the step forward?
He threw his curveball with the best combination of velocity and drop in September, but batters slugged .889 that month off the pitch. He threw the cutter more throughout the season and it got good results all the way through, but that’s already a foundational pitch for him. He threw his changeup harder throughout the season, and the results were pretty good, so maybe the model is missing…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .