Catching Your Eye Part 2
By Max Greenfield
After writing about 5 players who are having better seasons than people have realized, it’s time to discuss 5 pitchers who are having great seasons but might not have been noticed. Most of these pitchers play for smaller markets or have been overshadowed by their teammates. One is even the Cy Young candidate for his team but hasn’t been discussed as such. Here are the 5 pitchers having a better season than you’ve realized. (To introduce a statistic here, I will be citing the stat SIERA, quite a bit in this piece and I find it to be the best measure in evaluating pitching today. Here’s Fangraphs description of the stat. (https://library.fangraphs.com/pitching/siera/)
Nick Anderson
If the season ended today, Nick Anderson’s name would appear on most writers top 10 reliever lists, and he rightfully should. Starting the year with the Marlins, Anderson was traded to the Rays and had continued his dominance in the middle of the playoff race. Anderson ranks in the top 5 in the following categories amongst relievers. FIP, xFIP, SIERA, K/9, K%,K-BB% and xFIP-. Simply put, Anderson has been an elite reliver in 2019. Anderson might have the single best pitch in all of baseball in 2019 as well. His curveball has an impressive 54.9% K% according to baseball savant. Based off this chart from this link (https://tabsoft.co/2Zj07gE), Anderson’s curveball has registered a negative FIP and xFIP. It has one of the lowest wOBA’s in all of baseball minimum 200 pitches. To put that in simpler terms, that pitch is nasty. Anderson is just a rookie so he could be a force to reckon with in the league for a long time if he keeps it up. There a few people who could challenge him for pitcher with the best pitch in baseball, and one of them is the next guy.
Ken Giles
What a difference a year can make for Ken Giles. After ending his time with the Astros on seemingly bad terms, Giles has rebounded to dominate in 2019. The Blue Jays close has pitched to 1.94 ERA in 51 innings with 79 strike outs. He has a 2.40 FIP, a 2.88 xFIP, and 2.60 SIERA this year. His 91.3% LOB% is 3rd in all of baseball. Like Anderson, he ranks high in most reliever rankings this year. Among qualified relievers, Giles ranks in the top 10 in ERA, ERA- FIP, FIP-, LOB%, K%, and SIERA. Giles throws 2 pitches and his slider is one of the very best pitchers in baseball. His slider has the lowest FIP in all of baseball according to the same chart from earlier. Like Anderson, it ranks in the top 1% in the league for most advanced metrics. Almost 55% of at bats ending in his slider have been strike outs. Giles was a potential trade target, and according to a report from Ken Rostenthal, the Yankees almost traded for Giles at the deadline but were concerned over his arm injury. The rest of baseball better thank the Yankees for being worried because a bullpen of Aroldis Chapman, Zach Britton, Tommy Khanle, Adam Ottavino, Chad Green, and Ken Giles would have been unstoppable.
Walker Buehler
For most of the season, Hyun Jin Ryu has been thought of as the Dodgers Cy young candidate with Clayton Kershaw probably behind him. Both are having fantastic years, but Buehler is having the best year of those 3. Buehler’s 3.25 ERA is the highest amongst those 3 but he has the lowest FIP and SIERA amongst the 3 of them. Amongst all qualified starters in baseball, Buehler is 6th in SIERA. The 25-year older Dodger is also 13th in all of baseball in K%. Buehler has had a few dominant starts with 10+ strikeouts this season and is only going to get better. For Dodgers fans, with Kershaw looking at the dwindling of his career, although a still very effective pitcher and one of the best in the game, Buehler is already one of the very best in baseball. He should be the pitcher to finish 3rd in Cy young voting in the NL, but it seems unlikely it will play out that way. The Dodgers future is in good hands with the young flame thrower, as they look to compete for a title again in 2019.
Max Fried
While his teammate Mike Soroka is getting a lot of love for his great pitching in 2019, it’d be kind of shocking to say that Fried has pitched better than him this year. Unfortunately for Fried, that hasn’t led to better results. Fried’s 4.11 ERA but him right around league average. Part of that is because he has a .338 BABIP against him this year. That number is a little high and has contributed to his higher ERA. The good news for Braves fans is that moving forward, he could be a future front-line starter. Amongst the qualified Braves starters, Fried’s 3.88 SIERA is the lowest amongst them. His xFIP- is 25 points better than the average starter as well. To put it in perspective, Fried’s SIERA and xFIP are lower than Patrick Corbin’s in 2019. With the amount of young starting pitching the Braves have in their farm system, look for Fried to be the one who leads the team in the future. He’s been a little unlucky in 2019 but he could right the ship in the post season and be a force for years to come.
Austin Adams
First, Austin Adams is a 28-year old reliever for the Seattle Mariners who just couldn’t figure it out Anaheim or Washington. After being DFA’d, Adams went to Seattle and seemed to figure something out. He pitched to a 3.94 ERA in 32 innings but had an impressive 40% strikeout rate. He also had a 2.68 xFIP, 59 xFIP-, and a 2.94 SIERA in that time as well. His time with the Mariners was cut short as they ended his season due to injury a few days ago. Relievers are streaky but a pitcher with a 40% strikeout rate shows a lot of promise and if he can find a way to replicate what he did in 2019, he is a real weapon moving forward. Adams struck out 51% hitters who faced his slider in the final pitch of the at bat. To think about that in terms of a game situation, if you fouled off the slider once, you weren’t doing it again. That’s how good that pitch was. It had a .195 wOBA against it in 2019 so hitters just weren’t hitting that pitch. Look for Adams to improve his fastball in 2020 as he makes steps towards becoming a better reliever.
There are several pitchers who could be here on this list. Stephen Strasburg continues to be the most underrated pitcher in baseball despite being a number one pick so look for his name to come up in Cy Young conversations as well. All stats were found from fangraphs and baseball savant. Shoutout to @YankeeNerdStats who sent me the chart that I used for pitch values. Here are a few good twitter accounts to follow, @GregBirdRBW, @klew24, @BLCentral5 @baseball_focus, @krossiant, @EmSheDoesIt @BettsMVP50, @lvdown12, @JeffersonVitale @CushSavInDaBox
