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In the first installment of a 6-part series focused on pitchers who exhausted rookie eligibility during the '22 MLB season, I review how the pitching fundamentals of select '22 American League East pitchers have evolved over time and use that information to forecast their MLB futures.
Fundamentals will be quantified using my Fielding- and Ballpark-Independent Outcomes (FaBIO) pitcher evaluation model.
Let us begin with individual analyses of four key American League East 2022 pitcher prospect graduates whose surnames happen to begin with the same letter: Shane Baz, Brayan Bello, Kyle Bradish, and Felix Bautista.
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Quick Overview of FaBIO
An earlier RotoBaller article more fully explains the FaBIO methodology. Every plate appearance is sorted into one of 12 event-type bins (BB+HBP, K, IFFB, Pull OFFB, Center OFFB, Oppo OFFB, Pull LD, Center LD, Oppo LD, Pull GB, Center GB, Oppo GB) and the pitcher is charged with league's average runs value for that event type.
We eventually wind up with loads of fundamentals-rooted percentile ratings expressed on a 100 to 0 scale where 97 is plus plus, 84 is plus, 50 is average, 16 is minus, and three is minus minus.
The all-in-one Overall Rating (based on expected run avoidance per batter faced over all of that pitcher's batters faced) will be used primarily as filtering criteria with relatively more attention paid to how the three core sub-Ratings of Control (or CTL, based on BB+HBP per batters faced), Strikeout (or K, based on K per batters faced), and Batted Ball Profile (based on expected run avoidance per batted ball) combine to produce Overall Rating.
Shane Baz, Tampa Bay Rays
Rays immediately flipped Baz from sinking the fastball ('18: 98 GB, 93 OFFB Avoid) to riding it ('19: 15 GB, 13 OFFB Avoid) after acquiring him from the Pirates. Since then, the batted balls have been distributed more evenly between the air and ground. Baz did not break out on the FaBIO scales until early '21 AA when he rated 100 OVERALL with triple plus 97 CTL/98 K/85 BATTED BALL PROFILE slashie over seven starts.
The '21 strikeout train (100 K) kept rolling over another 178 batters faced in AAA around slippages in CTL and BATTED BALL PROFILE before an end-of-regular-season debut and postseason audition with first-place Rays. He passed that MLB trial with flying colors and ultimately put up another triple plus slashie (86 CTL/98 K/95 BATTED BALL PROFILE) against 62 regular and postseason batters.
The expectations bar was sky high as Spring camp opened but that excitement was tempered when he required the removal of a loose body from the throwing elbow. He returned to AAA action in mid-May and rejoined the MLB rotation in June. A UCL sprain in the same elbow effectively ended his season circa the mid-July All-Star Break as attempts to rehab the injury proved unsuccessful before committing to Tommy John surgery at the end of September to treat the tear.
While Baz has demonstrated impressive K ability over his first 179 MLB batters faced, two flags appear in the '22 and '21 MLB batted ball profiles. Three of the last four league ('22 MLB, '22 AAA, '21 AAA) LD Avoid Ratings are red, suggesting that his fastball arsenal lacks certain movement qualities (horizontal action?) that make on-barrel contact less likely. Second, in both MLB campaigns, his outfield flyball contact skews very early (Pull OFFB Avoid<<<OFFB Avoid; note that in both cases a rather substantial ISO on Batted Balls penalty was paid for that transgression). Per those aerial pulls, there stand to be issues with fastball effective velocity playing down from its average 96 to 97 mph gun readings (poorer location and/or deception) and/or hanging sliders and changeups.
After delaying Tommy John surgery until later September, Baz will not appear in '23. If he can recover from the recent spate of elbow problems (will have three option years remaining to begin '24), Baz projects to be a plus to plus plus strikeouts MLB SP with average to half plus control but some batted ball profile concerns that could limit his future MLB SP ceiling to SP2 rather than the preferred SP1 one that seemed apt before '22. Such an end result would have him resembling another Rays righty from the past, '15-'17 Chris Archer. More risk-averse dynasty and keeper league owners should weigh stashing him until '24 versus trading him in efforts to address a more pressing need on the '23 squad or looming roster thin area for future seasons.
Brayan Bello, Boston Red Sox
Bello burst onto FaBIO's radar in '18 via a triple plus 91 CTL/97 K/92 BATTED BALL PROFILE line in a first pro season that was spent mostly in the Dominican Summer League but ended with a 19-batter cup of coffee stateside with Boston's Gulf Coast League affiliate. Red Sox boldly assigned him to full-season A in April '19 and the fundamentals graded out subpar then over a fuller season.
Upon return of MiLB in '21, he was assigned to the A+ affiliate where he put up 92 CTL/99 K/91 BATTED BALL PROFILE line rather like the '18 debut one over six games, beckoning a promotion to AA; relative to the A+ Ratings CTL & BATTED BALL PROFILE (IFFB and LD Avoid, especially) sank over 280 AA batters faced. Bello was soon 40-man-rostered to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft.
K and BATTED BALL PROFILE rated plus plus to plus again in a '22 AA return and each fundamental impressively improved a few ticks during a subsequent AAA stint. Those AAA out-generation fundamentals earned him a July MLB debut and he would go on to post a very respectable league-average 52 OVERALL 12 CTL/47 K/85 BATTED BALL PROFILE line versus 268 big league batters. BATTED BALL PROFILE translated almost fully from AAA to MLB while CTL and K each backed up one to two standard deviations, an unsurprising result for the rookie debut of a starting pitcher.
Control and strikeouts should improve with MLB SP experience. Average control is realistic, eventually. How far strikeouts venture from a present MLB SP average level to a less realistic ceiling of plus plus is a function of how well each of the sliders and changeups play for whiffs. The slider seems especially key as it is the safer route to K versus righthanded batters (RHB); without those K, he would lean heavier on the change for K, undermining the expected run avoidance of a batted ball profile else anchored in plus plus ground balls by increasing frequency of aerial pulls (a dicey outcome in Fenway Park versus RHB).
A more extreme groundballer like this would ideally have a third baseman and shortstop who each skew rangier with stronger, accurate arms; for '23, he will instead have recently extended bat-first Rafael Devers at third and who knows at short. For this reason, he may continue to skew volatile at avoiding hits (AVG) on batted balls for a spell but a well-established avoidance of extra bases (ISO) on them seen in the far right column seems unlikely to evaporate.
The MLB SP ceiling for Bello resembles how Dominican Republic countryman Luis Castillo profiled on the FaBIO scales in '17 and '19 with groundballs and strikeouts aplenty. A more reachable typical SP season outcome would mirror 2022 Kyle Wright [73 OVERALL 57 CTL/59 K/83 BATTED BALL PROFILE (96 GB/...). Full re-draft league players may want to hold off a year on Bello but keeper and dynasty leaguers ought to add this groundballer who may rack up a fair amount of strikeouts, too, to the fantasy organization sooner.
Kyle Bradish, Baltimore Orioles
Angels selected Bradish in the fourth round of the '18 MLB Draft out of New Mexico State. As a junior, he amounted to a wilder strikeout-specialized SP who induced groundballs at a slightly above-average rate. He sat out the rest of that pro season then spent all of '19 at their A+ affiliate where he mustered only a 41 OVERALL via a 19 CTL/72 K/25 BATTED BALL PROFILE; most all of the '19 A+ downfall relative to the '18 D1 line lay in K and LD Avoid, and Orioles saw enough to land him and three other pitching prospects in a swap for Dylan Bundy.
When MLB returned in '21, the Orioles sent him to AA and he binged on K earning a rapid promotion to AAA, where he posted an 89 OVERALL featuring more balance between K (87) and BATTED BALL PROFILE (80) outcomes. Bradish claimed a 40-man roster spot that offseason and got off to a monster start upon return to AAA in April (between those three starts and a July rehab appearance, the AAA slashie was nearly "triple plus plus" per 95 CTL/98 K/100 BATTED BALL PROFILE), beckoning an MLB debut at the end of the month not long after his first option year had officially been lost.
Bradish went on to face 509 MLB batters at an average rate of 22 per game and post a respectable 48 OVERALL and 16 CTL/58 K/59 BATTED BALL PROFILE slashie. Weakest fundamental as an MLB SP seems surer to be control. Between the MLB debut 16 CTL and what preceded '22, future marks oscillating around 30 (half minus) are likeliest for MLB SP seasons to come. And that makes staying above average at each of K and BATTED BALL PROFILE a priority.
The most favorable aspect of the batted ball profile can be spotted in the Pull OFFB Avoid and ISO columns; from '17-'22, only one of those marks is below 55 and that one was over just 52 batters. He is difficult to elevate to the pull-field (fastballs play fast and offspeed pitch selections and locations are aerial-pull-averse) and thus above average at avoiding extra bases on batted balls. The mystery with the batted ball profile may be movement as he was very weak at IFFB and LD Avoid in MLB after rating very strong at that duo in '22 & '21 AAA. With IFFB and LD Avoid duos more in line with expectations that come with half-plus groundballs, it becomes realistic to project Bradish as an MLB SP, who is half to full plus at each of BATTED BALL PROFILE and K, albeit with half minus CTL.
Comparable MLB RHSPs with this bias from recent seasons include Sonny Gray and pre-'22 Charlie Morton. Cast Bradish, like Bello (who has a few ticks more ceiling at each of CTL, K, and BATTED BALL PROFILE versus Bradish), as another MLB SP teeth cutter who may not be overly attractive for '23 full redraft leagues but should be very in the picture for keeper and dynasty leaguers who are seeking SP3 to SP2 fantasy production for '24 and after.
Felix Bautista, Baltimore Orioles
FaBIO history of Bautista dates all the way back to '13 when the then-Marlin debuted in Dominican Summer League. Miami released him in January '15. He was signed to the Orioles affiliate there just before the end of '16 and would break out as a 22-year-old full-blown '17 SP in a fourth season at the level. Since then, while working as a shorter RP, he has rated around to beyond full plus at all stops save for a '19 season split between the A- and A affiliate.
Maintaining an above-average CTL Rating in '23 MLB may be challenging per the pre-MLB marks at that fundamental. If the free passes climb, it would be advisable for LD Avoid to rate higher than the 43 from '22 and that seems doable per what went down in the '21 MiLB. The reverse OHB/SHB splits of late logically stem from the offspeed arsenal's splitter-over-slider bias. With no obvious threat lurking to displace him from closing (the most-equipped candidate, LHP prospect DL Hall, is unlikely to deploy as a ninth-inning specialist at this early stage of MLB career), Bautista simply needs to keep the K+IFFB rolling in and prevent the CTL+LD Avoid+Pull OFFB Avoid stars from lining up unfavorably to hold the job for the next few seasons.
Other AL East Pitcher Prospect Graduates
Bautista staffmates Bryan Baker and Mike Baumann also lost prospect eligibility in '22. Relative unknown Baker collected nine holds and one save in a very solid wire-to-wire debut season; he is likely a better IFFB getter and LD Avoider than the '22 FaBIO line implies so look for his hit (AVG) avoidance on batted balls to rise and more hold if not also a few save opportunities to come his way.
Baumann is down to one option year and expect the Orioles to do what they can to preserve it in '23; per a steep decline from '22 AAA plus plus K to '22 MLB subminus K, he likely slots best in a groundball-heavy, weak-contact-inducer short RP role but his '23 squad instead figures to coax more batters per game out of him as a longman to swingman.
Red Sox farmhands Kutter Crawford and Josh Winckowski ranked among FaBIO's best MiLB SP by OVERALL Rating in '21, with the former a K+CTL star and the latter a BATTED BALL PROFILE+CTL star. Crawford struggled with most all fundamentals in a '22 that was 75% spent in MLB.
Winckowski replicated his CTL and GB-anchored BATTED BALL PROFILE success in AAA around an uptick in K but could only translate the GB success to MLB; like Bello, he too may require a better left side of the infield than the '23 Red Sox will afford. As with Baumann before, each of Crawford and Winckowski will likely be charged in '23 to face more MLB batters per game than they ideally would per their present limitations in fundamentals.
Between injuries and struggles to carry key fundamentals to MLB, any hopes of Clarke Schmidt becoming an MLB SP seem dashed; an MLB 35 K Rating at 8 BF/G calls into question whether an impact RP outcome is attainable. Sidearm RHRP Scott Effross oddly posted reverse OHB/SHB splits in his first two MLB seasons; plus CTL, half plus K, and half plus BATTED BALL PROFILE results ahead with retention of that unique ability to stymie lefthanded batters would make him a useful holds collector again (16 in '22) after a '23 already lost to Tommy John surgery.
Extreme flyballer Ron Marinaccio oddly does not induce the infielder flyballs (IFFB) that typically come with that approach (and are equivalent to strikeouts in run expectancy, importantly) yet somehow very avoids line drives despite most all batted balls being lofted aerially; CTL seems surer to rise with MLB experience, casting him as a seventh-to-eighth-inning K specialist MLB short RP candidate in a season or two.
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