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Jose Berrios made his highly-anticipated debut on April 27th vs. Cleveland. In that first career game, he pitched four innings, and allowed six hits, two walks and five earned runs. Berrios made his second start this past Monday, and registered his first-career Major League win at Houston. He pitched 5.1 innings, giving up three hits, five walks and two earned runs. Overall, Berrios’s 6.75 ERA and 1.71 WHIP in 9.1 innings of work are far from impressive, but let’s take a look at what fantasy owners can expect the rest of the season from the soon-to-be 22-year-old.
Berrios has been a bit unlucky in his first two starts, and should dramatically improve the rest of the season and become a valuable fantasy asset. Opponents have a .350 BABIP against Berrios after his first two starts, despite a hard-hit rate of just 27.3%. Berrios has given up just six flyballs, and two of them have had the misfortune of turning into home runs; George Springer and Preston Tucker took him deep in his last start. He has a groundball-rate of 42.9% and batters have pulled the ball just 27.3% of the time. Berrios has been using a 93-plus MPH fastball on 63% of his pitches, and has mixed in a curveball (23.3%) and changeup (13.8%). Needless to say, all signs point to the fact that he will have a terrific season despite being just 21-years old.
Of course, two starts are pretty irrelevant as a sample size, but it’s nice to see signs that big-league hitters could have trouble with Berrios. Now, let’s take a look at his minor-league track record. Berrios’ seven walks in 9.1 innings are uncharacteristic for the youngster. He struggles with control in his first full professional season, giving up 40 walks in 103.2 innings in A-ball in 2013. After that season, Berrios improved his control dramatically. In 2014, he gave up 38 walks in 140 innings. He was even better in 2015, allowing 38 walks in 166.1 innings. As the season goes on, Berrios should harness his control and throw more strikes; for now, chalk it up to nerves. Jose’s 13 strikeouts in 9.1 innings are very encouraging. He had 484 strikeouts in 457.2 career minor-league innings, including 106 in 96 AAA innings.
When the Twins signed the Puerto Rican as an 18-year-old in 2012, they couldn’t have imagined he would be able to have such a rapid ascension through their system. The team has come out-of-the gates struggling with an 8-20 record, so you can bet Berrios will have every opportunity to stick with the club all season. He is the ace of the future for Minnesota, if not right now. Berrios should be able to perform at a high level the rest of the way, and you can expect him to post solid numbers in his first big-league season. An ERA in the low-to-mid 3.00’s, a WHIP in the 1.10-1.20 range, and a K-rate north of 9/9 IP are not out of the question. That’s what I expect from Berrios this season, with better things to come after this year.
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