When Is The Right Time to Invest In Rookie Pitchers?

Eric Samulski examines rookie starting pitchers with excellent debut outings to decide if they are worth adding in fantasy baseball or should be left on the waiver wire.

As the calendar turns to July, many fantasy managers start looking to the minor leagues to see which call-ups could help us earn a championship. While we know the big-name players who are likely already on a roster, we hunt for the next surprise call-up of a slightly flawed pitcher who takes a big step forward, like Ian Anderson or Sixto Sanchez did over the last two years.

However, oftentimes, this leads to us spending buckets of FAAB dollars on rookie pitchers who may be back in the minors quickly. We know pitching in the major leagues is hard, but the debuts of Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, and Matt Manning, three highly-touted prospects, continue to show us just how tough it is to predict success.

So when we see it in a few starts, we still sometimes need to talk ourselves down. As Nick Pollack has said a few times this year: "the first start is an exception, the second is a suggestion, and the third is a confirmation."

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Methodology

In this article, I'll quickly take you through the checklist I use when deciding whether or not it's the right time to roster a rookie pitcher, and then we'll apply that checklist to a few arms currently making noise to see whether or not we should be excited. This process isn't something I researched or cross-checked in any way; it's a process that I inadvertently use to make decisions on any pitcher who I don't have extensive knowledge of who has caught my eye.

Sometimes I think we disregard how our intuition naturally processes information and that's a mistake. My brain or gut pushes me to look for certain things when making a decision, so it shouldn't matter to me if some of the big-name writers do it or even if it leads me to a player who other people are not really believers in.

At the end of the day, this is your team, and you need to make decisions for it that you have confidence in. That may mean that all of my steps below make sense to you or it may mean that only some do. Either way, that's totally OK. I hope this article can help you build your own process to identify talent in a way that you feel good about.

Check Your Key Stats

We'd all like to say that we're not slaves to stats, but we also have to acknowledge that, unless we're watching every game, sometimes stats bring a player to our attention and that's OK. When it comes to pitchers, the key stats I look at are K-BB%, SwStr%, CSW, and SIERA. K-BB% is where I start because it's my favorite. It's been proven to have a high correlation with positive results and it just measures a real simple concept: how much better is a pitcher at striking guys out than he is at walking them?

Sometimes we don't need to go crazy in-depth to find a good stat. If a pitcher can't strike guys out, it's hard for him to be consistently fantasy-relevant, but if a pitcher also gives up too many free passes then I also know there are likely to be some issues with consistency and likely some blow-up outings. SwStr% and CSW will help me to identify if the positive strikeout results are more real and due to swinging strikes or called strikes, which are often flukier.

Lastly, I don't really look at predictive metrics this early, but I'll glance at SIERA just to see if the predictive ERA metrics see anything crazy abnormal. I will also end by checking out contact stats - particularly Barrel% and Zone Contact% - just to see if anything stands out in terms of guys giving up too much offensive production.

Check the Schedule

Next, I just want to glance at the schedule quickly. Having great results in early starts is important, but we also need the context of who were the starts against and where was the game being played. Two strong starts against the Mariners and Tigers are not the same as two strong starts against the Astros and Red Sox. Obviously.

Watch Him Pitch

I feel like this step is often overlooked because people just want answers given to them easily (maybe that's why you're reading this and begging me to get to the point). I also think people skip this step because they may think "I never played the game; how can I scout a pitcher?" However, I don't think you need to look at this step as "scouting."

Watching a pitcher's previous start (on MLB.TV perhaps) or maybe finding clips on YouTube or Twitter will help you to put visual evidence to the stats. A slider may have good swing-and-miss numbers after two starts, but you may watch it and think "That pitch doesn't seem so good." Similarly, a pitcher may have not allowed a lot of hits, but he gave up a lot of hard contact or maybe got lucky that a few fastballs right down the middle were just fouled off. You're only going to know that if you watch the guy pitch.

At the bare minimum, go through the pitch-by-pitch log on ESPN to see which pitches were thrown and where in the strike zone. I promise this won't take you more than 5-10 minutes of your time.

(Admittedly, if I see something that jumps out at me after watching a pitcher, I won't even go beyond these steps. If you watch a pitcher and feel that you " just know" he's gonna be good, take the shot. You'll kick yourself if you don't)

Check the Pitch Mix

If a pitcher passes the first three steps, this is next for me. You may choose not to go this far, but I need to see WHY the pitcher is having the success he is. I like seeing how the pitches play off of one another (using the Spin Direction graphics), how the pitches move in comparison to other pitches of the same type, and also how batters are performing off of each pitch in the pitch mix.

It's possible that a pitcher got two GIF-worthy strikeouts on a slider but the pitch gets hit super hard and he gives up a lot of home runs on it. That's important information to have. The two main places I go for this are Baseball Savant and Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard. On the Pitch Leaderboard, I will also check the SwStr%, CSW, and dERA (deserved ERA) of each pitch, just to get a better sense of how each one performs.

Check Minor League Numbers

In truth, I only go to this step if I'm still not 100% sold on a guy. If all the other steps have me buying in, then I don't necessarily care if the pitcher was dominant in the minors or not because guys can make changes that take them to new levels.

However, if I think there may be something that prevents this guy from reaching the ceiling others may project, I'll look at the minor league numbers to see if the guy has had trouble with command, getting strikeouts, or even sustaining success. It's a small piece, but it can help make a decision.

OK, now let's test out the checklist to see where we come down on a few of the rookies that have jumped out at us recently.

Alek Manoah, Toronto Blue Jays

Manoah has now made six starts at the major league level, so he's not quite the early-decision arm you were expecting to be on here, but I think he's a good test case because there's some chatter online about his FIP being much higher than his ERA and that he's seemed prone to blow-up outings and home runs.

So let's start with our key stats. Manoah's 17.9% K-BB% would put him 31st in major league baseball, right behind Taijuan Walker and Chris Bassitt. His 12.3% SwStr% is equal to Brandon Woodruff and 0.1% below Yu Darvish, but his 27.2% CSW is below-average and in line with Merrill Kelly and Nick Pivetta. His 3.95 SIERA believes in his performance and while his 10.4% barrel rate isn't ideal, it's not uncommon for a rookie and I'm more impressed that his 82.4% Z-Contact% would put him 22nd overall, right behind Aaron Nola but ahead of teammate Hyun-Jin Ryu. Not bad company to be among.

The schedule for Manoah is actually a mixed bag. On one hand, four of his six starts have come against the Yankees, Orioles, and Marlins, which are not terribly strong offenses. However, the Orioles and Marlins have also tagged him for his two worst starts. I see that one was in Baltimore and the other was in Buffalo, and he allowed all seven of his home runs this year in those two starts. While I like that the damage inflicted on him this year was limited to two starts and he pitched well against the White Sox and Red Sox on the road, the game log tells me that I need to be careful when to pitch Manoah at home since that park can be a bit of a launching pad.

When I watch Manoah, I love what I see. The confidence, the assertive nature, the movement on his slider. I was a big fan from the first start and put hefty bids on him in all of my NFBC leagues. However, if I want to go to the next step and look at the pitch mix, I see a four-seamer and sinker that he keeps up in the zone, so the sinker is really more of a traditional two-seamer. I love that he has two fastballs he can use to righties and lefties, and that play well off of one another, which I can see when I watch him but also when I look at the Spin Direction graphics.

The changeup also looks like it would work well with the sinker and four-seam because of the way its trajectory towards the plate appears similar to the hitter, but I know Manoah struggles with the pitch based on its lack of whiffs and contact profile. However, seeing it in action, it flashes the ability to be a competent fourth pitch, so I'll keep that in the back of my mind.

I saw the slider and loved it, but I also see now that it has a .165 xBA against, a 30.1 Whiff%, 15.5% SwStr% and 30.9% CSW, so I know that the stats support what I saw with my eyes. I also see that three of Manoah's pitches have CSW's at 28.5% or higher, which means that his whole arsenal can be deceptive and there isn't really a "weak" pitch among the three main offerings.

VERDICT

As a result of everything above, I am, shockingly, fully in on Manoah for the remainder of this year in redraft leagues. However, since that he does give up hard contact and has had issues with home runs in home games, I wouldn't necessarily say that he is a set-it-and-forget-it arm. For example, I am benching Manoah in NFBC formats for his Friday start at home against Tampa Bay primarily because I had some two-start options that I like, but also because I think Tampa Bay's offense could make that a relatively average performance by Manoah as the Marlins and Orioles (two inferior offenses) did before.

Kyle Muller, Atlanta Braves

He's the cover boy, so you already know I'm all in, but let's go through the motions anyway. Muller has only thrown 10 innings, but he has a 22.5% K-BB% (Aaron Nola level), 15.7% SwStr%, and 32% CSW. Those numbers put him with the likes of Max Scherzer and Trevor Rogers, which he's obviously not, but it gives context to just how impressive the early performance was. Even more impressive is that he did it against a now-healthy Mets lineup and a strong Reds lineup in Great American Ballpark, which is one of the best ballparks for offense in the entire league.

When I watched Muller, I immediately went out and put bids on him in all of my leagues. He's a 6'6" left-handed pitcher who can run the fastball up to 97 and features two strong breaking balls in a slider and curve. In the first inning, he threw a 3-2 front door slider to Joey Votto that started at the veteran's hips and then broke into the strike zone, buckling Votto's knees and getting a called third strike. For a rookie to have the confidence to do that was incredibly impressive to me (it's the first strikeout in the tweet below).

The Statcast heat maps show me that Muller does a great job of keeping the slider and curve low in the zone, which you like to see, but that the fastball catches too much of the plate. It's probably why the fastball is his worst-performing pitch so far, but is something I think is correctable since throwing 97 alone is likely enough to get many Triple-A hitters out. Then I see the Spin Direction graphics and I'm in love.

The four-seam, slider, and changeup all approach the batter at the same position on the clock, but we can see that the changeup dives down and away from righties at 30 minutes on the clock, while the slider moves in the opposite direction at 90 minutes.

What's more, the curveball is pretty much an exact mirror for the fastball, which means the two pitches will work really well off of one another. In an exceedingly small sample size, Muller has a 25% SwStr on his slider, 20% on his curve, and also a 35.9% CSW on his fastball, and that's just a cherry on top for me.

VERDICT

I'm dangerously all-in. This may come back to bite me, but I think Muller forces his way into the rotation and ends the year as an equally valuable fantasy asset compare to teammate Ian Anderson because of the increased strikeout ability. I know the standard practice is to wait until after the third start, likely Saturday against the Marlins, but I would be buying all the Muller stock now.

Zach Thompson, Miami Marlins

Zach Thompson was a big waiver wire guy in NFBC leagues this past Sunday, but I wasn't entirely sure I wanted in. The 26% K-BB% is tremendous, and the 14% SwStr% and 31.9% CSW put him around guys like Lucas Giolito; although it immediately stands out that Thompson's SwStr% is a notch below the rate of other starters who have a CSW that high, so that's something to monitor as we keep diving in.

Thompson also made four starts, which gives us more to work with than Muller. He threw three mediocre innings against the Red Sox before seeming to get his stride against the Braves, Cubs, and Nationals. Those are three solid opponents, and the 11 strikeouts he posted in the last outing against the Nationals are certainly eye-catching. However, I don't love Thompson as much when I watch him.

The cutter stands out as a good pitch, and I do like how that pairs with the shape of his curve, but he gave up a fair amount of hard contact in the Nationals game, including a few hard line outs and some warning track fly balls, that make me think he's not quite as deceptive as the early numbers suggest.

The Statcast heat maps show us that Thompson is able to get the cutter inside to righties, which we want to see, and he buries the curveball down in the zone, which is also ideal. However, this isn't really where you want to see the fastball:

He misses up more than he misses low, which is good, but he's catching too much of the plate, which isn't great since he only throws 93 MPH from the right-side with below-average rise on the four-seam. As a result, Thompson is currently seeing a .269 xBA and .506 xSLG on his fastball, which has a 12.4% SwStr% but a 5.36 ERA and 92.3 MPH average exit velocity allowed.

Yet, one bad pitch isn't enough to make me write off Thompson totally. In fact, I like the foundation of his pitch mix.

The cutter, four-seam, and sinker all play off of each other well in terms of movement profile, and the curve mirrors the four-seam pretty well. However, I still might get rid of the four-seam if I was him or rely on it less in favor of the sinker. Given that the cutter is a swing-and-miss pitch in its own right, I think Thompson can get by with a cutter, curve, sinker foundation where he mixes in the four-seam and changeup sporadically. As it stands, that poor fastball is making me a little hesitant to buy in too much, but I'm intrigued and think that there can be something here with some pitch mix tinkering.

VERDICT

Thompson has been a relatively average pitcher in his minor league career, with a 4.11 career EA, including a 6.60 ERA in his two Triple-A starts this year. He has allowed a .256 average against during his minor league career and a disappointing 1.39 WHIP. His results were mixed enough that the Marlins removed him as a starter in 2017 and made him a full-time reliever before injuries forced their hand this year.

I think the Marlins are tremendous at developing pitching talent, so if they previously decided that Thompson was better suited to a bullpen role, that makes me hesitant to buy in too much to this hot start, especially when I know that he has one poor pitch and no track record to really back up this success. I'd keep him on the watch list or add him in deep leagues but sit him on my bench until I see another start, especially since he's set to face the Braves on the road and then the Dodgers if the schedule holds.

Bailey Ober, Minnesota Twins

I did a video breakdown of Bailey Ober that gets into more detail than I can here, so I encourage you to watch it.

Since that video, Ober has continued to post a strong 21.1% K-BB%, which would put him around Lance Lynn and Trevor Rogers. However, he only has a 7.8% SwStr% and a 26.8% CSW, which is more like Mike Foltynewicz. The truth is that I think he's somewhere in between.

VERDICT

I would actually trust Ober over Thompson if I had to add one in a deep league. I love Ober's command, which, as I mentioned in the video, he relied on before he added five MPH to his fastball. I love his approach of high fastballs and low breaking or offspeed pitches, and I think the slider is a solid pitch for him.

The downside is that his changeup has been hit pretty hard as a third offering and he doesn't really have a standout pitch; however, the good command and smart approach gives him a solid floor, and I think he can stick in the rotation even when Michael Pineda comes back.

Tylor Megill, New York Mets

The 25-year-old made his major league debut after Joey Lucchesi was ruled out for the season. While the Mets are awaiting the return of Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard, that will likely take another month, which leaves Megill battling Jerad Eickhoff for the last spot in the Mets rotation.

The 6'7" Megill (why are all the pitchers in this article so damn tall?) allowed two runs in 4.1 innings against Atlanta in his first start, striking out 4. He has a paltry 11.1% K-BB%, 6.5% SwStr%, and 23.9% CSW; however, his strikeout rates and SwStr% were much higher in both AA and AAA this year. In fact, Megill has 187 strikeouts in 140 career minor league innings and a 1.18 career minor league WHIP, which present some optimism about his ability to command the strike zone.

The right-hander showed good command of his slider and changeup in his first start, keeping both pitches low in the zone and getting a pretty impressive 57.1% whiff rate on the slider. I like the hard bite on the slider and appreciated his willingness to throw it to both righties and lefties. He also showed a knuckle-curve that is basically a get-me-over pitch but could catch some hitters flat-footed.

The concern for me is the four-seamer. While he throws it 95 MPH (which is more like 97-98 MPH given his extension) he, like Thompson, doesn't get it as high in the zone as I'd like, and it got only one whiff for a paltry 5% whiff rate against the Braves.

VERDICT

Megill has a deep enough arsenal with three usable pitches and a fourth show-me pitch that he could be an option in deeper leagues. I'd love to see the fastball command improve, but that seems likely given the nerves of a first start can make command an issue (see Jackson Kowar). He lacks the plus primary pitch that Zach Thompson has in his cutter, but I like the slider and change combo that Megill features and think he has enough to be streamable in the right match-up.

TUESDAY NIGHT UPDATE: Megill showed that increased strikeout ability on Tuesday by striking out eight Braves in five innings after just seeing them the week before. What I loved here was that he had a 42% whiff rate on the slider and a 63% whiff rate on the changeup for CSWs of 33 and 50, respectively. The fastball still didn't get many swings and misses and gave up three of Megill's five hits. However, Megill kept the pitch up in the zone and didn't even need to use the curve at all. Color me intrigued. I'd be adding in deep leagues, especially with a potential match-up against Milwaukee on Monday and maybe even a two-start week against Pittsburgh if it all breaks right. I mean, how can you not be intrigued by a guy that gets swings like this?

Johan Oviedo, St. Louis Cardinals

Oviedo has made the most starts of anybody in this article, pitching 43 innings across nine starts so far this season. However, despite 24.2 innings in 2020, the 23-year-old is still a rookie pitcher and one with an apparently locked-in spot in an MLB rotation. On the year, he has a 5.1% K-BB%, 10.9% SwStr%, 26.6% CSW, and 5.28 SIERA, which is almost enough for me to lose interest right off the bat. However, we know that we need to look beyond stats to get a full picture.

The issue is that digging deeper doesn't help him too much. He's primarily a fastball-slider pitcher who will also mix in a curve and changeup, almost exclusively to lefties. The slider, which he doesn't really throw much to lefties, is the only pitch that induces a lot of swing-and-miss with a 22.8% SwStr% and a 35.6% CSW. It's also primarily why Oviedo allows only a .200 average and .360 slugging percentage to right-handed hitters, but a .301 average and .452 slugging percentage to lefties. Without the use of his best pitch, Oviedo has proven to be vulnerable to lefty-heavy teams, like the Pirates, who he struggled against over the weekend.

VERDICT

I like Oviedo's slider and think the changeup, which has been hit hard this year, actually has some solid movement. However, the command issues (5.23 BB/9) have become an issue, and he needs to feel confident using his slider to both righties and lefties if he's going to have success at the major league level. I wouldn't be streaming Oviedo even in deep leagues right now, but if you see the command start to improve and the slider usage against lefties increase, I think there could be some room for him to grow into a deeper league option.

Max Kranick, Pittsburgh Pirates

Max Kranick made his MLB debut opposing Oviedo this weekend, except Kranick was far more successful, throwing five hitless innings, while striking out three and walking none. Kranick was optioned back to Triple-A after the start, but given the current trajectory of the Pirates, I think he'll be back up in short order.

Kranick has four starts in Triple-A this season after starting in AA, posting a 15.5% K-BB% in Triple-A with a 13.4% SwStr%. However, the 23-year-old isn't really a swing-and-miss pitcher with 7.39 K/9 in his minor league career, despite a jump to 9.26 K/9 this season. He has made his hay by not walking guys or giving up a lot of loud contact, something which he succeeded in doing against the Cardinals too.

Kranick features a 94 MPH fastball and a hard slider, which he only threw to right-handed batters in his first start. Unlike some of the names above, what I liked about Kranick was the way he kept the fastball up in the zone.

Kranick has a short-arm delivery, which he went to last year at the alternate site. He also apparently started using Rapsodo as he changed his arm path, which might suggest that the increased strikeout rates this year might not be flukey but due to a new approach. The shorter arm circle can make the fastball "jump" a little more, so his 94 MPH would get on the hitter a little quicker, which is possibly why his fastball up in the zone induced a fair number of routine fly outs in his first start.

Given that it was his debut, the Pirates went fastball-heavy with his approach, but he did showcase his slider, which acts more like a traditional cutter in the same way Tyler Mahle's does. I'd like to see him get the pitch a little lower in the zone, but the fastball up and slider down approach is one we really like to see from pitchers.

VERDICT

The ceiling on Kranick isn't as high as a guy like Megill since he lacks a real swing-and-miss pitch. The fastball was his highest-grade pitch in the minors, but it's not the type of pitch that will put major league hitters away. However, I think Kranick has a floor that would intrigue me in deep leagues. He attacks the strike zone with plus command, which allows him to get soft contact and use his defense, like this ridiculous play by Ke'Bryan Hayes.

At the end of the day, I think the improvements Kranick made last year could allow him to settle in as a solid ratio arm that for deeper leagues that you can use against most but not all teams, similar to teammate Tyler Anderson or Ryan Yarbrough.

Sammy Long, San Francisco Giants

After his debut, I made a video where I expressed some hesitation about Long.

Since then, I've come around a little but not as much as some others it seems. Long's curveball is proving to be a solid weapon for him, even after that first outing. He has a 32% whiff rate on it and just a .143 xBA. I like the 12-6 vertical movement, and it pairs relatively well with a four-seam fastball that has above-average rise. However, the fastball really doesn't miss many bats and Long gives up a 90% zone contact, which is usually not a recipe for success.

The changeup is a solid third pitch, which raises his floor a bit because of his plus curveball. However, Long's 16% K-BB%, 9.7% SwStr%, and 4.07 SIERA all suggest that the ceiling people give him when they see his curveball numbers may not be justified.

VERDICT

I think Long is a solid match-up streamer in 12-team leagues or larger because of that plus curve. However, I don't think the arsenal is deep enough to count on anything more right now. He gives up too much contact for us to assume his strikeout rates from the minors are going to transition to the big leagues, so I wouldn't be holding onto him tightly. Although, I think he's set up well in his start this week against the Diamondbacks.

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