Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 21

Elliott Baas looks at starting pitchers who turned in surprising starts recently. These SP could emerge as waiver wire targets and sleepers, or simply mirages.

Welcome to Are You For Real?, a weekly column where we look at pitchers who turned in surprisingly good starts and try to determine whether they are the real deal. It's late August, which means all fantasy sports eyes are on one thing: the fantasy baseball playoffs! We're down the contenders in most leagues, which means we're also down to analyzing some pitchers who have really struggled this season, or have been deep off the fantasy radar up until now. This week we're looking at two veteran lefties in the midst of their worst MLB seasons, and a young, unheralded right-hander who's been rolling over the last month.

2021 bust Patrick Corbin had his best start in quite some time on Friday, shutting down the Brewers in Milwaukee for the win. J.A. Happ looks to be having about his fifth or sixth career resurgence with a strong August since being traded to the Cardinals, and put up eight strikeouts on Saturday. Carlos Hernandez has come out of nowhere for the Royals, and had an eight-strikeout performance of his own on Sunday against the Cubs.

Roster percentages quoted in this piece are based on Yahoo availability and are accurate as of 8/23/2021.

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Patrick Corbin, Washington Nationals

39% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 126.2 IP, 6.04 ERA, 5.51 FIP, 2.0 HR/9

08/20/21 @ MIL: 6.1 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K

Corbin has been one of the biggest pitching disappointments of the 2021 season, and certainly has Nats ownership and fans sweating over the $23.3 million dollar salary Corbin is owed through 2024. He certainly has the makings of an albatross pitching contract, similar to that of Jordan Zimmerman and Johnny Cueto in recent years. However, it wasn’t that long ago that Corbin was a fantasy stud. He was one of the most reliable starting pitchers between 2018-19, but took a huge step back in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Many players got a mulligan for the 60-game season, but Corbin has spent 2021 showing us that last year may have been a sign of things to come instead of a small sample size fluke. The 32-year-old lefty’s 5.82 ERA is the highest among qualified starting pitchers, and his 18.6% strikeout rate, 1.96 HR/9, and 5.39 FIP are all career worsts. Surely there’s some talent remaining in Corbin’s left arm, right? It certainly looked that was on Friday, as Corbin silenced a surging Milwaukee Brewers lineup, allowing one run or fewer in a start for the first time since June 15 and issuing zero walks for the first time since June 26. We’ll likely never see peak Patrick Corbin again, but is there any value left in the veteran southpaw?

While much of the baseball discourse of the late 2010s surrounded launch angle and debates over a juiced ball, there was something of a pitching revolution that occurred around the same time. Many starting pitchers bucked conventional, fastball-dominant pitching styles in favor of heavy breaking ball usage, and Patrick Corbin was one of the most prominent and successful pitchers using this approach. It’s not that Corbin’s fastball was particularly bad, but he possessed one of the best sliders in all of baseball, and he wasn’t afraid to use it 40% of the time or more, and wasn’t afraid to use it at any point in the count. Altogether, Corbin pitches primarily off three pitchers, the slider, a four-seam fastball, and a sinker. He throws the occasional curveball or changeup, but uses both pitches under 5% of the time. It’s mostly about the fastballs and slider with Corbin.

With how poorly Corbin has pitched this season, the natural assumption would be slider decline, but the pitch has still be effective from a results standpoint this year. Batters are hitting .197 against the pitch with a .360 SLG and .259 wOBA, making it by far his best pitch this season. Even though the surface results are good, things get a little shakier when we take a look at the measurables. The average spin rate is down 186 RPM from his 2019 peak, going from 2398 in 2019 to 2212 in 2021. The first instinct is to blame foreign substance crackdowns, but Corbin’s slider was around 2200 RPM during his starts back in April, so if the issue was sticky stuff, he stopped using long before umpires were doling out cavity searches after every half inning. It’s not just the spin rate that’s diminished either, as Corbin’s drop has been on a steady, well, drop over the past few seasons. Here’s a graph outlining the change in slider movement over the years.

Not a graph person? Then let’s do a visual comparison of Corbin sliders from 2021 and 2019.

2019:

And 2021:

There’s a sharpness in 2019 that doesn’t exist in 2021, and it’s the hard, sweeping sliders that can pile up the strikeouts. Corbin has lost over a half inch of drop on his slider compared to its peak, and that coupled with a slight 1 MPH velocity has taken away a lot of the whiff ability from the slider. Corbin was famous for throwing different variations of the slider, such as a hard, sharp traditional slider, and a slower, loopier slurve-like slider, but the drop in velocity and loss of movement means he’s no longer able to drop the hammer on batters anymore. His slider still has a respectable 20.1% swinging strike rate, but in 2018 he had a monster 29.2% swinging strike rate with it, and in 2019 he had a 27.7% swinging strike rate on his slider. 20.1% is still decent, but the slider was the separator for Corbin, and he has little else to fall back on in his pitching arsenal.

If you simply looked at Corbin’s pitch mix on a website like FanGraphs or Baseball Savant he would seem like a fastball-slider only pitcher, and while that’s true, Corbin has thrown multiple variations of his slider over the past few seasons. Corbin was thriving off different versions of his slider for two years, but he’s lost a little on the pitch and is now unable to use it like he could during his prime. That leaves just his fastball to lean back on, which is not good news for Corbin believers. Corbin’s four-seam fastball has been demolished by opposing hitters for a .336 AVG (with an exact .336 xBA as of writing this. Nice to see Statcast get one right on the nose) and a .541 SLG this season. His sinker hasn’t been much better, with a .287 BA and .545 SLG against in 2021. These are both technically improvements from 2020, but still nowhere near where Corbin needs to be to recapture success.

Verdict:

There was one encouraging sign about Corbin’s fastball in his start Friday, and that was the increase in velocity. Corbin averaged 94 MPH on the gun in this one, and even touched 96 MPH. This was only the third time in his career that Corbin averaged 94 MPH or higher in an appearance with his fastball, and the other two occurrences happened in 2016 out of the bullpen. He also threw his slider a little harder in this one at 82.6 MPH, and his vertical movement was ever so slightly better than his season average. His slider movement is still far from its peak, but this is a positive trend for Corbin. Unfortunately, because of how poorly Corbin has pitched this season prior to this outing, there’s no way I could trust him without seeing him keep the fastball velocity and slider movement at this level for a few more starts, and even then he’d have to be facing a pretty weak opponent before I’d consider using him.

J.A. Happ, St. Louis Cardinals

21% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 115 IP, 6.03 ERA, 5.26 FIP, 2.4 K/BB ratio

08/21 vs. PIT: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

With all of the big names that got swapped at this year’s crazy trade deadline, one player that garnered absolutely no fanfare was J.A. Happ, who the Cardinals acquired from the Twins in exchange for John Gant. It was an easy move to overlook, as Happ was the midst of his worst MLB season, owning a 6.77 ERA in 98.1 innings with Minnesota before getting moved. It looked like the end was nigh for the weathered 38-year-old southpaw, but Happ has quietly pitched well since going to St. Louis, putting up a 1.99 ERA and 3.2 K/BB ratio in four starts for the Redbirds. Even though Happ looked like toast through the first three months of the season, he’s only one year removed from a 3.47 ERA with the Yankees, and the wily veteran may still have something to offer for fantasy owners down the stretch.

Happ has been around for a long, long time, and is one of the few active MLB players to make his debut during the George W. Bush administration. His career got off to a nice start with Philadelphia, and was one of the key pieces that netted the Phillies Roy Oswalt back when the Phillies were World Series contenders. His career took a downturn following the trade, but Happ had a major resurgence in his mid-30s and became a reliable fantasy starter for four seasons. What turned Happ’s career around was a focus on throwing high fastballs to deceive hitters, and eschewing his curveball in favor of his slider and changeup. These days, Happ primarily works with four pitches, the four-seam fastball, sinker, slider, and changeup. He still throws the odd changeup, but uses the pitch under 2% of the time. It’s mainly about the fastballs, slider, and changeup for Happ these days.

Even though it’s only been four starts, Happ has made one noticeable change since coming to St. Louis, and that’s with the changeup. He’s increased his changeup usage to 17.8% of the time with the Cardinals after using the pitch under 10% of the time with Minnesota. The changeup had always been an afterthought for Happ, as he mainly used the pitch against right-handed batters when he didn’t trust his slider, but apparently St. Louis has instructed him to throw the pitch with greater frequency than ever before. This new approach may be a mere response to the nosedive in performance Happ has experienced on his slider this season. Batters have clobbered Happ’s slider for a .307 AVG, .573 SLG, and a .374 wOBA. It’s rather rare for a pitcher’s slider to perform worse than his fastball, but that’s been the case for Happ in 2021. Here’s a graph of his slider movement year-over-year.

He’s at his lowest point since 2014, which was one year before his resurgence with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Like with Patrick Corbin, Happ has lost serious vertical movement on his slider this season, and Happ was working with a much thinner margin for error than Corbin, so it’s no surprise how poorly Happ’s season had been going prior to his trade. Clearly, the Cardinals thought there’s no salvaging the pitch and thought it best to lean more heavily on his changeup.

Make no mistake, Happ’s changeup isn’t some GIF-able, gravity-defying, strikeout weapon. However, opponents have managed just a .268 AVG and .437 SLG against it this season, along with an 83.7 MPH average exit velocity. The goal at this point in Happ’s career is contact management, and this pitch has produced by far the most favorable contact for him in 2021. His overall hard contact rate has dipped a bit since joining St. Louis, but not by any drastic measure. Below is a graph of his average exit velocity against by month this season.

There’s a decent bit of variance month-to-month, but he is about 1 MPH below his season average in August, and has been trending in the right direction for the last two months. Again, this isn’t a revolutionary change for Happ, but it may help him hang on in the majors for a bit longer.

If Happ wants to hang on, he’ll need to get better results on his four-seam fastball, which has been demolished by opponents for a .292 AVG, .575 SLG, and a whopping 17 home runs. I mentioned earlier that Happ found great success with the high fastball during the mid-2010s, but that pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction this season, and as a result Happ has been hammered by the long ball this season, allowing 1.86 HR/9 despite a perfectly reasonable 14.1% HR/FB ratio. Below is a comparison of his four-seam fastball location between 2015-2020 (top), and his fastball location in 2021 (bottom).

He’s used to be confident living in the high part of the zone with his fastball, but this year Happ is throwing everything up above the strikezone. Happ has always had good command, a skill that holds steady with age, so it’s unlikely that he’s unable to keep the pitch in the zone. Instead, he looks scared to throw his fastball in the strike zone. With how hard it’s been knocked around, it’s hard to blame him, but it’s also a big point against a Happ renaissance in 2021. He already doesn’t have his slider, and he can’t throw his fastball in the zone. That leaves him with a meh changeup and sinker, which may have been enough to survive in 1982, but in 2021 he will get eaten alive by strong lineups.

Speaking of strong lineups, Happ hasn’t seen many since the trade. He did face Atlanta in his first start with St. Louis, but since then has faced Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh again. Miraculously, his next start comes against the Pirates again in Pittsburgh on Friday. While I don’t think Happ has much left in the tank, he is a low-end streamer in that matchup. The Pirates have been the worst lineup in the majors against left-handed pitching, posting a meager 78 wRC+ and .122 ISO as a team this season. In the month of August the Pirates have a 58 wRC+, .107 ISO, and .584 OPS, the worst in the majors by a good margin. Happ is definitely not back, but you can use him for a sneaky start in this matchup with little risk.

Verdict:

Happ’s St. Louis resurgence appears to be part matchups related (facing KC and PIT in his last three starts) and part mirage, with a .220 BABIP and 100% LOB rate guiding him towards a 1.99 ERA despite an unsightly 4.71 FIP over the four start stretch. He is unwilling to throw his fastball in the zone with regularity, resulting in a bloated 1.86 HR/9, and has lost what little effectiveness remained on his slider. Even with all these faults, he’s streamer material in his next outing against Pittsburgh. Beyond that, Happ is someone to avoid.

Carlos Hernandez, Kansas City Royals

17% Rostered

2021 Stats (prior to this start): 52 IP, 4.33 ERA, 4.29 FIP, 2.1 K/BB ratio

08/22 @ CHC: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 8 K

Hernandez has been on a roll as of late, allowing one or fewer runs in four of his last five starts. Sunday was his best performance yet, as Hernandez completed seven innings for the first time in his career, and posted a career-best eight strikeouts in a dominant performance over the reeling Cubs. Hernandez didn’t come with the same prospect pedigree as many of the other young Kansas City arms such as Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, and Kris Bubic, but the right-hander has held his own in the rotation. Can he keep this up, or will this Royal soon be dethroned?

Originally signed as an international free agent out of Venezuela for $15,000, Hernandez never had much prospect hype behind him. He was never considered a top-10 organizational prospect for Kansas City, and scouts profiled him as more as a reliever/swingman type than a true starter, if he made the majors at all. Hernandez made the jump from Single-A to the majors in 2020, struggling to a 4.91 ERA and 6.40 FIP, though he only thew 14.2 innings. He pitched most of 2021 out of the bullpen for Kansas City, but was thrust into the rotation out of necessity following the All-Star break, and since has a 3.38 ERA and .284 wOBA against.

Hernandez works with a four-pitch mix, consisting of a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup. The fastball was considered his best pitch as a prospect, and his most impressive trait this season has been the fastball velocity. Hernandez has averaged 97.2 MPH with his four-seamer this year. This pitch has given batters fits this season as well, as opponents are hitting just .194 with a .403 SLG and .341 wOBA off Hernandez’s four-seamer, impressive numbers for a fastball in 2021. Hernandez’s fastball is more than velocity too, as his average spin rate of 2359 RPM puts him in the 76^th percentile of fastball spin in the majors. This combination has allowed Hernandez to have an impressive 10.2% swinging strike rate with his fastball. Here’s an example of a Hernandez fastball from this start.

Even though it’s a straight four-seamer, it’s deceptive movement and spin fools the batter into thinking it’s right over the plate, when in fact the pitch winds up near his wrists, right where the catcher was expecting it. Pitcher’s who are this far above average with fastball velocity and spin tend to find success in the majors, and Hernandez’s fastball looks like the real deal.

One of the common knocks against Hernandez as a prospect was that he only has one good pitch, which is the fastball, and while there has been some truth to that during Hernandez’s short MLB career, one can see the potential behind his slider long term. His slider does have slightly above average movement, and has a decent 17% swinging strike rate on the year. Here’s an example of a slider from this start.

It wouldn’t blow anyone away, but Hernandez threw the pitch in an 0-2 count after two straight 97 MPH fastballs. If he can effectively sequence his slider and fastball, he should be able to maintain a respectable strikeout rate. Batters have also managed just a .216 AVG and .254 wOBA off Hernandez’s slider this season. The pitch is performing well, and with a little more seasoning and command improvements could take off as a legitimate weapon for Hernandez alongside his fastball.

Although Hernandez has been better on a surface level as a starter (3.38 ERA as a starter vs. 4.98 ERA as a reliever),  practically every underlying metric screams regression for Hernandez as a starter. His strikeout rate as a starting pitcher is nearly 10% lower than as a reliever, as Hernandez has a pedestrian 20.4% K rate in the rotation. Sunday’s start was just the second time Hernandez notched more than 10 swinging strikes in a start. He’s also benefitted from a .245 BABIP as a starting pitcher, and his 4.52 xFIP suggests Hernandez has outperformed his ERA by over a full run. Altogether, this is a raw talent that’s pitching a bit over his head right now. There are things to like about his future potential, but also plenty of concerns both for this season and long term. Not only does he lack a viable third pitch, but Hernandez has an ugly 11.3% walk rate this season, including three walks in this most recent start. He might wind up in the bullpen permanently, and with his big velocity and slider might thrive in a relief role. For now, he’s a streamer that is trustable against weak opponents, such as the Cubs, who have an 85 wRC+ and 27% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching this season, the highest strikeout rate versus righties in the majors.

Verdict:

Hernandez boasts an impressive fastball, but the rest of his game needs work before he can become a trustworthy starter. Unless he can iron out some of his secondary pitches, his long term future might be in the bullpen. He can be deployed against weak lineups. His next start comes against Seattle, a team with a 94 wRC+ and 25.6% strikeout rate against right-handed pitchers this season. Hernandez is a viable deep league streamer in that situation, but it’s hard to trust such a raw, unproven, and ultimately flawed player during crunch time in fantasy leagues.

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