Are You For Real? Surprising Pitcher Starts from Week 6

Elliott Baas looks at starting pitchers who turned in surprising starts recently. These SP could emerge as waiver wire targets and sleepers for Week 6, or simply mirages.

Welcome back to "Are You For Real?", a weekly column where we take starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legit or just smoke and mirrors.

It was another fun week of baseball as we saw two no-hitters from top prospects, and while we won't be breaking down Hunter Greene as we looked at him in the Week 1 edition of this article, we will take a peek at Reid Detmers no-no against the Rays. We'll also break down two surprising starts out of NL Central arms with Chicago's Justin Steele and St. Louis's Dakota Hudson both turning in nice performances over the weekend.

Roster percentages are taken from Yahoo and are accurate as of 5/16/22.

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Reid Detmers, Los Angeles Angels – 25% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 22 IP, 5.32 ERA, 4.47 FIP, 12.1% K-BB%

5/10 vs. TB: 9 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

It was a night to remember last Tuesday for Detmers, who fell just one walk short of a perfect game en route to a no-hit performance against the Tampa Bay Rays. This was by far the best start of Detmers career, as he not only no-hit the Rays, but pitched beyond the sixth inning for the first time and allowed zero runs in a start for the first time. A highly touted pitching prospect in the Angels’ organization, this start certainly catapults Detmers onto the fantasy radar, but is the young southpaw capable of following up, or was it just a lucky night?

The 10th overall pick in the 2020 draft, Detmers quickly became one of the most hyped pitching prospects in the game, and the first Angels arm to garner this amount of prospect hype in some time.  A left-hander out of Louisville, Detmers uses a four-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, curveball, changeup, and slider. While no individual pitch stands head-and-shoulders above the rest, Detmers best two pitches are probably his curveball and changeup, both of which were on full display in this one.

The curveball has been the favorite pitch of scouts and evaluators of Detmers, and it’s been as advertised thus far this year. Opponents are hitting just .095 against Detmers’s curveball, along with a .143 SLG and .250 xwOBA. It’s more of a traditional, slow curveball with a big arc and average spin. His curveball averages just 72.5 MPH on the gun, which is more than 20 MPH slower than his fastball, a rare thing to see in younger pitchers as the trend is baseball has leaned more towards harder, sharper curves with more horizontal movement. Here is a good example of the pitch from this start.

That’s an old school curveball, which as a viewer you just love to see. Like the sinker, these slow curves are a dying breed and it’s exciting to see a pitcher thrive with one. There are some drawbacks, however, which is probably why the style is fading to a degree. Firstly, you are simply going to allow more contact with a slow curve as your primary breaking ball compared to a slider or harder curve. The good news is that while contact is more frequent on a slow curve, the quality of that contact should be poor more often than not. In fact, opposing batters have just an 86.2 MPH average exit velocity off the curveball thus far, along with a 51.9% groundball rate off the curveball between this season and last. Admittedly, 2021 had a much higher groundball rate than 2022, but curveballs are typically good at generating groundballs so I’d expect the pitch to lean more groundball-heavy going forward.

The elevated contact allowed on a curveball may limit Detmers’s ability to match the big strikeout numbers he had in the minor leagues. While he was cruising with strikeout rates well above 30% in the minors, he has a paltry 16.8% strikeout rate this season and notched just two punchouts during the no-hitter, one of which was on Mike Zunino, making it barely count. He also only had 10 whiffs despite throwing 108 pitches and pitching the entire game. 10 whiffs would be a decent, but not great number of whiffs had he thrown five or six innings, but 10 whiffs for a 7.4% swinging strike rate is rough.

His changeup has been his best strikeout pitch, with Detmers getting five of his 10 whiffs off that pitch in this start, but he has only thrown the pitch 8.9% of the time this year and throws it exclusively to right-handed hitters. He did throw the changeup more frequently in this start at a 22.2% usage rate and perhaps that’s a sign that he's changing his approach, however the Rays only started two left-handed hitters in this one, so it's hard to know if his changeup usage was a new pitching style or a reaction to his opponent’s lineup construction. It will be interesting to see if Detmers uses his changeup more often going forward, because he will likely need to either rely more on the changeup or develop his slider and use it more if he wants long term success. He really needs a reliable third pitch to round out his arsenal, I'm just not quite sure whether it's the changeup or slider yet.

Verdict:

Detmers does have a slider that he’s been developing throughout his time in the minors and now majors, but with a meager 4.5% swinging strike rate this season it’s fair to say the pitch is a work-in-progress rather than his new strikeout hammer. Altogether, if you’re expecting a star turn from Detmers after this performance you’re probably going to be let down. The 22-year-old still has a lot of development to be done at the big league level, and even when polished looks to have the stuff of a mid-rotation starter rather than a frontline ace despite the prospect pedigree. He's usable in the right situation, but he’s not someone I would trust against difficult matchups. His next start is tonight at Texas, and he is streamable there, although bear in mind he may have additional fatigue following a 108-pitch outing.

Justin Steele, Chicago Cubs – 4% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 22 IP, 5.32 ERA, 3.74 FIP, 12.5% K-BB%

5/15 @ ARI: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R (1 ER), 2 BB, 10 K

Steele showed up to play on Sunday, earning his first quality start of the season while striking out ten Diamondbacks in a no decision. It was the first time Steele had gotten double digit strikeouts as a major leaguer, and the first time he allowed fewer than two runs since April 9. Steele was already a fringe starter for the Cubs, and this start may have solidified his spot in the Cubs’ rotation for at least a little while longer, but does he deserve a spot in yours?

A fifth-round pick by the Cubs back in 2014 as a high schooler, Steele was never much of a prospect. The best ranking I could find for him was FanGraph’s Eric Logenhagen put him 25^th in the Cubs’ organization in 2021 as a 26-year-old lefty who had already reached the majors, profiling him as a LOOGY/single-inning type. That’s not high praise and accordingly no one had Steele on their fantasy radar. He works with a five-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, sinker, slider, curveball, and the rare changeup (he’s only thrown six changeups all season). Steele is mostly a four-seam and slider guy, throwing the pitches a combined 79.9% of the time, and the two pitches were his key to success in this game.

Steele’s slider was the star of the show on Sunday, as he threw it 27.8% of the time and earned nine of his 13 whiffs with the pitch. Batters have really struggled against Steele’s slider this season, hitting just .158 with a  .136 xBA and .148 xWOBA. They haven’t been able to square anything up off Steele’s slider as they have just an 80.9 MPH average exit velocity against, a pitifully weak number. The pitch does have above average drop and break, and stands out especially in horizontal movement. Steele doesn’t throw it particularly hard at just 81.8 MPH, but he does get some nice, sweeping movement on the pitch. Here are a few examples from this start.

It's a really solid offering, and better than I was expecting coming into this evaluation given Steele’s lack of pedigree and limited success in the major leagues. Steele was able to keep his strikeout rate above 22% once he reached Double-A, and with this slider at his disposal he’d likely be able to maintain a good-not-great strikeout percentage as a major leaguer. 10 strikeouts every time? Probably not going to happen, but around a strikeout per inning seems reasonable for Steele.

Speaking of innings, that might be the biggest problem facing Steele. The Cubs just don’t seem to trust him to pitch beyond 3-4 innings in most starts. This start was the first time he’d going deeper than five innings all season, and he only made it through the fifth once prior to this start. Steele has made 16 starts in his career and has only gone past the fifth inning twice including this start against Arizona. He only threw 90 pitches in this start as well, and despite rolling through six innings the Cubs didn’t trust him enough to keep going in a close game. The lack of volume really limits his upside, as starters who can only go for 3-4 innings most times just aren’t worth anything in fantasy baseball.

Verdict:

It seems clear that, until Steele proves them otherwise, that the Cubs view him as more of a rebuild/transitional piece than a fixture of their rotation long term. If they had better options Steele would likely be in the bullpen, but for now he remains a starter. He'd have some appeal thanks to his slider if we could trust him to go deeper into games, but for now he is a low-end streamer at best. His next start comes at home against these same Diamondbacks, so it’s a great spot if you want to use him. The risk of a blowup against a weak lineup like Arizona seems low, so Steele is streamable in that game, though I wouldn’t go out of my way to add him nor would I be particularly excited to use him.

Dakota Hudson, St. Louis Cardinals – 16% Rostered

2022 Stats (prior to this start): 30.1 IP, 3.56 ERA, 5.31 FIP, 2.4% K-BB%

5/14 vs. SF: 5 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 2 K

Hudson pitched just 8.2 innings last season as he made his way back from Tommy John surgery, but the right-hander is fully healthy now and back to his old ways on the mound. Hudson blanked the Giants for five innings and lowered his season ERA to 3.06. Hudson actually has an impressive 3.13 ERA for his career, which is a lower career ERA than Max Scherzer (Hudson’s thrown over 2000 fewer innings, mind you), but he’s virtually un-rostered despite his exceptional run prevention skills showcased over multiple seasons. Hudson does a lot of things us sabermetrics nerds don’t like, but are we wrong to be so dismissive, or is Hudson truly a ticking time bomb?

Originally a first-round pick out of Mississippi State, Hudson was considered a solid prospect in the Cardinals’ organization but never quite broke any top-100 prospect lists. It wasn’t quite clear whether Hudson would be able to make it as a starter and spent his rookie season pitching out of the bullpen, but he really shined in his first full season as a starter in 2019, making 32 starts and pitching to a 3.35 ERA over 174.2 innings. He’s only thrown 83 innings since then due to injury, but he has a 2.82 ERA over that time. Hudson uses a five-pitch arsenal with a sinker, slider, four-seam fastball, curveball, and changeup. It sounds like a lot, but Hudson's game is defined by just one of those pitches, and that is the sinker.

I mentioned earlier in this article that Reid Detmers’s slow curveball was something of a throwback in pitching style, and the same can be said about Hudson’s sinker but to an even greater degree. There aren’t many sinkerballers left, at least not ones who pitch deliberately to contact like Hudson, but it’s worked for him to this point. Hudson has an exceptional 57.5% groundball rate for his career, and a monster 63.6% groundball rate with his sinker all time. This puts Hudson firmly with the game’s best groundball pitchers, with only the likes of Framber Valdez and Logan Webb able to match this incredible groundball rate. The average launch angle off his sinker this season is just three degrees, which, while impressively low, is actually the highest average launch angle batters have ever managed off Hudson’s sinker. Opponents struggle to keep that average launch angle above zero most years.

Hudson’s skill at inducing groundballs is the primary reason he’s been able to defy advanced metrics for as long as he has. His career 3.13 ERA (as of writing this) may be sparkly, but it comes with a 4.71 FIP and an ugly 6.2% K-BB%. It’s hard to trust a pitcher no matter how consistent their end results when their advanced statistics make it look like the pitcher doesn’t even belong in the league. Hudson is unlikely to ever regress fully to that 4.71 career FIP. His groundball rate will keep his BABIP above league average and limit the amount of home runs he allows. However, Hudson has several flaws as a pitcher that should not be overlooked due to one outstanding skill.

Firstly, Hudson cannot strike anybody out. His best strikeout pitch is his slider, which has a mediocre 12.3% swinging strike rate and 27.3% chase rate this season. He only had two strikeouts and only two swinging strikes in this start, and hasn’t gotten more than four strikeouts in a game since August 31, 2020. You may be thinking, so what if he doesn’t get any strikeouts? That’s what the groundballs are for, and I get strikeouts from my other pitchers. I just want that juicy, juicy ERA. That brings me to Hudson’s other major flaw, which is a lack of control.

Hudson may not strike anyone out, but he’s more than capable of issuing a free pass. He has a brutal 11.3% walk rate for his career, which is higher than pre-breakout Robbie Ray, who had an 11% walk rate prior to 2020. Why use Robbie Ray as a comparison tool? Because Ray was the epitome of bad control prior to the 2021 season, and Hudson is somehow worse even though he’s working with a fraction of the firepower that Ray has in that arm. When looking at fringe pitchers to add I can excuse low strikeouts or a bad walk rate if I really need someone, but I cannot excuse both. It’s too many runners on base and too many balls-in-play. The baseball Gods will catch up eventually. Plus, the high walk rate means that Hudson will always have a high WHIP regardless of his ERA, and he does have a 1.32 WHIP for his career. That’s not something I’d be willing to put in my lineup when the reward is so minimal.

Verdict:

When it comes to Hudson, he is really, really good at one thing, and that’s keeping the ball on the ground. It’s great skill to have for real baseball, but it limits his potential in fantasy baseball. Hudson is essentially a two-category pitcher in a 5x5 league as he only contributes to ERA and wins. His WHIP is high due to the walks and he has one of the lowest strikeout rates of any starting pitcher. There isn’t that much risk in using Hudson as he rarely gets blown up, but there isn’t much upside here either. As it currently lines up his next two starts are at the Mets and home against Toronto, and I wouldn’t trust him in either matchup.

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