April 26, 2017

Billy Stonick examines whether starting pitchers (SP) Lance Lynn and Antonio Senzatela are real value picks or bound to be busts for 2017.

In fantasy baseball, owners can often spend weeks or months preparing for the draft. We'll pour over websites and lists and spreadsheets and forums and magazines for hours upon hours to ensure we make the right choices. But once draft day comes and goes, what’s next?

As the saying goes, you can’t win your league during the draft. The moves owners make during the season are the ones that will dictate who wins. The art to winning in fantasy baseball is being able to determine who should be added to a roster and who should be bypassed. In order to do that, an owner needs to be able to tell if someone is for real or not.

This weekly column will focus on starting pitchers who have recently thrown their hats into the ring for consideration. These pitchers will be available in many leagues, and we’ll dig a little deeper to determine whether you should be picking these guys up or leaving them be. In Week 4 we present...

Old and Young Arms: The Jury is Out

Lance Lynn, St. Louis Cardinals

2015 Stats (Injured in 2016): 175.1 IP, 3.03 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 167 K (8.57 K/9), 68 BB (3.49 BB/9)

April 22, 2017 at Milwaukee: 6.0 IP, 1.50 ERA, 0.83 WHIP, 7 K (10.50 K/9), 2 BB (3.00 BB/9)

Lance Lynn’s career has been a bit of a roller coaster. He looked mediocre in Triple-A from his age-22 to age-24 seasons, but once called up to The Show, he proved that he could be mediocre at that level as well. After two white-bread seasons of an ERA just under 4.00 and a WHIP just over 1.30, Lynn suddenly discovered the secret in 2014 and turned in a stellar campaign with a 2.74 ERA and 1.26 WHIP over 203 innings. In 2015, at the age of 28, he was more of a mixed bag that combined a nice ERA of 3.03 with a sky-high WHIP of 1.37 before succumbing to a torn UCL and requiring Tommy John surgery. Now he’s back in 2017, and he’s carrying a sparkling 2.70 ERA and 1.03 WHIP so far. However, that isn’t quite enough to tell if he’s truly back to his best self.

On April 22nd, Lynn had to face the Brewers in Milwaukee. That outing went about as well as anyone could hope. Lynn surrendered just one run in six innings, and he struck out seven. He allowed two free passes, but by only giving up three hits, he kept the damage to a minimum. He did this by leaning hard on his sinker, especially against right-handed hitters.

Over the course of the game, Lynn threw 95 pitches. 55 of those were against righties, and of those 55, 26 were sinkers. He actually threw more sinkers than fastballs to righties, and his plan worked to perfection. Of those 26 sinkers, 20 were in the strike zone and 18 drew swings. Seven of those resulted in a ball in play, but only one resulted in a hit. By getting the vast majority of right-handed hitters to drill those sinkers into the ground, Lynn worked through the Brewers lineup multiple times with hardly a scratch.

The catch to Lynn’s success is that it’s almost entirely because his sinker has been so good against righties. Right-handed hitters are currently hitting .133/.204/.222 against Lynn in 2017. These numbers are unbelievable, and therein lies the problem. Those hitters are currently carrying a basement-dwelling BABIP of just .172 against Lynn, and that simply won’t continue. Even in 2014, Lynn’s best year, righties hit .229 against him behind a .294 BABIP.

Verdict

Lance Lynn is real…ly mediocre. His 1.03 WHIP is a mirage built around an unsustainably low BABIP that is entirely dependent on him utterly dominating right-handed hitters. This has artificially deflated his ERA. His FIP of 4.14 is much more indicative of Lynn’s true ability, though if his sinker is on, he can probably beat that number by a bit. Instead of expecting the 2014 version of Lance Lynn with his shiny 2.74 ERA and 1.26 WHIP, expect the 2013 version. That was the one who carried a 3.97 ERA and 1.31 WHIP.

Antonio Senzatela, Colorado Rockies

2016 Stats (Double-A): 34.2 IP, 1.82 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 27 K (7.01 K/9), 9 BB (2.34 BB/9)

April 22, 2017 vs. San Francisco: 7.0 IP, 1.29 ERA, 0.57 WHIP, 3 K (3.86 K/9), 0 BB (0.00 BB/9)

Antonio Senzatela is the next pitching prospect that the Rockies hope will be able to overcome their homer haven. His supporters claim that he’s different and will finally be the ace they’ve been longing for. Consider me skeptical, as the same thing gets said about two to five new Colorado pitching prospects every season. Senzatela does pack a strong arsenal, though it is very basic. He only has three pitches; a fastball, a slider, and a change-up.

His fastball is a true heater, averaging in the mid-90's while sometimes touching 98 MPH. His slider is his strikeout pitch, and it usually sits in the low-to-mid 80's. He also has nearly no experience above Single-A. He pitched just 34 and 2/3 innings at Double-A last year, and he’s skipped Triple-A altogether. Since Colorado’s Triple-A stadium is located in Albuquerque and actually even higher in elevation than the major league park in Denver, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, it does mean that there will be obvious growing pains.

On Saturday, April 22nd, Senzatela hosted the visiting Giants. He had faced the same San Francisco team just six days earlier, so this was a good opportunity to see if his stuff had any staying power. This time around, he did even better. Senzatela tossed seven innings of one-run ball, allowing just four hits and no walks. He only struck out three, but outside of a solo home run surrendered to Joe Panik, he was nearly flawless. He mostly did this with good old-fashioned heat. 73.3% of the pitches he threw were fastballs, and his slider was mostly relegated to when he was ahead in the count.

Of those fastballs, he focused almost entirely on the inside portion of the plate to a righty/outside portion of the plate to a lefty. 79% of his fastballs were from the middle-in to a righty/middle-out to a lefty, and the vast majority were up in the zone as well. This was a big change of pace for Senzatela, as he had previously focused on keeping his fastballs low and away to a righty. In this case, the plan worked to perfection by handcuffing the San Francisco lineup. His offensive teammates did what they do best, and the game quickly turned into a blowout.

While a win and quality start is great, whether Senzatela can keep it up is still a bit of a mystery. In his favor, anyone bringing high heat has an advantage, and he has some signature wiffle-ball slider moments. Unfortunately, those are pretty few and far between. So far on the season, his slider’s actually been worth 2.3 runs below average, and a 5.88 K/9 on the season isn’t going to cut it. Only one pitcher with a K/9 under 7.30 had an ERA below 4.00 in 2016, and that was Bartolo Colon, an enigma if one ever existed.

Verdict

Antonio Senzatela has some bright spots and is only 22-years-old, but he’s currently not for real. He’s basically living off his fastball at the moment, and while a 95+ MPH fastball can do a lot for a pitcher, it’s not really enough to cut it as a starter. His swinging strike rate is only 5.9%, far below the league average of 9.9%, and his slider isn’t drawing very many whiffs. This means hitters are recognizing it and laying off. He’s also gotten quite fortunate by having a .216 BABIP and 84.9% LOB% so far. So to sum it up, Senzatela is a fastball-dependent pitcher who throws hard (but not Chapman-hard), he doesn’t fool very many hitters, he doesn’t strike out very many hitters, and he plays half his games in Colorado. That doesn’t add up to a pitcher owners should be investing in.

More Fantasy Player Outlooks