RotoBallers, as always, we’re constantly trying to come up with new features that will help you dominate your fantasy leagues. Recently, we’ve built a tool that identifies the biggest trends in a pitcher's strikeout rate over the last thirty days. The tool is for Premium subscribers only, and can be found here.

Missing bats is the #1 way a pitcher can control his own fate. If hitters make contact, the pitcher is largely at the mercy of the atmosphere, the weather, the ball park, the ability/work ethic of his fielders, and sometimes just sheer luck. This is ultimately why strikeouts are so important.

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By looking at pitchers with positive trends in their strikeout rate, we can spot improving or declining pitchers. If the K-rate is improving, but the ERA and WHIP are less than ideal, it can present a buying opportunity. On the flip side, you may want to sell a pitcher with a declining K-rate, if he wasn't supposed to be that good to begin with.

What this tool provides is a quick indicator of players who might be on the rise, coming out of slumps, or seeing their fantasy value quickly declining, etc. This particular article will focus on two strikeout rate risers and two fallers, and make an attempt to determine how you should treat each pitcher.  Because this tool is refreshed daily, the numbers in this article may be slightly off from the tool. Now, let's get rowdy.

K-Rate Risers

Jacob deGrom, NYM

Season K-Rate: 24%, Last 30 K-Rate: 33%

Many were a tad worried about deGrom earlier this season, after his fastball showed up in 2016 almost two MPH slower than last year. While he has still been extremely effective with the reduced velocity (2.82 ERA, 1.15 WHIP), it was certainly affecting his strikeouts early in the campaign. But it seems deGrom has finally figured out how to generate the swing and misses with a tad slower fastball. Over his last three starts, he has struck out 28 in only 19 innings.

There is probably no chance that you'd be able to talk your way into acquiring deGrom in your fantasy league due to just a few less strikeouts this early into the season. But at least this uptick in his K rate can put his owners minds to ease, and assure them to stay put with the young ace.

Matt Shoemaker, LAA

Season K-Rate: 24%, Last 30 K-Rate: 33%

Shoemaker is on the verge of a huge second half in 2016. He currently owns a 4.76 ERA, but his 3.42 FIP shows that his .325 BABIP and 67.2 LOB% have been rather unlucky. This season Shoemaker has allowed a career low 71.4 Contact%, while causing a career high 14.2 SwStr%. This can be attributed to a new pitch selection, which has seen a 9% decrease in fastballs, and a 13% increase in his change-up. The change-up has been Shoemaker's money pitch this season, and its 5.0 wCH value ranks top ten in the league, sandwiched between Stephen Strasburg and Chris Sale.

Including a gem last night against Oakland, Shoemaker has struck out 18 batters in his last two starts, allowing only one earned run over 14 innings. Like I stated previously, Shoemaker is going to have a monster second half this season and it would behoove you to acquire him in your fantasy leagues now, especially if he is still sitting on your waiver wire.

K-Rate Fallers

Jaime Garcia, STL

Season K-Rate: 20%, Last 30 K-Rate: 10%

Things have gotten ugly for Garcia recently. Through three starts in June, he has only totaled seven strikeouts. What is most discouraging about this stat is the fact that those three match-ups were against Houston, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, all whom are ranked top ten in the league for most strikeouts this season. His SwStr% has now dropped to 8.8, which is Garcia's lowest since 2008. If you take a look at his heatmaps for the first two months of 2016 versus his three starts in June, you will see that while the control is still there, the command is slipping.

Garcia is still throwing strikes (four BB allowed in last three starts), but as you can see is having trouble keeping the ball out of the middle of the strike zone compared to the first two months which saw Garcia getting the ball up and down to keep hitters off guard. This would explain why along with not racking up strike outs over his last three starts, he has also allowed 26 hits during the same stretch.

Last year, Garcia also struggled with missing bats during the first half of the season, but was able to raise it back up to his career average over the second half. This could very well be the case again in 2016, and the veteran could just be going through a little slump in June. I wouldn't be desperately looking to get rid of him in fantasy leagues yet, but at the same time, he is certainly not a pitcher I would be looking to acquire at this point.

Masahiro Tanaka, NYY

Season K-Rate: 19%, Last 30 K-Rate: 13%

Since returning from Tommy John surgery last season, Tanaka has seen his strike out rates slowly dwindle from his impressive 9.31 K/9 showing in his first MLB season. This season has seen his K/9 drop down to 6.60, even after a great performance yesterday against the Twins. If you look at Tanaka's pitch selection for 2016, you will see a huge change from the two previous seasons. So far this year, he has thrown his four seam fastball just 2.6% of the time, compared to 19.4% in 2015 and 25.1% in 2016. But with the drastic decrease in the fastball, has come an increase in his splitter, which he is now throwing for one-third of his pitches (well ahead of any other pitcher in the league). This would explain the large spike in his GB% which is now over 52% for the season, and could also help explain the lack of strikeouts. It seems that Tanaka has taken to a new approach on the mound, one more aligned with a ground-ball pitcher. This is made fairly obvious when comparing his pitch locations from 2014 to those in this season. Keep in mind that 32.4% of the pitches on the second heat map are splitters.

Generally, such a dramatic decline in a pitchers strikeout rate would have owners trying to sell before the increase in contact begins to turn into more balls landing over the fences. But in this particular case, the drop in strikeouts from Tanaka could create a very nice buy-low opportunity for the fantasy owners that are less in need of strikeouts and more in need of ERA and WHIP help. Even though it is not quite the Tanaka we were expecting after what we saw in 2014, he is finding great success with this new approach in 2016, and you can expect that to continue for the rest of the season.

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