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With just 60 games worth of data to draw from during the 2020 season, it's going to be a challenge for fantasy owners to determine how much to weigh those numbers when projecting 2021 performance. We see hot and cold two-month stretches all the time in a normal season, and there's plenty of time to see if the changes are real, or if the player will regress to their career norms. But now, that two-month stretch of games makes up an entire season's worth of stats.
With pitchers, an obvious change in pitch mix or a couple of extra ticks of velocity can be pretty clear signs that some of the gains are real, while a loss of velocity can be a huge red flag. However, it's not always that obvious. A pitcher can often run hot or cold over a small sample of starts, or have luck on balls in play have a major impact on his surface stats.
Analyst Nick Ritrivi recently dug into some relief pitcher risers and fallers, and now we're going to do the same for the starting pitchers. We'll start with the risers, those who have seen their price soar based on their 2020 results. Let's take a look at what happened last season, and what it likely means for their prospects for the 2021 campaign.
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Corbin Burnes, Milwaukee Brewers
Burnes was a trendy breakout candidate heading into 2019, but fell flat on his face, with an ugly 8.82 ERA across 49 innings. He did manage to strike out 29.8% of the batters he faced, though, and was done in by some bad luck. Burnes was victimized by a .414 BABIP and 38.6% HR/F that resulted in an ERA more than five runs higher than his 3.37 xFIP.
Fast forward to 2020, and Burnes was an afterthought in early drafts. He had an ADP of 423 in pre-COVID NFBC Draft Champions leagues, and even after the hype started to build in summer camp, he was still a 15th rounder (pick 215) in Main Event drafts. Burnes returned a huge profit in both cases, as he delivered a 2.11 ERA along with 88 strikeouts across 59 2/3 innings.
Burnes threw his four-seamer more than half the time in 2019, and it got knocked around, as batters hit .417 with a .800 SLG on the pitch. Wisely, he nearly scrapped the pitch in 2020 (7% usage per Brooks Baseball). Instead, Burnes added a cutter, which induced whiffs at a 17% percent clip, while also significantly increasing his usage on his sinker and changeup.
Burnes excelled with the new pitch mix, as he led the league in FIP (Min. 50 IP), while also ranking 4th in K%, 6th in ERA, and 11th in Swinging Strike Rate. Along with the elite skills, he also had luck on his side, as his HR/F fortune swung the other way, down to 4.8%.
Burnes is currently going off the board at pick 54 in Draft Champions leagues. He should provide strong ratios and a healthy dose of strikeouts in 2021, but certainly can't be expected to flirt with a 2.00 ERA again. Furthermore, he has never reached 150 innings in a season, and hasn't reached 120 since 2017. The skills are very exciting, but the workload for Burnes may not be bankable enough to justify his current price.
Zach Plesac, Cleveland Indians
Zach Plesac posted a respectable 3.81 ERA in 2019, but the skills, which included a 5.06 xFIP and 18.5% K%, didn't support the surface stats. Fantasy owners weren't expecting a breakout, as seen by his 341 ADP in NFBC Main Event drafts.
Plesac was limited to just eight starts in 2020 after he violated COVID protocol, but he showed plenty of positive signs when he was on the mound. He cut down on his fastball usage and relied more heavily on his slider and changeup. The former induced swinging strikes at a 25.5% clip, while his changeup checked in with a mark of 18.9%, both dramatic improvements from what he had done with the pitches in 2019 (17.1%, 13.6%).
Plesac not only generated more whiffs, but also displayed elite control over the course of the shortened season. His 2.9% BB% was third lowest in the league (Min. 50 IP), as he dished out a total of just six free passes in his 55 2/3 innings of work.
As with most American League Central pitchers, Plesac had the opportunity to feast on some weak offenses, as he faced the Royals twice and Tigers once. However, three of his eight starts came against the White Sox, against whom he put up a 1.74 ERA with a 25:3 K:BB in 20 2/3 innings.
Plesac's ADP in early NFBC drafts sits at 56, quite the jump from a season ago. While the sample was a small one, the adjustment to his repertoire and the top-notch skills he showed make him an intriguing target once the top tier of starters are off the board.
Kenta Maeda, Minnesota Twins
Kenta Maeda has always displayed strong skills since coming over from Japan prior to the 2016 season. But the Dodgers were cautious with his workload during his time there. Despite a total of three minimum stints on the DL/IL during his four seasons in Los Angeles, Maeda averaged only 147 innings per season. This included a shift to the bullpen down the stretch in both 2018 and 2019, as all 22 of his September appearances during that time came in relief.
Contract incentives based on workload likely played a role in the team's decision to restrict his innings late in the season. Maeda was traded to the Twins in February of 2020, and by the time NFBC Main Events rolled around, he was typically going off the board around pick 125. He turned a significant profit on his draft day cost, as his first season in Minnesota couldn't have gone much better.
Maeda averaged more than six innings per start, and recorded a 2.70 ERA that ranked seventh in the American League (Min. 50 IP). He induced more whiffs than ever before, and struck out 32.3% of batters faced, well above his 26.4% mark heading into the season. Perhaps a look at his pitch mix can help explain what led to the improvements.
Maeda went away from his four-seam fastball, and relied more heavily on his slider and splitter. That definitely played a role in the strikeout surge, as the chart above shows those are the two pitches he gets the most swings and misses with.
Owners are buying into the success Maeda enjoyed in 2020, as he is going off the board at pick 47 in early Draft Champions drafts. That is more than a five-round jump in 15-team leagues compared to where he was going in July.
Maeda's skills should be strong once again, and it seems unlikely the Twins will be as stingy with his workload as the Dodgers were. That being said, though he crossed the 200-IP threshold four times in Japan, he has topped out at 175 2/3 in the majors, and that was back in 2016. Therefore, even if the strikeout gains stick, it's not clear if they'll hold up over the course of a full 162-game schedule, so Maeda will be hard-pressed to live up to his draft-day cost.
Dinelson Lamet, San Diego Padres
Dinelson Lamet had an ADP of 112 in the Main Event drafts last season and significantly outperformed that draft slot. In total, he tossed 69 innings and racked up 93 strikeouts, on his way to an outstanding 2.09 ERA across his 12 starts.
Lamet struck out 34.8% of batters faced on the year, and since returning from Tommy John surgery in July of 2019, has whiffed 34.1% of opposing batters in his 26 starts. He relies heavily on his slider, which he threw 53 percent of the time in 2020, generating whiffs on 23% of those offerings. Over the past two seasons, Lamet's slider has held opposing batters to a .098 average with a .059 ISO.
With that type of swing-and-miss stuff, Lamet looks like a slam dunk at his 64 ADP in early drafts. However, there is one issue that is suppressing his price, and that is the elbow injury that he suffered on the final weekend of the 2020 regular season, which kept him off the postseason roster.
Lamet intends to avoid another surgery and began undergoing platelet-rich plasma therapy on his elbow in October. Recent reports suggest all is going well with his treatment and therapy, as he aims to be full strength by Spring Training.
Lamet's draft price is sure to change as the season draws closer. If he looks healthy this spring, his price could easily shoot up a couple of rounds, while any sort of setback would push him down, or completely off draft boards. For now, Lamet is a pretty risky proposition in the early rounds, but one with a great deal of upside.
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