Are You For Real? Surprising SP Starts (Week 3)

Welcome to our surprising starts series. Every week we’ll be going over a few surprising starting pitcher performances around the majors to determine whether these starts were smoke and mirrors or something more.

This week we'll be going over a couple good starts from Padres hurlers Joey Lucchesi and Tyson Ross, as well as a pair of good performances from Philadelphia's Vince Velasquez.

Lucchesi has lit the world on fire over the last week, while Ross and Velasquez are pair of familiar names that have had their share of injuries and struggles over the past few seasons.

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Real Deal or Mirage?

Joey Lucchesi, San Diego Padres

2017 Stats (Double-A San Antonio, age 23-24): 60.1 IP, 1.79 ERA, 2.95 FIP, 3.79 K/BB

04/10 @ COL: 6 IP, 4 H, 0 ER (2 unearned runs), 1 BB, 8 K
04/15 vs. SF: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 9 K

Joey Lucchesi just had as good of a two-start week as one could hope to have. He went into Coors Field and dominated the Rockies on Tuesday, and shut down the Giants on Sunday. Lucchesi came out of nowhere as a last-minute rotation addition, but thus far he’s been better than anyone could have reasonably expected. He’s gotten it done with three pitch mix of a fourseam fastball, changeup, and curveball. The changeup is the most interesting pitch, because it’s more of a changeup-curveball hybrid. Lucchesi will throw a more traditional, looping curveball at times as well, and the two secondary pitches work nicely together. His fourseamer clocks in around 90-91 MPH and is an average fastball in both velocity and movement relative to the rest of the league.

Lucchesi’s changeup has been fooling hitters throughout his first four starts. The pitch has a 20.77% swinging strike rate and Lucchesi has a 14% swinging strike rate overall. Batters have mustered just six singles and no extra-base hits against the changeup-curveball. What’s most impressive is that Lucchesi has found equal success against right-handed and left-handed hitters with the pitch. As left-handed off-speed/breaking ball specialist we might expect large platoon splits, but that hasn’t been the case yet. Lucchesi’s odd delivery may help his deceptiveness, as he incorporates a big windup and a high overhand arm slot. On the mound he looks a bit like a left-handed Daniel Mengden. Mengden has gone through dominant stretches in his career only to wilt over time, but Lucchesi’s changeup-curveball has shown to be more effective than any pitch in Mengden’s deep arsenal. Mengden never got the whiffs that Lucchesi has gotten either.

Lucchesi has thrown his secondary pitches at a higher rate with each successive start, and his strikeout totals have risen in each outing. With time hitters will certainly adjust to Lucchesi. He’s someone brand new to the majors with little pedigree behind him, and he’s pitching at his absolute peak right now. The 12.68% whiff rate on his fastball will probably dip, though not necessarily too far since his changeup-curveball keeps hitters off balance. Lucchesi should be able to get more swinging strikes with his fastball than we’d typically expect from a pitch of this quality because his changeup-curveball is so good. If nothing else Lucchesi should provide strikeouts as a starter, and will rattle off good stretches like this. On days where his changeup-curveball isn’t working he’s in trouble.

Verdict:

Lucchesi is definitely worth an add if he’s still available. His ownership has shot way up to 61% in Yahoo leagues, and 42% in ESPN leagues. Because he’s doing this with mostly one pitch his 1.66 ERA will probably regress beyond even his 2.66 SIERA. It will be interesting to see how hitters adapt to Lucchesi once there’s more information on him and they’ve seen him a few times because he is relying heavily on deceptiveness. Still, the changeup-curveball is a gem of a pitch that will give him value all year long.

Tyson Ross, San Diego Padres

2017 Stats with Texas: 49 IP, 7.71 ERA, 6.18 FIP, 0.97 K/BB

04/08 @ HOU: 6 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 7 K
04/13 vs. SF: 6 IP, 7 H, 0 ER (1 unearned run), 1 BB, 5 K

Once one of the premier strikeout pitchers in baseball, Ross fell off the face of the earth after 2016 shoulder surgery. He is attempting to recapture success after suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome, the same injury that caused Matt Harvey’s performance to spiral out of control. There is not a good track record for recovery with this injury. A few other active pitchers that have suffered this injury are Chris Young, Jaime Garcia, Phil Hughes, and Mike Foltynewicz. Not the most encouraging list of names, to say the least. After a stint with the Rangers that couldn’t have looked much worse, Ross’s future was in doubt. Ross looked good in a seven strikeout effort against Houston last week, and then went out and pitched well against the Giants. Because of his track record Ross is at least worth a look, especially in deeper leagues.

Ross initially found success by attacking hitters with his electric slider. At its peak in 2015 Ross through his slider around the slider was around 86-87 MPH, had a 23.59% whiff rate, and a 63.7% groundball rate. He paired it with a 93 MPH sinker that had a 66.8% groundball rate. He did exactly what we want pitchers to do, get strikeouts and get groundballs. We didn’t see that Tyson Ross in these two starts, but we did see some encouraging signs.

Ross got double digit whiffs in each of these starts, including ten alone with his slider against San Francisco. Ross also threw the slider over 44% of the time in each start after throwing it just 33.7% of the time in 2017. His velocity was also near his prime levels in the start against Houston. He threw the slider at 86 MPH and the sinker at 92 MPH. That was a great sign, though it dipped back down in the start against the Giants to 84 MPH on the slider and 91 MPH on the sinker. It’s probably best to do a visual comparison of his slider between 2015 (left) and 2018 (right).

Obviously, the pitch is not what it once was. That would be an unrealistic expectation. In addition to velocity loss, it doesn’t break as sharply as it did in 2015. There is still room for growth, as Ross is coming off his best swing-and-miss game and had only one walk between these two starts. He’s not someone to blow a large portion of FAAB on, but Ross can be considered a viable streaming option, which is far ahead of where he was last season in Texas.

Verdict:

No, 2013-2015 Tyson Ross isn’t back. He will probably never come back. What we have instead is a pitcher with an above average breaking ball that is willing to throw it over 40% of the time. Ross is by no means a must add in standard mixed leagues, but he’s worth a pick up in deeper leagues. He’s also a viable streamer in daily leagues and two-start pitcher in weekly leagues. He’s an especially good start against teams that struggle with breaking balls or have high strikeout tendencies.

Vince Velasquez, Philadelphia Phillies

2017 Stats: 72 IP, 5.13 ERA, 5.52 FIP, 2.00 K/BB

04/07 vs. MIA: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K
04/13 @ TB: 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K

That three-hit, 16 strikeout shut out against the Padres in 2016 feels like a lifetime ago for Vince Velasquez. It’s been nothing but injuries and busted potential since then. Velasquez’s best pitch has always been his fourseam fastball, which at its peak sits around 95 MPH and tops out at 98 MPH. In his start against the Rays the fastball looked close to what it was in 2016. His velocity was around 95 MPH in this start and topped out at 98 MPH. Let’s do a side-by-side comparison between 2016 (left) and 2018 (right).

The fastball looked good in his start against the Rays, though it doesn’t have quite the movement it had in 2016. It’s still a pitch that Velasquez can be effective with, but the rest of his arsenal has been suspect throughout his career. He’s used a few different secondary pitches to varying success, but Velasquez has never had a plus breaking ball or off-speed pitch to complete his repertoire. His slider has probably been his best secondary pitch, with a career 15.08% whiff rate and .239 average against, but it was always hard to buy into Velasquez long term without a reliable secondary pitch.

In his first three starts so far Velasquez has upped his curveball usage to a career high 18.9%. It would be nice to see that change and think Velasquez has found his complimentary pitch, but his curveball has not been the catalyst for early season success. Batters are hitting .500 against the curveball with two swinging strikes total in three starts. So no, he’s not exactly Rich Hill with the curve. He’s probably best off using the curveball as a show-me pitch and mixing his slider and changeup to try and catch hitters off-guard.

When he’s at his best Velasquez can overpower hitters and live on a diet of mostly fastballs, but there is reason be skeptical of his recent performance. He’s coming off two dominant starts, but they came against two of the worst teams in the league. The Rays are 24th in the majors with a .283 wOBA, and the Marlins are 29th with a .274 wOBA. He’s hard to trust even in a neutral matchup, because most quality hitters can crush fastballs, even good ones like Velasquez’s fourseamer. He’s especially bad against teams with a lot of power hitters. Velasquez has a career 1.35 HR/9 and had a 1.88 HR/9 last season. His home park does him no favors either, as Citizen’s Bank Park had a 1.409 home run factor in 2017, highest in the majors by a wide margin (The next highest was Yankee Stadium at 1.279). We need to see him do it against a team with even an average lineup before trusting Velasquez as more than a matchup-based streamer.

Verdict:

Vince Velasquez has strung together a pair of good starts, but he’s not doing much differently than he has been over the last two seasons. Maybe a healthy Velasquez can look dominant against bad teams, but the lack of any quality secondary pitches caps his upside. He should only be trusted in favorable matchups for now.

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