We’re closing in on three weeks of the 2023 season. It’s still relatively early in the long baseball season, but numbers are becoming more reliable. In my opinion, we’re in a sweet spot. We are still trying to decipher true breakouts from just hot starts, yet there is power behind the data.
Brad Keller is 27 years old and was an 8th-round pick for the Diamondbacks in 2013. The last two seasons with the Royals have been subpar, to say the least.
Those WHIPs and K-BB% can’t be sugar-coated. They were awful. It is difficult to point to just a couple of standout issues. In 2021 his Statcast sliders were all dark blue. They were a little better in 2022, but not much. His overall PLV over those two years was below average. Likewise for his Swinging Strike%. There is nothing to even suggest he was getting unlucky. His Hit Luck is right at the MLB average. His sinker was especially bad with a way below-average PLV and wOBAs north of .400. And he threw it about 25% of the time each season.
You get the idea.
So how’s 2023 going for Mr. B. Keller?
| Year | IP | ERA | FIP | xFIP | WHIP | K-BB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 17 | 2.12 | 4.01 | 4.20 | 1.12 | 11.6 |
Not quite sterling, but a vast improvement. Certainly fantasy-relevant. What, if anything, is he doing differently?
He’s added both a curveball (25% usage) and a sweeper (6% usage). A new pitch that you throw a quarter of the time is a massive change. These new pitches have largely come at the expense of his slider, which has decreased from 36% to 15% usage. In 2021 and 2022 it had been his most used pitch. According to PLV and other metrics, it had been a league-average pitch for the last two years. In 2023 the horizontal movement has increased by 6″ while largely maintaining the previous vertical break.
Verdict: Legit. Adding a curveball which he is relying heavily on and greatly increasing the horizontal break on his slider are substantial changes. If guys don’t have dominant stuff they may have to rely on throwing the kitchen sink. It seems like the new Royals coaching staff has realized this with Keller. Of course, keeping up this ERA is unrealistic, but he may have turned himself into a solid SP over the winter.
Justin Steele is 27 years old and was a 5th-round pick by the Cubs in 2014. He was not a highly-rated prospect before graduating to the Big Leagues in 2021, and few expected him to be more than a back-end SP.
The WHIPs and 2021 FIP are high, but the rest of the numbers are respectable for a somewhat middling prospect. Stuff+ graded his slider as 113, but the four-seamer, changeup, curveball, and sinker were below average to well below average. PLV graded them similarly but didn’t like the slider as much.
Starting in 2022 he became primarily a four-seam -slider guy, throwing them 88% of the time.
While his first two seasons were hardly a disappointment, thus far in 2023 he is vastly improved.
The FIP and xFIP suggest there will be regression (of course), but the surface numbers and, more importantly, the K-BB% are good signs.
He’s virtually stopped throwing the sinker, curveball, and changeup. They combine for only a 3.9% usage rate. Because he throws the four-seamer and slider so much we can focus on those.
He has thrown the fastball 61% of the time in 2023. Stuff+ still does not like it much, coming in at 86. Neither does PLV. The Swinging Strike% on it has improved to a solid 15.3%. Even though it only comes in at 91.8 mph it has done an excellent job of limiting Hard Contact (18.6%). However, nothing about it seems much different. If anything, it seems a bit worse. He has been throwing it out of the zone more often leading to an increased O-swing% and probably the lower Hard Contact rate. I’m guessing once opponents realize this they will lay off it more and it will get worse results.
The slider usage is up to 34.9%. It has a 125 Stuff+ and 5.26 PLV, both good. The Swinging Strike% is also up to 18.4%. What really stands out is the ground ball rate is a whopping 71.4%. That’s about 30% above league average for Starting Pitchers. It has gained some horizontal break and lost vertical break, but neither is appreciably different. He also doesn’t seem to be locating it any differently. I’m thinking this extreme groundball rate can be chalked up to a small sample size.
Verdict: Not Legit. Steele is primarily a two-pitch pitcher. He has an at-best average fastball and a good, but not outstanding slider. If you’re going to rely so heavily on only two pitches they have to be truly dominant. I think the WHIPs and K-BB% from 2021-2022 are more indicative of what he will be going forward than his surface stats in 2023.
Brian Anderson is 29 years old and was drafted in the 3rd round in 2014 by the Marlins. He struggled to stay healthy the last two seasons, combining for only 647 PA. 2022 was a struggle, but generally, when healthy he has been a fairly productive hitter.
Miami is a tough place for home runs. One would think that moving to Milwaukee should help him out there and he is getting a lot of playing time as a 3B or OF.
Certainly an improved start over previous seasons. So what’s different?
Well, not a whole lot. He’s hit the ball up the middle more. His Center% has jumped up to 41%, but I don’t put much stock in that. His Opposite Field% has climbed to 26-27% after it had dipped towards the end of 2022, but that also isn’t unusual for him. His Barrel%s have about doubled. That does stabilize after about 50 balls in play and he is up to 36 of those. However, nothing else has changed. His Hard Contact%, Max EV, Avg EV, and Launch Angle are all within the norms for him.
Verdict: Not Legit. Unless his Barrel rates continue to show so much improvement I’m dubious of that .366 wOBA. To me, he looks like the same player. He’ll get a slight HR bump hitting in Milwaukee, but I think he’ll continue to be a borderline rosterable guy in 12-team mixed leagues. A decent fill-in, especially in mixed leagues, but not someone who should be relied on, especially with his recent injury history and being near 30.
It seems like Yandy Díaz and his launch angles have been discussed ad nauseam so I’ll be brief.
Seemingly since the Earth was a ball of molten lava analysts have been clamoring for Díaz to decrease his Groundball%. According to this, he’s done it.
Verdict: Legit. He might see a slight drop in BA as that tends to happen with increased Flyball%, but everything else looks good. Keep an eye on those GB-FB% and Launch Angles. If they hold steady he could be in for a career-high in HR while not seeing much of a drop elsewhere. He is likely universally rostered, but a trade for him might be in order.
Jarred Kelenic suffered from poor swing decisions that not only lead to high K% but also low-quality contact in his first two seasons in MLB.
As soon as he started to get his O-Swing% under control his Swinging Strike%, K%, and Soft Contact% all began to drop.
Verdict: Legit. These changes started last season and have continued in 2023. He has so much talent that if he can continue to improve his plate discipline he can be a fantasy monster and end up with a wOBA in the mid-.300s.
Across four MLB seasons, Johan Oviedo has 161.1 IP, mostly as a SP with St. Louis. He is in the Pirates rotation now.
A rough first couple of seasons. but he’s shown consistent improvement. Stuff+ saw him as average overall with an above-average slider in 2022. More or less the same with PLV, although it really didn’t like his four-seamer.
So far in 2023, Stuff+ sees him having lost of bit overall and the slider has become average. However, PLV sees an uptick in stuff, particularly with a much-improved curveball that is in the 94th percentile. He’s throwing it more too. In 2022 it had a usage rate of 10.9% and in 2023 it is up to 23.2%. Correspondingly, he is throwing the four-seamer less. It is down to 31.2% from 43.5%.
Verdict: Legit. Oviedo is throwing an improved curveball more often at the expense of a poor four-seamer. It gets more vertical drop than it has in previous seasons. The curveball has a 17.2% Swinging Strike%, 37.5% CSW, .070 wOBA, and .137 xwOBA. Keep an eye on if he leans into that pitch even more.
Featured image by Doug Carlin (@bdougals on Twitter)