As the saying goes, boring is better. Many fantasy baseball players look for the next best thing. This is mainly due to the fear of missing an opportunity or an exciting new player. Of course, it is extremely valuable to find these jars, but it is also very difficult to find them. What most don’t realize is that catching those “old” boring players can be just as valuable. With a long history and decent numbers, these pitchers can provide stable entries and proportions with a predictable floor.
Although your ADP seems appropriate this year (for the first time), I can’t say the words “boring” without mentioning the fabulous Kyle Hendricks. Hendricks is like water to me. Many people prefer flavored things, but water is essential for your body, making it extremely underestimated (terrible analogy).
Hendricks normally comes down from the recruiting staff due to the lack of eliminations. The average rate of elimination from your career is only 20.8%, which definitely detracts from its value. Perhaps the fantasy baseball world overestimated its lack of eliminations. The reason is, the superior relationships it produces year after year, as well as the high floor. Throughout his career, Hendricks average to 3.12 ERA and 1.10 WHIP. Its two biggest ERAs for a season are 3.95 (2015) and 3.46 (2019).
Hendricks is able to be very successful painting the corners, creating mistakes and having exceptional tunnel-building skills. Its sinker, changeup, four-seam and curveball are used more than 15% of the time. In 2020, all four pitches had a positive pVAL, as well as an ISO below 0.200. He is the king of the boring, and the king of the boring can be much more valuable than the young and exciting.
Mike Minor came out of 2019 with a change in the pitch mix, working hard with four seams / changes. It clearly worked (3.59 ERA) and made a lot of sense, since its change has always been very active. He basically set up the same pitch mix in 2020, except that it produced completely different results with a 5.56 ERA.
It is evident that the reason for his retreat was the fastball with four seams. In terms of speed, it dropped two miles per hour from 92.5 to 90.6. Now, if you look at your four seams numbers from 2020 compared to 2019, they are basically identical. What affected it was the change. Now you get the difference in speed from a solid eight MPH to just six MPH. This led to a higher wRC +, ISO, wOBA and HR / GB% compared to changing it.
Mike Minor’s fastball has averaged 92 MPH over the past four seasons. This leads me to believe that the shortened season ruined his typical acceleration routine and he was never able to get it to work. That speed should return and with it that fantastic combination of four seams / change. Not only that, but the Royals are going to need input from him. He is a veteran who should have no restrictions and has thrown 200 entries in 2019.
Dallas Keuchel is an ERA pitcher with less than two? No. But he has had an ERA over four just once in the past seven seasons. Keuchel is almost a Hendricks Lite. With a career average of 3.59 ERA, 3.77 FIP and 1.25 WHIP, how can you not see Keuchel as a solid anchor for your rotation?
Of course, the elimination rate of just 16.3% is not striking, but the repertoire leaves a high floor. It combines well with right-handed hitting (RHH) and left-handed hitting (LHH). Against RHH, he loves to launch his move, a pitch against which opponents of RHH only had a wOBAcon of 0.186. Against LHH, he likes to launch his slider which induced 17.2 SwStr%. Against both, he throws his cutter and sinker, a shot that virtually no hitter can make quality contact against.
In general, he uses his sinker and cutter to hit the zone at will. Although both have high contact rates, the anchor had a ball-to-ground rate of 62.4 and the cutter a total ISO of 0.051. The change and the slider he likes to throw more out of the zone and try to induce smells.
No matter which direction you turn, it is the best way to induce weak contact. In 2020, it had 0.028 HR / 9, 52.8 GB% and 4.0% barrel. Keuchel is great at what he does and there is no reason to think that it will not continue. He is very valuable as a type of high pitcher and a player to grab if his rotation seems a little risky.