The best part about every April is the teams and players who come out of nowhere. Some of these guys have been career journeymen, failed prospects or even players who people have been callling for a breakout for years, and it looks like it finally happened. But then the season goes on, and these great starts soon vanish, and the players are left in their former states as warm bodies on a team as opposed to studs. Today, I’ll look at five pitchers who have a very good chance to smashing face first into that brick wall pretty quickly.
Alexi Ogando, Rangers. Ogando is the toast of Texas right now, with a 2.13 ERA in four starts. The reality of the matter is that he’s been extremely lucky and borderline fluky through those four starts. He’s only struck out 14 hitters in 25 1/3 innings, while walking an acceptable total of five. The four homers aren’t a good thing, however. Then, you look at two stats influenced by luck: batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and strand rate. League average BABIP is around .300. Ogando’s is currently sitting at .155, way too low to be sustainable. Now, strand rate. The league average strand rate is 72%, meaning that of all runners to get on base against the pitcher, 72% of them don’t score. Ogando’s strand rate is currently an absurd 97.6%. That is absolutely, positively impossible to sustain. Also, when you take into account that Ogando is pitching in an extreme hitter’s park in Texas, he’s not going to thrive, especially with a ground ball rate as low as his is. League average is 44%, Ogando’s is a pitiful 30.7%. If things don’t start changing for him, his ERA is going to go through the roof, and quick.
Josh Tomlin, Indians. Tomlin is a guy who’s toiled in obscurity for years, never really posting great results. Well, he’s leading the charge of the surprising Indians in the early going with a 2.33 ERA and is the toast of Cleveland. Like Ogando, there’s not much to love underneath the surface here. He’s only struck out 15 in 27 innings, with seven walks. He’s allowed three homers in that span, which is still too high of a mark for four starts. Then, we can look at the sabermetric stats I pointed out with Ogando. Tomlin’s strand rate is 86.5%, lower than Ogando’s but still way too high. His BABIP is .182, which again, isn’t as bad as Ogando’s, but impossible to sustain over a full season. Tomlin’s ground ball rate is right around the league average at 43%. We’re going to drag another piece of batted ball data into things, that being line drive rate. League average is 18%, Tomlin’s is at 21.5%, which is one of those things that can really hurt you once the balls start finding grass or the wall instead of gloves. His fall isn’t going to be as bad as Ogando’s, but it will still be pretty rough, and will coincide with Cleveland’s fall from the top of the standings.
Bruce Chen, Royals. It’s Bruce Chen, I think we all know this isn’t going to last. But like Tomlin, Chen has been a surprising starter for a team near the top of the AL Central. Chen is spending his third straight season with the Royals, and has put up a 2.42 ERA in 26 innings. Unlike Ogando and Tomlin, we’ve got a full career in the majors backing us up with Chen, so we can pull from his past to see where he’s likely to go. Chen actually may slightly improve in some areas, because his strikeout rate is nearly 1.5 batters per nine innings lower than his career mark. Unfortunately for Chen, his walk rate this season is one batter LOWER than his career rate, so any progression with the strikeouts will probably be thwarted by the eventual increase in walks. His homer rate is way down compared to his career average, and when you take into account that half as many flyballs are going out for homers this season as have been during his entire career, you figure that mark will shoot through the roof soon. It’s been a good first month of the year for the former top prospect, but it’s going to end soon, and he’ll go back to being the Bruce Chen we all know and love to hit long homers off of.
Dustin Moseley, Padres. Dustin Moseley of the Padres has one of the most bizarre, mind boggling stat lines out there this season. The former Yankee has struck out eight and walked seven in 25 2/3 innings. He’s got an 0-3 record, but only a 1.40 ERA. Are you serious? No wins, with a 1.40 ERA? It’s true. The Padres have scored a grand total of one run in Moseley’s four starts, and that came after he was out of the game. I’m not sure if saying he’ll get worse is really fair to him, but the results (minus wins) have been there for him this season, it’s just his offense that hasn’t been able to come through for him. But at the end of the day: a near even strikeout to walk ratio, and a total of eight strikeouts in four starts. Those are not two stats you want to see out of a starting pitcher. But with the high ground ball rate (58.1%), and the helpful home mark, Moseley could end up being a useful piece for the Padres this season. Just not 1.40 ERA useful.
Matt Harrison, Rangers. The former Braves farmhand seems to be putting it all together for Texas. Well, maybe. Actually, probably not. Smoke and mirrors are Harrison’s best friends here in the early going. His strikeout, walk, and home run ratios are just around what they’ve been for most of his career, but it’s the BABIP, coming in at .192, that’s a buzzkill for him. The 87.7% strand rate isn’t as extreme as Ogando’s mark, but it’s still ridiculously high, too high to be sustained. One possible positive: the 53.2% ground ball rate in the bandbox in Arlington will help him out tremendously at the end of the day. But when you look around and see his miniscule 8.9% line drive rate, you wonder if some of those ground balls are going to get some air under them and start making the Rangers outfield run around after balls in the gap. 8.9% is a little too low to be sustained, especially for a pitcher like Harrison who doesn’t have overpowering stuff.
I’m not saying that these five pitchers are going to be worthless to their teams for the rest of the season. What I am saying is that you’re not going to be hearing about these guys when the Cy Young results come out in November. Hell, you probably won’t even see any of these guys at Chase Field for the All-Star game in July. But you never know at the end of the day.
