The Minnesota Twins are somehow eight games over .500 and just one game back of the first-place Kansas City Royals in the tough American League Central. Their offense has been unbelievably clutch and their pitching has exceeded expectations. Much of that has to do with a man named Mike Pelfrey.
As soon as the Minnesota Twins announced Pelfrey would take suspended Ervin Santana’s spot in the starting rotation, I wrote a piece about the type of pitcher Pelfrey had to be. I made the declarative statement that the Twins needed him to step up and provide value in order to not only bring wins, but boost his trade value.
Through 11 starts, Pelfrey has done exactly that.
Pelfrey has baseball’s ninth-best ERA (2.28) and has been worth 0.8 WAR. His WAR is lower than what you might expect, but that’s because his FIP and xFIP don’t really agree with his ERA. FIP places a great value on strikeouts and limiting walks, and for someone whose fastball is in the mid-90s, Pelfrey is striking out batters at just a 12.3% clip, while his K-BB% sits at a lowly 5.4%. He does have games where he racks up the strike outs like he did against the Brewers during his last start, but overall, he’s not a strikeout guy. Still, Pelfrey is making hitters chase out of the zone at a higher rate than ever before, and has accumulated his highest swinging-strike percentage since 2012 with the New York Mets. But because FIP believes so much in strikeouts, Pelfrey’s FIP is much higher than his ERA. And believe it or not, it could stay that way throughout the season.
Pelfrey is a contact pitcher, and up until this season, his goal of creating contact resulted in a lot of hard-hit balls and plenty of fly balls that turned into home runs. But in 2013, Pelfrey rediscovered his sinker, and although it took two seasons to see results, he’s now become a groundball pitcher. His GB% has rocketed from 43.7% in 2014 to 55.2% in 2015. The odd thing is, however, is that batters are hitting .305 and have a .286 BABIP on groundballs off Pelfrey’s sinker. Pelfrey is actually forcing more ground balls when he throws his split-fingered fastball, a pitch he’s throwing at a career-high rate.
Despite the Twins’ current standing, many people are of the belief that they are not true contenders, which means they are likely sellers come the trade deadline. Pelfrey could and should be among the list of players the Twins consider dealing.
Even though I talked about Pelfrey’s FIP earlier, SIERA (Skill Interactive ERA) is a much better predictor of future performance, and Pelfrey’s SIERA (4.36) isn’t pretty. The chances are pretty high that Pelfrey will regress and he won’t be able to keep up the success he’s been having. Now, he could keep it up in 2015, but 2016? I doubt it. This is why the Twins need to trade him when his value is at its highest, which it is at this very moment. They should’ve done that with Kurt Suzuki last season, and they need to do it now with Pelfrey.
Without Pelfrey, Minnesota probably wouldn’t be in second place in their respected division. They just need to figure out if they can keep it going and truly compete for a playoff spot. If not, Pelfrey should be on the move.
