We’re far enough into the season now that we have an idea of who players are and what we can expect from them. Slow starts and blazing starts alike, performances that were unsustainable have started to normalize (with the notable exceptions of Jesse Winker and Adolis Garcia!) and we start to develop a baseline of what we should expect the rest of the season from players we deem fantasy relevant. A difficult part of this process is removing our biases from what we expect from players as opposed to what they have shown us so far this season. This week we’ll examine some players which likely have a large delta between their expected performance and their actual and try to figure out what’s going on. We’ll start with…
Nathan Eovaldi
Meh, right? You don’t have any strong feeling about rostering Eovaldi, and you wouldn’t go out of your way to squeeze him in your DFS lineups. He has plenty of velocity, but he walks too many guys and gives up too much hard contact, especially dingers, right? That’s who he was in 2019 anyway, and in the AL East (and at Fenway especially) it would be tough to expect a whole lot better than that.
Thus far in 2021, he has been an absolute stud. While the 22% K rate doesn’t jump off the page, when it is paired with only a 5.4% BB rate is enough to generate some interest, but he has developed a “one weird trick” type approach where he simply doesn’t give up home runs anymore. Yeah. Through eight starts and 42 innings he has given up exactly zero home runs, pitching at Fenway Park and in the AL East. He has done this by decreasing both his fly ball % and his hard hit %, encouraging far more line drives and medium contact than in years past, which is antithetical to today’s three true outcomes approach taken by most hitters. Somehow, someway, Eovaldi is defying the odds and keeping the ball in the ballpark and is using his diverse pitch mix to become a de facto ace for the Red Sox. I would expect this to continue until we see the command decay (if that happens) and at that point the home runs will pile up against him in bunches.
Matt Boyd
You likely have a similar gut reaction to Boyd as you did to Eovaldi. He’s a name you certainly know and are aware of, and will even roster in the right scenario, but that scenario is infrequent! In fewer words, your reaction is… “ugh”.
Except, Boyd has been good so far this season! Really good! Like Eovaldi, he has been able to achieve success by limiting walks and home runs, as he has given up only a single home run through seven starts and 41 innings, as opposed to the 2020 season in which he gave up 15 home runs in 60 innings. Unlike Eovaldi, he has given up more fly balls and roughly the same amount of hard contact, so I would be a bit more concerned about Boyd continuing this run of dominance (yes, we can use the word dominance when a guy puts up a 1.94 ERA through seven starts).
We’ll want to pay close attention to him, but still will want to start him in season long and pick our spots in DFS until we see a change. It’s also worth nothing that the K% is down significantly (only 17% in 2021 as opposed to a mid-20% baseline).
Logan Webb
If you’re not a Giants fan, you would be excused for not even really knowing who Webb is. He didn’t start the season in the rotation and has only maintained a spot in it due to injuries to both Johnny Cueto and Aaron Sanchez opening up rotation spots at different times throughout the year. And while you likely know Giants’ pitchers have all been a lot better than expected thus far this season- can the same be said for Webb?
Kind of! His profile is easy enough to understand- minimize hard contact and keep the ball on the ground. It plays well within the Giants organization where he’ll generally be pitching in a pitcher friendly ballpark and in front of a talented defense.
But he’s been able to take this skill set to the extreme, getting 57% ground balls (third highest % in MLB behind only Dallas Keuchel and Wade Miley) and only 17% fly balls so far this season, and in addition ramping up his swing and miss ability to the tune of a 26.2% K rate only adding further to his effectiveness. While he is still young enough that we might not be entirely sure who he is as a pitcher, nor whether he’s guaranteed to stay in the rotation, Webb is a talent worth watching going forward.
Eugenio Suarez
“Geno” is supposed to be a masher, right? He plays in an extremely hitter friendly park, in a dangerous lineup with guys who always seem to get on base hitting in front of him and is smack in the middle of his prime at 29 years old. So what’s going on this year?
Thus far he’s put a .156/.238/.336 slash line with only a .180 ISO, all of which are disastrously low when compared to his career averages and what projection systems were expecting from him. Usually major differences like this are also apparent in the batted ball profile, but Suarez is hitting the ball hard and in the air at almost the exact same rates he has in the best (and all of those were also remarkably consistent) that there’s no obvious problem in terms of the contact he’s making.
It’s a bit of a problem that he’s making less of it, striking out at 35% clip as opposed a career baseline of mid/high 20%, and he’s also walking less (down to 8.4% so far this year). So, is he just not seeing the ball as well? Did the transition to shortstop take his focus away from getting himself 100% ready to hit to start the season? Is he hurt? Something is clearly going on here, and yes, the season is still young enough that he could easily right the ship, and the power is still kind of there (a .180 ISO and six home runs isn’t awful), but this is definitely a situation we’ll want to monitor going forward.
For season long, he’s in too good of a spot to give up on, but I would start looking at other options to make up for his production sooner than later on the off chance he doesn’t get it going. Similarly, for DFS purposes, look for the right spot and a discounted price before committing to using him in your lineups.
