Welcome to the inaugural post of Diggin’ for Gold, where we do a deep dive on anyone and everyone to pan for gold and see if we can find the good ones. I’ve chosen to go about this at three different levels of inspection:
Surface level: This is the highest level view you can get looking at the most commonly used stats and comparing them to the player’s career norms and see how they’re doing this year comparatively. This will use stats most likely used by your scoring system (i.e. W, ERA, WHIP, K, SV for pitchers and AVG, R, HR, RBI, SB for hitters). From here, we can examine the landscape of the year so far to see if they’re seemingly breaking out, having a career year, going through one hell of a slump, or is just more of the same.
Prospecting: After we’ve gotten a feel of where to look to dig, we can start to use some more advanced stats to get a feel for any sort of potential regression. This is where things like xFIP, SIERA, and K%-BB% come in for pitchers and xBA, xWOBA, and BABIP are utilized for hitters, for example. At this point we should have more specific spots to dig even deeper to see if there’s a root cause for these numbers.
Search for the Motherlode: Once we’ve chosen a spot to focus on, we start to get into things like plate discipline and approach, pitch usage and effectiveness, quality of contact, etc. With these tools, we should have a decent idea if we are striking gold or finding nothing but dust.
We begin this series with Tampa Rays pitcher, Shane McClanahan. I first heard about him through PitcherList (a wonderful fantasy resource focused on pitching, but a plethora of other articles available you should check out) after he made his debut and was pushing 100 mph. Any time a starter pushes triple digits, it should garner your attention.
On the surface with a line of 3.75 ERA – 1.25 WHIP – 6 W – 99 K in 84 IP, he doesn’t jump off the page as someone to be excited about. The 24 year old, drafted 31st overall in 2018, plowed through three different levels in 2019, ending at AA. There, he ended the year with an 8.35 ERA through 18.1 IP after a 1.46 ERA and 0.83 WHIP in 49.1 IP at high-A. Making his major league debut this year, we may be seeing the establishment of an absolute hurler on the mound for the Rays. With a 65 grade fastball and 60 grade curveball, per Fangraphs, he simply can overpower hitters if he can keep up his efficiency while pounding the strike zone with pitches that are all 5 mph faster than league average. Since he’s made his debut this year, let’s dig a little deeper and get a sense of the chances of his improvement on his surface line.
Moving on to some expected stats, we see that there is some positive improvement indicated but also some indicators that say this may be what we get in the future. A 4.12 xERA, a stat that considers how much contact is made and the quality of that contact, indicates that McClanahan is giving up a good amount of hard contact. This is supported by a 42.9% hard hit rate, above league average at 35.5%, and an average exit velocity of 91 mph verse 88.3 mph at league average. Per Baseball Savant, this puts him in the bottom 19th and 10th percentile, respectively. On that same Savant page, however, we can see his 33.6% whiff rate and 31.6% chase rate are some great numbers at the top 90th and 82nd percentile rank, respectively. This indicates that his stuff is good enough to rack up strikeouts and with some improvement on command, bring his hard hit rate down if he can locate in spots detrimental to hitter success.
McClanahan’s FIP and xFIP (stats that take into account events based on strikeouts, walks, hit by pitch, and flyballs) show as 3.56 and 3.29, respectively. When focusing on the outcomes that he can control, he has good room for improvement in the future. His HR/FB% is 16.2 which is above league average of 10%. If, and when, the home runs come under more control with improved command, a low 3’s ERA is not out of the question with the arsenal he brings to the table. SIERA, which is similar to xFIP but includes balls in play, also indicates an above average performance this season at 3.63 and optimism for even further success this year.
Now, my biggest concern is this quality of contact he’s given up this year. You can’t give up hard hits 42% of the time and expect sustained success. Taking a look at his approach, we can see a 65.6% first-strike percentage, above 60% league average. He begins 80% of his at-bats with a fastball (52.3%) or slider (27.7%). This gets him a swing 39.5% of the time on his fastballs and 32.7% of the time on his sliders. The bad news is hitters are batting .423 against his fastball and .444 against his sliders on the first pitch of the at-bat. If I’m a hitter facing him, I’m sitting fastball and swinging first pitch as he hits the zone with it 63.8% of the time. If you are unlucky enough to get to two-strikes, you sit slider and hope he leaves it hanging as you’ll probably whiff or make some weak contact. McClanahan is a primarily FB, SL pitcher but his CB and CH are good enough to keep you on your toes and put you away if you sit FB too often. This year, overall, his FB is getting swatted for a .301 average when he can’t command it as precisely as he wants and leaves it too much in the zone. I would love to see him throw his CB even more as he gets a whiff 43.3% of the time and is his biggest velocity difference from his FB.
In conclusion: Gold
McClanahan has the tools to take the next step forward as a high-end starter for the Rays. Once he gets his full endurance and starts going 6, 7, 8 IP per game, those K totals will start racking up. As long as he starts to more precisely locate his fastball and really help the velocity stand out, utilizes his curveball a tad more, and continues his aggressive first strike approach, he’s going to be a desired part of your staff for years to come.
643 Fantasy Baseball 