Last Season’s Most Underrated Rookie
I got to participate in the voting for last season’s American League Rookie of the Year award. Like almost everyone else, I agonized over whether to go with Gary Sanchez or Michael Fulmer, before ultimately settling on the latter. Tyler Naquin rounded out my ballot. It was the most common ballot — there were a dozen, out of 30, that read like mine.
If I had a fourth-place slot, I would’ve found room for Christopher Devenski. As is, Devenski showed up on five ballots, finishing third on four and second on one. There were many rookies last year who were pretty good. Devenski, somehow, has seemingly flown under the radar. He was so good!
If I wanted, I could leave it at this — there were 142 different pitchers in all of baseball who threw at least 100 innings. Here are the best of them, by ERA-:
- Clayton Kershaw, 43
- Kyle Hendricks, 51
- Chris Devenski, 52
But you could look at the fact that Devenski allowed just four homers and conclude he got lucky. He probably did. Doesn’t mean he didn’t get better and better. It’s Devenski’s second half that really stands out. After the All-Star break, he threw 49.2 innings. Here are some percentile rankings out of everyone who cleared 25 post-ASB frames.
Down the stretch, Devenski threw strikes like Max Scherzer, and he missed bats like…well, also Max Scherzer. He compelled hitters to constantly chase out of the zone, in part a testament to his outstanding changeup. But you shouldn’t come away believing Devenski was some kind of soft-tosser; by September he was throwing his average fastball around 94 miles per hour.
Devenski was underrated because he wasn’t really a starting pitcher. He did start a few times, but he predominantly relieved, without closing. As you know, statistically speaking, relievers have it easier. Yet Devenski wasn’t a reliever of the conventional sort. The last bar in the plot above reads PA/GR. That’s out of a different sample pool — all relievers with at least 10 appearances in the second half. The category itself refers to average plate appearances per relief appearance. Devenski was close to the top. He wasn’t a matchup guy, or a one-inning guy. He was more of a multi-inning swingman, which makes his numbers all the more remarkable. He was that good, for dozens of pitches at a time.
Borrowing from Texas Leaguers, Devenski made a midseason change that could’ve driven his greater success.
As the season wore on, Devenski all but abandoned his curveball, replacing it with a sharper slider. He showed excellent command of the pitch, and opponents missed it nearly half of the time they swung. Here’s Devenski using the slider to get back in the count:
The slider gave Devenski a consistent third pitch. In the second half, he threw it 22% of the time. He threw his fastball 40% of the time. And he threw his changeup — this changeup — 32% of the time.
Lefties would see all three pitches. Righties would see all three pitches. And Devenski’s over-the-top delivery presumably added some measure of deception. His fastball comes with a good amount of rise, and the changeup plays off of it perfectly. The slider is why the Astros are still thinking about Devenski as potentially becoming a starter. He might work well for five or six innings at a time. It’s already clear he can work well for two or three.
Devenski is going to be a key part of the Astros’ enviable pitching depth, no matter his role. Whether he’s rotation insurance or a steady presence in the bullpen, he’ll provide something every manager wants. As he showed over last season’s final three months, he can pitch as well as almost anyone else, and this from someone who was a completely unheralded prospect. A 25th-round draft pick who was included as a PTBNL for Brett Myers. You can give the White Sox some credit for identifying and developing Jose Quintana. In a similar but opposite way, I guess Devenski was an oversight.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
I was blown away when I first heard of him in the Kershaw article the other day. Can’t believe I had never even seen his name.
That’s an awesome righty-on-righty changeup — it doesn’t tail in at all. Does he throw the same one to lefties?
P.S. Devenski’s .465 OPS to RHBs was lowest in the last 3 years among those who faced 200 of them.
Great piece. Very underrated player.
Devenski had the lowest average leverage index of anyone who pitched 100 innings last season. We’ll see how he does when the innings and pitches actually matter.
Average Leverage Index when entering, by month:
April: 0.47
May: 0.54
June: 0.40
July: 0.60
August: 1.49
September: 1.22
He was second on the Astros in August, and third in September. Over those two months, he allowed eight runs in 39.1 innings, with a 32 FIP-.
It’s wild to see just how cautious A.J. Hinch was with him. Despite pitching great all along, Devenski didn’t get one high-lev chance until August 1.
He made the most of it, getting the last out of the 9th with a man on to hold a tie, followed by 4 more perfect frames, with 7 Ks. They won in the 14th, and Devenski notched the best WPA by a Houston reliever since 1989.
From there, he was a trusted member of the pen. And besides those 8 runs in 39.1 IP you cited, Devenski had a 47-4 SO/BB from Aug. 1. That’ll play.
Most Astros fans are expecting a similar usage: Middle/Long relief/spot-starter. I think we’d all be immensely satisfied if we got 100IP of 3 WAR performance again in that same role.
There’s a glut of back-end relievers (Giles, Gregerson, Harris) as well as BOR starters (Morton, Musgrove, Fiers, Paulino) so it’ll be tough for him to shift roles. There’s also Michael Feliz who will similarly be a multi-inning reliever/spot-starter.
He’s likely much more effective in the pen, as his fastball will hit 94-95 as a reliever but sit 90-91mph as a starter.
What an odd path to the majors for Devenski:
— 25th-round pick in 2011. (Only one yet with positive bWAR from those 24th-25th rounds.)
— 5.98 ERA in 152 IP at high-A over 2013-14 (but a hitter’s park).
— 3.24 ERA in 161 IP at double-A over 2014-15 (but a pitcher’s park).
— Never sets foot in triple-A.
— Makes opening day roster last year.
And then he:
— Logs most bWAR by first-year RP since Andrew Bailey, 2009.
— Becomes only pitcher in last 5 years with 100 IP and 6 starts or less.
— Yields .511 OPS in 84 IP as reliever — basically same numbers as Mariano 2001, Gagne ’04, Betances ’15.
I think there’s some luck involved here — high DP% despite low GB rate, and absurdly low HR/FB% — but I’ll root for him!
Devenski actually wasn’t on the Astros Opening Day roster. He was called up after Collin McHugh had an extremely short start in frigid conditions in New York and Michael Feliz took one for the team and pitched a bunch of innings in relief.
Devenski was available and could pitch multiple innings, so he got what was supposed to be a temporary call up. But Devenski seized the opportunity and never looked back. Funny how things work out sometimes.
BTW, Jeff — This post is no longer on the FG home page.
It is an ‘instagraphs’ post, which are typically just short, quick posts. ‘Instagrphs’ are kept on the top-right side of the homepage.
In reference to the chart, shouldn’t his percentile marks in measurements such as ERA- and FIP- be more like single digits? Surely his ERA- and FIP- were among the lowest in baseball, not the highest, so the appropriate percentiles for such measurements can’t be anywhere near 100.
I get that you want to show “high” rankings across the board to show how good he is, but this seems like a misuse of the concept of a percentile. If I wanted to communicate that I was extreme in the lack of sick days I used at work the last decade, I wouldn’t say the number of sick days I used was in the 99th percentile relative to all American workers. That’d communicate the wrong thing and be inaccurate.
I noticed this first with the column labeled “z-o swing%”. I read that and immediately thought “wow, this guy’s ERA was incredibly low even though he got so many more swings in the zone than outside of the zone relative to his peers; that has to be a really unique collection of things for a pitcher.” Then I realized that it was trying to communicate that he was far better than typical with this differential, not that his z-o swing% was literally larger than those of 97% of his peers.