Projecting Nationals Right-Hander Lucas Giolito

It’s raining prospects. The prospect gods gave us Brandon Nimmo and A.J. Reed over the weekend, and today we’re treated with another prospect debut: hard-throwing righty Lucas Giolito. The former first-rounder will take the hill for the Nationals in tonight’s game against the New York Mets.

Giolito pitched exclusively at the Double-A level this year, where he posted a 3.22 FIP and a 23% strikeout rate. That performance is nothing to sneeze at, especially coming from a 21-year-old, but it’s a tad underwhelming when held against his numbers from prior seasons. Giolito showed an exceptional penchant for missing bats at the low minors, but he hasn’t been quite as prolific since he was promoted to Double-A last July. He posted a 29% strikeout rate in 168 innings in A-Ball between 2014 and 2015, but saw that figure dip below 23% in his 118 Double-A innings. His walk rate also ticked up upon reaching the Double-A level.

Heading into the year, KATOH was all in on Giolito. My system pegged him for a remarkable 8.4 WAR over his first six seasons, making him KATOH’s 17th-favorite prospect and fourth-favorite pitcher. Unsurprisingly, his projection takes a pretty big hit when his 2016 numbers are added to the mix: the six-year forecast drops all the way down to 3.8 WAR, placing him closer to back end of top-100 territory. KATOH still thinks he’s an exciting prospect, but notably less exciting than he a few months ago, when his A-Ball dominance was relatively new data.

To put some faces to Giolito’s statistical profile, let’s go ahead and generate some statistical comps for the 6-foot-6 righty. I calculated a weighted Mahalanobis Distance between Giolito’s Double-A performance between this year and last and every Double-A season since 1991 in which a pitcher recorded at least 350 batters faced. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. In generating Giolito’s comps, I only considered pitchers who cracked Baseball America’s top-100 list either before or after the season in question. This is intended to act as a proxy for “good stuff,” which Giolito certainly has. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues.

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

Lucas Giolito’s Mahalanobis Comps
Rank Name Proj. WAR Actual WAR
1 Chris Carpenter 4.9 10.4
2 Jason Schmidt 5.4 12.9
3 Matt Morris 4.0 20.7
4 Mark Hutton 3.3 0.8
5 Freddy Garcia 5.6 23.9
6 Dan Cortes 3.4 0.1
7 Jeff Granger 1.9 0.0
8 Nate Cornejo 3.4 1.8
9 Chad Hutchinson 3.2 0.0
10 Aaron Poreda 5.2 0.2

Looking over the past couple of years, Giolito’s performance appears to be trending in the wrong direction. Though, the immediate trend is actually much more encouraging. Giolito got off to a rocky start to the 2016 season, but he’s been quite dominant of late.

Lucas Giolito in Double-A this Season
Time Period K% BB% FIP ERA
First 8 Starts 18% 13% 4.08 3.82
Last 6 Starts 28% 8% 2.39 2.52

Most notably, his strikeout numbers have improved markedly, and have been commensurate with his A-Ball rates in recent weeks.

Capture

There’s little doubt that Giolito has top-of-the-rotation potential. His fastball-curveball combination is among the best you’ll find, and he’s shown glimpses of dominance in the minor leagues while facing competition much older than he is. The Nationals tweaked Giolito’s mechanics this spring, which might explain the bulk of his early season struggles. His early-2016 rough patch did happen, though, so we should temper our expectations somewhat — just maybe slightly less than KATOH did. But even after accounting for his unspectacular Double-A numbers, my math suggests Giolito has a bright future ahead of him. It will be a lot of fun to watch him pitch.





Chris works in economic development by day, but spends most of his nights thinking about baseball. He writes for Pinstripe Pundits, FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. He's also on the twitter machine: @_chris_mitchell None of the views expressed in his articles reflect those of his daytime employer.

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Mario Mendozamember
7 years ago

Hey where did the AJ Reed article go?

Sandy Kazmir
7 years ago
Reply to  Chris Mitchell

I guess that’s what he gets for an 0-10 start.