Szymborski’s 2023 Bust Candidates: Pitchers
Today, we we wrap up my yearly breakouts/bust series with the pitchers I’m pessimistic about in 2023 to some degree. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year… or how foolish.
| Pitcher | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | FIP | ERA- | ERA- Percentile | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Flaherty | 8.25 | 5.50 | 1.00 | 4.97 | 109 | 19th | 0.0 |
| Noah Syndergaard | 6.35 | 2.07 | 0.94 | 3.83 | 98 | 32nd | 2.2 |
| Chris Flexen 플렉센 | 6.21 | 3.33 | 1.11 | 4.49 | 101 | 55th | 0.7 |
| Michael Pineda | 5.01 | 1.54 | 2.51 | 6.13 | 151 | 5th | -0.4 |
| James Karinchak | 14.31 | 4.85 | 0.46 | 2.29 | 53 | 70th | 1.0 |
| Emilio Pagán | 12.00 | 3.71 | 1.71 | 4.21 | 116 | 28th | -0.1 |
| Mark Melancon | 5.63 | 3.38 | 0.80 | 4.20 | 114 | 18th | 0.1 |
| Bryse Wilson | 6.15 | 2.49 | 1.56 | 5.06 | 137 | 31st | -0.1 |
All in all, this doesn’t look too bad. Karinchak was about at his typical levels, but the rest of the list didn’t generally provide much excitement. Syndergaard was the most valuable of the group, but hardly as the God of Thunder, and a league-average season was certainly a disappointment compared to what we remembered of him. Flaherty may have the been saddest bust on the list, as he was more or less a mess.
From the comments in the hitter articles, there’s still some lingering confusion on what I mean by a breakout or bust. When I pick a player to break out or bust, I’m basing this relative to the general expectations as I perceive them, not relative to the previous season’s performance. For example, Joey Gallo is a bust not because I think he’ll be worse than last season, but because I think he’ll be worse than those baked-in expectations; there has been a lot of speculation that the shift will save him, and I don’t think that’s true. You see this on the financial markets quite a bit, when the market reacts negatively to good news that’s not as good as what was already priced into the valuations, and vice-versa. Also remember that this isn’t necessarily me versus ZiPS; sometimes ZiPS agrees with me, and sometimes it angrily disagrees, or at least it would if I didn’t have the power to delete it from existence.
Without further ado, let’s get to the picks, and may the baseball fates have mercy on my soul. As this piece was completed over the first few days of the season, all eight players were finalized before the season started. A few of these players did have awful 2023 debuts, but that’s just “luck” on my part.
Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins
Alcantara is still likely to be one of the better pitchers in the league, and ZiPS certainly likes him, placing him among the leaders in WAR. But ZiPS is explicitly not trying to take into account rule changes, and I think Alcantara is one of the pitchers with the most significant chances to be affected by them. That’s a common theme among several of my bust picks this year, simply because this year, it’s something that causes additional uncertainty.
In this case, Alcantara, by far, had more groundballs hit into shifts than any pitcher in baseball in 2022, with 166; only seven other pitchers were above 100. I still think he’ll be a really good pitcher, but I expect his platoon splits will rise farther than ZiPS does, and before remaining confident he’s in ultra-elite territory, I want to make sure that the changeups that lefties facing Alcantara drive into the ground aren’t sneaking through at high rates.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 173 | 2.36 | 7.0 |
| 90% | 156 | 2.62 | 6.5 |
| 80% | 143 | 2.85 | 5.7 |
| 70% | 135 | 3.02 | 5.2 |
| 60% | 130 | 3.14 | 4.9 |
| 50% | 123 | 3.32 | 4.5 |
| 40% | 118 | 3.45 | 4.1 |
| 30% | 113 | 3.60 | 3.8 |
| 20% | 108 | 3.79 | 3.3 |
| 10% | 98 | 4.18 | 2.4 |
| 5% | 89 | 4.62 | 1.6 |
Robbie Ray, Seattle Mariners
I’m a bit worried about Ray’s strikeout rate. While the dip from 2021 to ’22 wasn’t a big one, his peripherals in this department took a giant splat last year, with his swinging-strike rate falling off by 30%. His contact rate was his worst as an established major leaguer, and his called-strike performance also dropped considerably. ZiPS thought his peripherals, which are a leading indicator of strikeout performance, suggested a whopping 37 fewer strikeouts than were actually reflected in the record. And this isn’t a case of ZiPS having a pattern of underrating Ray’s strikeouts; zSO predicted 1,149 strikeouts for him in 2016–21 versus his 1,152 actual strikeouts. The dropoff in first-strike percentage also tends to mean an increase in walks, though Ray should at least be better than his first start this year!
At least, that is, when he returns from his current flexor strain. If that turns out to be more serious than it looks right now, we’ll have to call this an incomplete; it would be manifestly unfair for me to claim victory in a small sample size.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 150 | 2.64 | 5.2 |
| 90% | 137 | 2.91 | 4.6 |
| 80% | 122 | 3.25 | 3.7 |
| 70% | 115 | 3.46 | 3.3 |
| 60% | 109 | 3.65 | 2.9 |
| 50% | 104 | 3.82 | 2.5 |
| 40% | 99 | 4.01 | 2.1 |
| 30% | 93 | 4.25 | 1.6 |
| 20% | 85 | 4.66 | 0.8 |
| 10% | 79 | 5.01 | 0.2 |
| 5% | 74 | 5.37 | -0.4 |
Corey Kluber, Boston Red Sox
ZiPS already isn’t too bullish on Kluber, so I’m in agreement with the computer in this case. I think what we have here is a perfect storm of risky indicators. He was solid in 2022 but also in a beneficial environment, with the Rays’ defense and the Trop being a good fit for him. He was never a flamethrower, but his limited velocity is getting even worse; he’s lost two mph from 2021, placing him at risk of “going Jered Weaver.” What’s more is that in a year in which there are additional incentives for putting balls in play — already less than ideal for Kluber — Fenway is the best non-Coors park for BABIP, and the Red Sox don’t have a particularly good defense. I think Kluber can still have success as the saavy, groundball veteran in a Chelcie Ross/Eddie Harris sense, but it’s more likely when he has the right support behind him.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 139 | 3.25 | 3.0 |
| 90% | 126 | 3.57 | 2.6 |
| 80% | 117 | 3.87 | 2.2 |
| 70% | 109 | 4.15 | 1.9 |
| 60% | 104 | 4.36 | 1.7 |
| 50% | 98 | 4.62 | 1.4 |
| 40% | 94 | 4.82 | 1.2 |
| 30% | 89 | 5.10 | 1.0 |
| 20% | 82 | 5.53 | 0.6 |
| 10% | 75 | 6.00 | 0.2 |
| 5% | 70 | 6.47 | -0.2 |
Johnny Cueto, Miami Marlins
While Cueto has never been a pitcher who has relied on high strikeout rates, dipping under six last year was quite worrisome, both in its absolute number and the dropoff from the year before with the Giants. A large part of his success was one of his best seasons for home run rate allowed — especially impressive in Guaranteed Rate Field — but ZiPS thought that even his good exit velocity numbers last year should have yielded an additional seven homers. The fact that Cueto is the second Marlin on this list reflects one of the reasons I’m uneasy about the Pablo López trade: I think the Marlins would have been a lot better off had they tried to meet their offensive needs with money instead of lopping off some of their pitcher surplus. If Cueto struggles (and in his first start on Monday, he did, and also had to leave the game with a trainer), that pitcher surplus becomes more and more iffy.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 130 | 3.15 | 3.3 |
| 90% | 119 | 3.43 | 2.9 |
| 80% | 111 | 3.70 | 2.5 |
| 70% | 105 | 3.90 | 2.2 |
| 60% | 101 | 4.06 | 2.0 |
| 50% | 97 | 4.20 | 1.8 |
| 40% | 94 | 4.35 | 1.5 |
| 30% | 90 | 4.55 | 1.3 |
| 20% | 85 | 4.79 | 1.0 |
| 10% | 79 | 5.15 | 0.5 |
| 5% | 74 | 5.52 | 0.2 |
Craig Kimbrel, Philadelphia Phillies
Kimbrel’s occasional implosions are a lot easier to stomach if he’s striking out 15 batters a game. He wasn’t in 2022, with easily the worst strikeout rate of his career, and that’s with the Dodgers, who seem to have a shocking ability to wring good performance out of practically anyone. Once one of the hardest pitchers in baseball to make contact again, he’s gradually degraded towards league average in this number, which isn’t exactly a formula in which he’ll find success given his penchant for occasionally getting hit very hard. While I wouldn’t overreact to his first appearance with the Phillies, I think he’s a very ordinary reliever who is getting by more on reputation than performance.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 197 | 2.11 | 1.6 |
| 90% | 166 | 2.50 | 1.3 |
| 80% | 141 | 2.93 | 1.0 |
| 70% | 119 | 3.48 | 0.7 |
| 60% | 107 | 3.87 | 0.4 |
| 50% | 100 | 4.17 | 0.2 |
| 40% | 92 | 4.53 | 0.1 |
| 30% | 82 | 5.07 | -0.2 |
| 20% | 73 | 5.68 | -0.5 |
| 10% | 60 | 6.89 | -0.9 |
| 5% | 52 | 7.92 | -1.2 |
Mike Clevinger, Chicago White Sox
Clevinger got two starts in the playoffs last year, but his stint with the Padres has to go down as a major disappointment, one somewhat camouflaged by the decline in offense and being in a pitchers’ park. Losing a couple miles on his fastball may not have been fatal in itself, but it was hit quite hard last year, and none of his pitches were able to put away batters effectively on two strikes. I think he’s more of a reclamation project than a bounceback solution, and I don’t think an allegedly competitive team in a home run friendly park is necessarily the best place for that to happen.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 129 | 3.35 | 2.6 |
| 90% | 118 | 3.67 | 2.2 |
| 80% | 107 | 4.04 | 1.8 |
| 70% | 101 | 4.25 | 1.5 |
| 60% | 98 | 4.41 | 1.4 |
| 50% | 94 | 4.58 | 1.2 |
| 40% | 89 | 4.84 | 0.9 |
| 30% | 84 | 5.12 | 0.6 |
| 20% | 80 | 5.37 | 0.3 |
| 10% | 76 | 5.71 | 0.0 |
| 5% | 69 | 6.22 | -0.5 |
Chris Bassitt, Toronto Blue Jays
ZiPS isn’t worried about Bassitt, at least in the short term (it has him dropping off fairly quickly in future seasons). But what ZiPS doesn’t know is that his velocity took a big dip in the spring. Last year, he was regularly in the 93–94 mph range with the occasional pitch at 95 or 96; in Florida, it was 90–92. It’s not unusual for a pitcher to dial it back a bit before the season starts, but he wasn’t just applying the brakes more often; all his fastballs were off. Bassitt’s fastest pitch this spring was 93.5 mph, below his average in more than half of his starts last year. If he were averaging 90–92 but still hitting 95–96, I’d be less worried, but I’m skeptical that he simply chose to go through a whole month without ever throwing his fastest fastball. Velocity drops tend to be red flags, so I think there’s additional risk here.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 163 | 2.62 | 4.9 |
| 90% | 149 | 2.87 | 4.5 |
| 80% | 137 | 3.12 | 3.9 |
| 70% | 127 | 3.37 | 3.5 |
| 60% | 122 | 3.50 | 3.3 |
| 50% | 118 | 3.63 | 3.0 |
| 40% | 111 | 3.83 | 2.8 |
| 30% | 106 | 4.03 | 2.4 |
| 20% | 102 | 4.17 | 2.2 |
| 10% | 94 | 4.54 | 1.6 |
| 5% | 86 | 4.97 | 1.1 |
Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies
ZiPS thought that Freeland should have allowed 12 more homers in 2022 than he actually did, a pretty hefty number. To put this into context, zHR has been part of ZiPS since 2015, and over that period, only Madison Bumgarner in 2018 has “underperformed” by at least 10 homers (10.7). This isn’t a case in which Freeland has a history of beating his peripherals here either; zHR has never missed on him by more than two homers over a season. Add in the decline in his velocity, more flyballs than ever, and a park that’s still somewhat of a pinball machine post-humidor, and I think Freeland is a very risky pitcher.
| Percentile | ERA+ | ERA | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 125 | 3.88 | 3.0 |
| 90% | 118 | 4.10 | 2.7 |
| 80% | 111 | 4.37 | 2.4 |
| 70% | 106 | 4.57 | 2.1 |
| 60% | 102 | 4.75 | 1.8 |
| 50% | 98 | 4.95 | 1.6 |
| 40% | 93 | 5.21 | 1.3 |
| 30% | 90 | 5.37 | 1.1 |
| 20% | 86 | 5.67 | 0.8 |
| 10% | 80 | 6.09 | 0.3 |
| 5% | 74 | 6.51 | -0.1 |
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Does ZiPS not take velocity into account? Also I’d pick Alek Manoah
If you’re referring to the Bassitt comment, I think he’s saying that ZiPS hasn’t taken into account the drop off in velocity from this spring. I would imagine that ST data isn’t weighted very heavily in the projection methodology. More the timing of the velo change than ZiPS ignoring it.
It does, but not *spring* velocity!
Agreed on Manoah. Contrary to popular baseball belief, Manoah is not a big strikeout pitcher. Certainly not last year where he was not even average is Ks for a starting pitcher. I’m not saying he is not a good starter but he is far from elite.
You don’t need to be a big strikeout pitcher when you’re excellent at inducing weak contact. He had a 12% IFFB rate which ranked 8th in the majors last year.
That’s why he’s so effective without an elite K/9. Probably won’t be sub 3 ERA again, but I don’t consider him a good fit for the list.
If the criteria is “a bust relative to the average fan’s perception” then yeah, Manoah is an extremely good pick. He’s not putting up another 2.24 ERA most likely. Dude got super lucky. But if it’s a “bust relative to how he actually pitched last year”, well, his xERA was that of a roughly 4-win pitcher and I think it’s reasonable to think he gets close to that again this year.
Pointing out that Alcantara had more ground balls hit into the shift than anyone else without also noting that he threw almost 25 more innings than any other pitcher in baseball seems a little misleading.
Which is why I noted the separation. He threw almost 40% more than the second place pitcher (Marco Gonzales). And 60% more than everyone outside of seven other pitchers. He led the league in innings; he didn’t lead the league by 100 innings.
His 5.1% rate of grounders into the shift was the second-highest in baseball for pitchers who had at least 50 grounders, behind just Clayton Kershaw.
Where was Framber Valdez on grounders into the shift? He seems like the only guy who allowed more overall grounders than Alcantara.
Only 73 for Framber. He had 290 grounders into a standard infield, nearly 50 more than the next most (Fried at 244).
thank you!
Looked like Clevinger gained a couple of MPH back in his first start this season. If this holds would this change your valuation any?
Clevinger’s FB was up 2.3 MPH (92 -> 94.3) in his first start, and he didn’t have too many issues putting the Astros away; 8 Ks in 5IP, 13 whiffs.
Yeah, I’m with Dan on most everything except the Clevinger pick. Expectations for him are already pretty low with ZIPs projecting him for a 4.58 ERA and 1.1 WAR. As others have mentioned, this is a guy showing an uptick in velocity that had an ERA below 3.11 for 4 consecutive seasons not all that long ago. I think there’s some good upside here.
Sure seems to me like expectations on Clevinger are bad no matter how you slice it, so picking him to bust seems like a lousy move no matter how you slice it.
Same
I guess Zach Plesac isn’t good enough to be considered a bust candidate but I’m taking the under on whatever ZiPS has projected for him.
Admittedly, this is not what this series is about (as Dan has to tortuously explain since it’s not obvious or simple). If we’re taking the under on a ZiPS projection I’m picking Dean Kremer first, second, and third. I don’t know what drugs ZiPS was on in that case but I’m pretty sure it is wrong.
ZiPS is projecting Kremer for 2.0 WAR, Steamer for 0.7. Looking at the ZiPS projection, it seems completely unaware that 2021 happened.
Zach Plesac is small potatoes when it comes to pitchers that look like they are going to, and let me be kind here, fail to perform up to the teams expectations, but Jose Berrios is heading down the road recently taken by Madison Bumgarner and at far, far higher cost per shellacking than Plesac.
So basically Alcantara and 7 guys on the wrong side of 30 (or nearly – Freeland is 30 on May 14th), most of whom are on the wrong side of 32.
As with the hitter piece, bold move picking a bunch of old guys to get worse.
Does not reading the introduction earn you a karate chop? I think it should.
Oh I read it and I stand by what I said. Picking a bunch of old guys to not meet expectations is not terribly bold or insightful.
30 is not old. These were solid picks to disappoint this year. Even 32 sees a lot of very good pitchers included. If you were taking 35 or 36 year old guys I would agree.
You’re forgetting that such age-related declines are already baked into their expectations.
Gallo sporting a .575 wOBA in a vigorous objection to being used as Dan’s bust example
On pace for 122 homers. Take that, Aaron Judge!
I’d say “underperformers” rather than “busts”. The connotation of the latter isn’t in line with your explanation.
That said, outside of Alcantara, the latter connotation absolutely applies.
Is it cheating to write this after half of these guys are already hurt or have had bad outings?
Read the article. He wrote it before. Unless you think he’s a liar.
More Major League comps, please.
If we’re looking at “guys I think are going to underperform the average fan’s perception of them”, then I’m going pretty hard on guys with unsustainable ERAs from 2022. Sandy Alcantara, Alek Manoah, Cal Quantrill, and Dean Kremer. These guys are not nearly as good as the average fan thinks (although in the first two cases, they are still pretty good).
(Also Justin Verlander, but that one is kind of unfair given that he’s 40 something and likely to decline just because he’s old.)
If I need to round this out with “guys the average fan thinks are good”, then I’m going to add Jameson Taillon and Taijuan Walker since I assume the average fan sees big contracts and gets excited.
Now if we’re looking for guys who actually got worse, and not the average fan’s disappointment, that would be a very different list.
Not sure what the expectations are for Berrios, but this first start might indicate he should be on the list. Really not sure what happened after leaving MN…..
As a Jays fan my expectation coming into the season is a 7.00 ERA, give or take. So after getting rocked in his first start by a crap KC offense, he is roughly meeting expectations.
On the brighter side, the Jays are only saddled with that contract through 2029!!
He looked disastrous in the WBC too. Looks increasingly like a perfectly executed sell-high trade for the Twins.
This is going to go down as one of those classic lose-lose deals. Both teams would have been better trading their side for almost anyone else.
It’s funny, I kept waiting for him to fall back to earth in MN and then the moment I started questioning if I was wrong he crashed and burned way worse than I ever expected. I felt the same way about Marco Gonzales. These guys were smoke-and-mirrors types who didn’t get swinging strikes, and those guys are more vulnerable to crashing and burning beyond just their K and BB numbers.
In Berrios’s case, his swinging strike rate was only 10.5% from 2019 to 2021, a period that contains his two best years. That’s not very good. Out of 63 qualified starters–so we’re already selecting on guys who were good enough to start–he’s 41st for that time period. But somehow he was 6th in called strikes, which is better than not getting them called but it’s also obvious that he’s not a guy like Luis Castillo or Kevin Gausman or even Frankie Montas who is going to directly blow away hitters.
In any case, I’ve been thinking a lot about why I was wrong about Gonzales and Berrios. For a while, I expected them to just regress back–Gonzales back to being a #4 or #5, Berrios back to being a #3 or #4. I figured eventually the smoke and mirrors wouldn’t work anymore and they’d have less to work with, and it would take a good chunk of their value off. But I think instead what happened to both of them is that whatever they were doing to get those K numbers was a house of cards, and that once hitters stopped taking called strikes the entire rest of their game collapsed.
So if you’re looking for “busts”, I suppose we should be looking at someone without overpowering stuff, not a lot of swinging strikes, and a ton of called strikes. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, Chris Bassitt fits that description perfectly.
He would be number 1 on my list and number 2 would be hard to see in the rear view mirror.
It seems like “the general expectations” are just too flimsy a moving target for some of these picks to be testable, or even comprehensible. Saying that Sandy Alcantara may regress to something below “ultra-elite” because of ground balls is so far removed from the ordinary-language meaning of “Sandy Alcantara is going to be a bust” that it might as well be on another planet.
It’s more of a lighter one of my year “tentpole” pieces. Expectations are naturally going to be a somewhat subjective thing.
The nugget about ground balls into the shift was interesting as hell, so I’m glad he made the article!
Hey Dan, thanks for your quality work in the baseball sphere and another quality article.
I wanted to point out that it’s Robbie Ray, not Robby Ray.
Cheers!
How the heck did I do that one? I’ve written about him quite a bit for a long time!
I… agree with all of these. Though I think “bust” is relative for Alcantara.
So you’ll claim victory over Flaherty’s small sample size last season but are considering an incomplete on Robbie Ray for potentially the same reason?
Complete game shut out for Sandy yesterday. What a bust.
Clearly he read this piece and laughed prior to his start. He could’ve pitched like 11 innings that game, he’s a beast. Best in the world by a country mile.
I was unaware I was writing “second game of the season busts.”
Cueto, Kimbrel and Freeland ‘busts’? Isn’t the expectation incredibly low to begin with? In our 12 tm NL only, Cueto was a $1 end gm, Kimbrel went for $10 along with the rest of the PHL bullpen, and Freeland was not drafted. Now Sandy – that’s a BOLD prediction, notwithstanding the complete gm gem yesterday. But love the column!