2 starts are better than one

Paxton

The baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. That’s a good thing for first-year Yankees lefty James Paxton.

New York paid a hefty price to acquire him from the Mariners in the offseason, but through four months of the season, Paxton has a major disappointment. At that time, he was only 5-6 with a 4.72 ERA, 1.51 WHIP and 117/35 K/BB in 89.2 innings.

  Now seven starts later, Paxton has effectively turned his year around. He’s won every one of those seven starts and now sports a 12-6 record, 4.16 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, and 168/50 K/BB in 132 innings. As with seemingly every other pitcher in the game, keeping the ball in the park has been an issue, but Paxton is finally finding some momentum as we head down the stretch. His 11.5 K/9 nearly matches his career-best 11.7 K/9 from last season and ranks ninth among starters with at least 100 innings pitched.

  Formerly an extreme groundball pitcher early in his career, Paxton’s trend has completely reversed as he’s developed and thrown his cutter more often. That’s had a very positive impact on his strikeout rate, but Paxton has really struggled to keep the ball in the park. The net impact probably isn’t great now that he’s pitching his home games in a hitter’s park, but Paxton’s ERA metrics are finally in check (4.00 FIP, 3.89 SIERA).
Now that Paxton is rolling again, fantasy owners can finally use him confidently like they had during most of his Mariners career.

Paxton

Much has been made of Jack Flaherty’s second half, but he’s not the only young Cardinals starter who has been terrific since the break. Groundball connoisseur Dakota Hudson has a 3.23 ERA since the break, but it’s his drastic WHIP difference been an even bigger story. His WHIP was 1.53 going into the break, but since then it’s been 1.22. That’s as much a result of an extremely lucky .238 BABIP as anything, which is a major red flag.

Fantasy owners will take it, as Hudson has had scoreless outings in four of his last five starts. Even with his league-best 57% groundball rate, there should be some regression expected from Hudson sooner or later, and this week will test him with a start at Coors Field followed by a home outing vs. Milwaukee.

the great Jake

The 2019 season has been dominated by rookies, and Zac Gallen is one of the headliners. He was great in seven starts with Miami (2.72 ERA, 10.7 K/9) but has somehow been even better since joining Arizona (2.25 ERA, 11.0 K/9). The amazing control that Gallen showed in the minors this year actually hasn’t continued into the majors, but the right-hander continues to be effective with a strong fastball and elite changeup. Not surprisingly, the ERA metrics show some likely regression (3.35 FIP, 4.15 xFIP, 4.30 SIERA) with what seems like some good luck in the home run department, but he continues to impress and has a favorable two-start week in front of him.

 After a slow start to the year due in part to injury, the Braves have to like what they’re seeing from Mike Foltynewicz. His ERA is still 5.28 overall, but he’s 3-0 with a 3.31 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, and 31/14 K/BB in 32.2 innings since returning from the minors in early August. Velocity improvement was key to Foltynewicz’s breakout 2018 season, and that velocity still hasn’t returned late this year. Still, he’s done a better job of missing bats and keeping the ball in the park recently with the help of an easy schedule that has included two starts against Toronto and one at Miami. His two road outings against division rivals Philly and Washington will be key for the Braves next week.

Folty