Baseball is a wonderful game, but it also knows exactly how to humble just about every ballplayer at one time or another. That instance may be a singular moment in a game or span a number of games, but it always happens.
The following five pitchers all went through their share of issues during 2017. Some were more pronounced than others, but they now all have one thing in common — they’ve been enjoying a tremendous year to this point in 2018.
There’s still a little over a month left in the regular season, but it’ll be real hard for them to erase all the good vibes they’ve created since toeing the slab for the first time back in April.
Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies
Kyle Freeland’s rookie season for the Colorado Rockies went reasonably well considering his pitching style. He doesn’t throw hard and doesn’t strike out a bunch of guys, so compiling a 4.10 ERA in 156 innings while calling Coors Field home isn’t too shabby. His impressive start has led to many Rockies fans placing bets at their favorite casino online, since Colorado is usually favored to win when Freeland is on the mound.
As one can imagine, he’s taken things to another level this year. If he can keep his ERA under 3.00 (it’s currently 2.96), he’d join Ubaldo Jimenez as the only Colorado starters to finish a season with a sub-3.000 ERA. The southpaw has increased his strikeout rate nearly five percentage points to 20.4%, but it’s his dominance at Coors that really stands out.
After posting an already impressive 3.72 ERA at home last season, that number is down to 2.27 so far this year. If it wasn’t for guys like Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Aaron Nola, Freeland would probably be getting a lot more attention in the National League Cy Young race.
Blake Snell, Tampa Bay Rays
We talked about the season Blake Snell is having not too long ago, but it’s worthy of highlighting once more because the dominance has continued. His 2.02 ERA ranks third among qualified big-league starters, and he’s on the verge of taking the American league lead (Chris Sale is sitting at 1.97). Snell’s career-high 3.6 fWAR in 2018 also equals the cumulative fWAR he produced in his first two MLB seasons.
The southpaw was already putting together a terrific performance heading into the midsummer classic, but has been even more out of this world since the break. After posting a 2.27 ERA, 28.3% strikeout rate, and 9.9% walk rate in the first half, he’s improved those numbers to 1.10, 36.4%, and 5.9%, respectively, in the second half. That ERA is the second-best in baseball among starters with at least 30 second-half innings.
He’s also managed to allow just 0.55 homers per nine innings despite a 40.9% fly-ball rate and 45.6% hard-hit rate since the All-Star game, too.
Zack Wheeler, New York Mets
The 2018 season started in Triple-A for Zack Wheeler. He didn’t stay there very long and is ending the year as a crucial piece to the front of the New York Mets’ rotation. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows until the calendar flipped to June, though.
At the end of May, the right-hander owned a 5.40 ERA with a 23.6% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate through 50.0 innings of work. His 4.01 SIERA suggested better days were ahead, and that certainly happened. Wheeler’s strikeout rate (24.8%) and walk rate (7.1%) haven’t changed much, but he owns a 2.53 ERA and 3.75 SIERA since June 1st (117.1 innings).
The 28-year-old has controlled contact superbly — over this dominant stretch, opposing hitters own a 24.8% soft-hit rate and 23.9% hard-hit rate, compared to 23.0% and 32.2%, respectively, prior to June. His 3.8 fWAR (easily a new career-high mark) is among the top 20 in baseball when looking at qualified starters.
Trevor Bauer, Cleveland Indians
It’s really a shame that Trevor Bauer had to hit the disabled list in the middle of August. He not only was having a career season, but he led all pitchers in fWAR at the time his injury took place, which was one of the reasons why he was building an intriguing Cy Young case of his own.
Gaining serious support for that postseason award has gone by the wayside because of his injury, but the 27-year-old’s progression has been fun to watch.
This is the third consecutive season that Bauer’s SIERA (4.22 to 3.80 to 3.19), strikeout rate (20.7% to 26.2% to 31.5%), and strand rate (70.4% to 76.8% to 78.9%) have improved. Even more impressive is his fWAR — it’s currently sitting at 6.0, which would be the fourth consecutive year it’s increased.
Oh, and his current 2.22 ERA will be the first time that number has settled in under 4.18 in his big-league career, which started in 2012.
Blake Treinen, Oakland Athletics
Although his transformation began last summer when he was traded to the Oakland Athletics, closer Blake Treinen has just been straight ridiculous this season. There’s no other way to describe his league-leading 0.91 to go along with a 2.45 SIERA and 33.2% strikeout rate — all of which are easily on track to be career-best marks.
One big change for the right-hander has been cranking up the usage of his cutter and completely scrapping his changeup. And when you combine the cutter and slider, their cumulative performance is just ridiculous.
His slider has produced a 53.9% strikeout rate, 29.0% swinging-strike rate, 52.3% chase rate, and a 7 wRC+. Meanwhile, his cutter has yielded a 46.7% strikeout rate, 19.6% swinging-strike rate, 57.1% chase rate, and a -8 wRC+.
These two offerings have helped Treinen’s overall chase rate improve from 31.8% in 2017 to his current mark of 42.9%.
About Matt Musico
Matt currently manages Chin Music Baseball and contributes to The Sports Daily. His past work has been featured at numberFire, Yahoo! Sports and Bleacher Report. He’s also written a book about how to become a sports blogger. You can sign up for his email newsletter here.
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