Daniel Mengden, SP, Oakland Athletics
The slow start
On the surface, it looked like Daniel Mengden was struggling in April due to a 4.68 ERA, but he was a little unlucky through 32.2 innings. He wasn’t striking many guys out (16.8% strikeout rate) but also wasn’t walking anyone (2.8% walk rate).
The right-hander’s 4.12 SIERA wasn’t too different from his ERA because his line-drive rate (30.4%), fly-ball rate (32.1%), and hard-hit rate (39.5%) were all above 30.0%. It’s actually impressive that his BABIP allowed was just .313.
The recovery
He’s done a complete about-face so far in May, evidenced by a 1.46 ERA in 24.2 innings. Mengden’s strikeout rate decreased to 14.9%, but so has his walk rate (2.1%) and WHIP (1.25 in April, 0.85 in May).
That incredibly high line-drive rate of his has gotten cut in half, but his hard-hit rate hasn’t changed much and that decrease in line drives mostly went to his fly-ball rate. He’s allowed 4 of his 6 homers in May, but the BABIP is down at .203.
Raising his strand rate from 52.3% to 100.0% will also help with run prevention.
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