Gerrit Cole, Houston Astros
May Stats: 3-1 record, 41.2% strikeout rate, 2.6% walk rate, 4.13 ERA, 2.03 SIERA, and 0.8 fWAR in 28.1 innings
This is the second straight month Cole has landed on this kind of list. It’s also the second straight month where his traditional stats are lagging behind his peripherals. His process is clearly sound, though, so everything else will eventually follow suit. Even if he’s on your fantasy baseball team and that ERA is bothering you, he more than makes up for it with a ridiculous strikeout rate and walk rate.
Just look at how he dominated the Chicago Cubs in his most recent start:
Gerrit Cole's 12Ks in 22 Seconds.
A whole lotta 🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/HmT6vMPVUL
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 27, 2019
His 39.0% season-long strikeout rate is on track to improve for the third consecutive year, while his 16.5% swinging-strike rate is on pace to do the same thing. So you know these gains he’s seen thus far are actually legitimate.
One thing Cole would probably like to rectify is his current homers allowed per nine innings rate, which is 1.51. His fly-ball rate allowed has dropped (42.7% to 35.9%) but so has his infield-fly rate (12.1% to 5.4%). That’s coincided with a rise in hard-hit rate allowed (31.0% to 36.9%).
About Matt Musico
Matt Musico 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 and created an online class about how to get started as a sports blogger. Check those out and more helpful tips on sports blogging at his website.
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