Grading the Starting Rotation Performance in April

Yu Darvish

Yu Darvish’s month of April was a mixed bag. For the most part, he pitched how you would expect your ace to pitch.

His 3.54 FIP was the best among Rangers starters as was his 0.62 win probability added. In fact, his win probability added was the 23rd highest among qualified starters.

As always, Darvish’s repertoire of pitches were electric, attributing to his success and high strikeout rate. His 9.54 strikeouts per nine innings was the 25th best in baseball even though it’s the lowest rate of his career to this point.

He threw his cutter more than ever and he benefited from it. His 3.4 rating with the pitch made it the third best cutter among starting pitchers.

The biggest knock against Darvish so far has been his inefficiency. In six April starts he only made it past the sixth inning twice.

His high walk rate was to blame for his inefficiency. He took 36 batters to a three ball count, the seventh most in baseball. His 3.96 walks per nine innings has been the highest since his rookie year.

When Darvish is in the game, he’s been the ace the Rangers have been hoping for him to be since signing him in 2012. However, Darvish needs to become more efficient to be bunched with the elite of the elites.

Cole Hamels

How should we really feel about Cole Hamel’s start to 2017? His 3.03 ERA was the 33rd lowest among starters, one spot behind fellow co-ace Yu Darvish. He has also yet to receive a loss, one in only eleven starters able to say that.

While these numbers are great, Hamels has been lucky. Like, extremely lucky. Batters had a .219 batting average on balls on play against him, the ninth lowest in baseball.

His 5.14 FIP was the 12th highest in baseball for the month. Everyone else in the top twenty except two pitchers have ERA’s over four.

Simply said, Hamels success so far this season does not seem sustainable. His 4.13 strikeouts per nine innings has been alarmingly low, almost three whole strikeouts lower than his career low.

36 percent of balls put in play against him were hit hard. In case you were wondering, his previous career high is 33.3 percent all the way back in 2007.

Given Hamels track record, it’s reasonable to think he’ll start to figure it out. But this does continue an alarming trend downward for Hamels, especially after his poor performance in the latter part of last season.

Perhaps Hamels begins to pitch like Cole Hamels of the past or perhaps his luck will run out quickly.

Martin Perez

It may be time to accept that this is who Martin Perez is. For years Rangers fans have wondered if Perez was ever going to blossom into the top of the rotation pitcher that he once showed potential of being.

Over the past couple of seasons Perez’s walks per nine and FIP have skyrocketed while his strikeouts per nine have taken a dip.

Perez walked 19 batters in April, the most in all of baseball, his 39 hits given up were the fourth most.

He’s given up more baserunners than anyone in baseball and continuously finds himself in high leverage situations because of it.

Perez faced 72 batters with runners on base, the most in the month of April. His five runs given up in high leverage situations was the fifth most.

Because of his command issues and his proneness to allowing baserunners, Perez has yet to make it past the sixth inning. In fact, he’s only logged six innings twice in six starts. This is disheartening coming from a pitcher who logged nearly 200 innings a season ago.

Andrew Cashner

Andrew Cashner entered the season as one of the teams biggest wildcards. The righty had the worst season of his career in 2016, but the Rangers hoped he could return to his 2014 where he finished the season with a 2.55 ERA.

So far, Cashner has impressed. His 2.93 April ERA was the second lowest on the team, trailing Nick Martinez who only made two starts.

Much like Hamels however, Cashner’s early season success seems to be unsustainable. His 6.20 FIP was the 11th highest FIP among starters. All ten pitchers above him have ERA’s over four, only two have ERA’s under five. In fact, every starter in the top 20 has an ERA over four.

Cashner’s 19.4 walk percentage was the second highest in all of baseball and his -7.4 strikeouts per walk were the lowest by almost three strikeouts.

If he wants to continue his impressive (albeit a tad lucky) performance, Cashner is going to have to cut back on the walks.

His first start of May was a step in the right direction, walking three batters in six innings. His lowest total of the season.

A.J. Griffin

A.J. Griffin made three April starts before heading to the disabled list with a gout in his left ankle. During his short career as a Ranger, Griffin has shown the ‘ability’ to either get absolutely shelled or pitch a masterpiece. There’s rarely a middle ground. April fared no different.

He gave up four runs in 3.1 innings during his first start of the season against the Athletics earning a game score of 26, his third lowest score as a Ranger.

Two starts later he faced the Athletics again, pitching six scoreless innings while striking out eight earning him a game score of 78, his second highest score as a Ranger.

The main issue with Griffin is you simply don’t know what you’re going to get when he takes the mound.

He has pitched well enough to earn more playing time once he returns to the team, which could be as early as tomorrow. Wether or not he still has a spot once Tyson Ross comes off the disabled list remains to be seen.

Nick Martinez

When A.J. Griffin, who was already filling in for an injury riddled rotation, went down with an injury, Nick Martinez was asked to make some spot starts and eat as many innings as possible. He did more than that in his two April starts.

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He gave up four runs in 13 innings, striking out ten batters and walking only one. It’s an incredibly small sample size, obviously, but his two starts were encouraging for a pitcher with a career 5.14 FIP.

His fastball velocity was up a whole three miles per hour over his career average. The leap in velocity helped lead to a 3.24 value on his fastball, his career high is 0.04.

He also relied on his curveball at a rate much higher than his career average. He threw his curveball 14 percent of the time compared to his seven percent average.

To say Martinez’s curveball has been poor up to this point in his career would be putting it lightly. The best value he’s ever had with the pitch is -1.88 in 2015.

In April Martinez’s curveball had a value of 5.32 which made it the third best curveball among starters with at least ten innings pitched. His 3.48 slider value made his slider the ninth best.

Next: Has Keone Kela Learned His Lesson?

While it’s far to small of a sample size to fully gauge Martinez at this point, he looked like a completely different pitcher in the month of April.