Sir Lance K’s A Lot
Lance McCullers, the former 2012 1st round pick has always shown throughout his minor league career a dominant curveball with an ability to strike guys out but has shown major issues with his fastball command. The 23 year old right-hander is quite the polarizing pitcher, posting an elite strikeout rate of 11.78 K/9 and a groundball rate of 57.3%, however struggles mightily with his command, posting a 5 BB/9 a 40.9% zone percentage which ranked amongst the worst in the majors last season.
His performance last season, before he was shut down due to injury, can be explained by his usage of his fastball and his devastating knucklecurve. He increased his knucklecurve percentage from 28% in 2015 to 49.6% in 2016, a mark which lead the majors, and rightly so, as only Corey Kluber had a higher vCB last season. He added an extra mile per hour to his curve (as well as to his changeup) but lost a bit of velocity and movement on his fastball from 2015 to 2016. His inability to throw first-pitch strikes (mostly with his fastball) led to way too many walks which got him into trouble. His elite pitch however, bailed him out a lot of high leverage situations as his LOB% was just over 80% which is likely to normalize in 2017 but we should also hopefully see a normalization of his walk rate and BABIP (.383).
Below is a graph of pitchers in 2016 with a minimum of 80 innings pitched: GB% and K/9. McCullers is the red square:
He has clearly shown over the past two half seasons that he can put up elite strikeout and groundball metrics. These ratios are similar to Noah Syndergaard who of course is a young pitcher who has already reached the 'ace' status. McCullers isn't at that level yet, but if he can throw his fastball with more confidence and for more strikes, he could be on his way to beccomming the Astros ace.
McCullers was able to post back-to-back seasons with an ERA of 3.22, which if he was able to sustain over an entire season, would put him amongst the elite starters in the majors. Let’s not forget that he is only 23 years old and has only made 36 careers starts. From a fantasy perspective, he is surrounded by a young nucleus of young talent who should supply him with the opportunity to win a large percentage of his starts. The Astros lineup should be amongst the top 5 in the league and their defense should rank in the top 10.
The most important thing to monitor this spring training will be his utilization of his fastball and changeup. There have been reports that he has been tinkering with his changeup in an attempt to keep hitters on their toes. If McCullers can add another plus-pitch to his repertoire it should make his fastball harder to square up and his curveball even more devastating. If he is able to get more first pitch strikes and walk fewer batters during his spring training starts then we should consider moving him up in our draft boards. He has posted elite ERA and strikeout numbers in limited innings, so if he can finally put together a more complete and balanced arsenal of pitches and throw his fastball with more movement and confidence he should also be able to post a much lower WHIP and secure at least 13 wins for his club. This would make him a borderline SP2 at the price of a SP4 or SP5. Sure the injury risk is there but I would be drafting him over a lot of other pitchers currently getting drafted ahead of him. I’m buying the upside!