The 2016 iteration of Dallas Keuchel was bad. Like 4.55 ERA and a mediocre K/9 bad. 2017 has been a different story thus far though, and after last night's 7.0 IP, 1 ER, 4 Hits, 2 BBs, 7 Ks he's now rocking a 0.86 ERA and 0.62 WHIP. Okay, small sample size and not everything is so pristine. He's averaging five Ks per start, FIP is at .360, a .113 BABIP is all kinds of absurd, and we have to consider that two of those three starts came against the Royals and Athletics. Still, I'd be silly to not mention his 70%+ groundball rate, 30.9% soft contact, and 14.6% hard contact thus far, which is all kinds of beautiful. Do I think Keuchel can be a Top 20 guy in 2017? Nah, and I think anyone treating him like one would be letting their emotions get in the way. Now can he be a solid floor guy well inside the Top 40, absolutely and you'll see him slotted right inside there tomorrow. I worry about the Ks coming back and there's no way that BABIP/batted ball profile sticks, which means I'm curious what kind of regression we'll see, but if there were any way to get me to reconsider Keuchel, this was it.
Let’s see how every other SP did yesterday:
Are you concerned at all with Aaron Sanchez’s drop in velocity in this game? Based on the #’s I’ve seen, all of his pitches were down about 2mph from where he typically is.
Could it be Duffy has just learned to pitch? Isn’t 93 good enough for a lefty? Hard to buy in to the doomsday stuff or discount Angels too much, they have plenty of decent contact hitters.