Patience or Panic: Adolis Garcia and Nick Lodolo

How we react to short-term performance in fantasy baseball can be the difference between a championship run and a wasted season. As we get into August, time is of the essence. There is not much room to take risks when there are less than seven weeks before the majority of fantasy baseball playoffs commence. Who can be trusted to turn around a brief slump, where might we be able to find a discarded diamond in the rough? Good players can be tossed to the wayside or sold at a discount as owners’ patience dwindles. Plus, in many leagues, trade deadlines are approaching within the next week or so, and this might be one of the last times to make moves that don’t involve waivers or free agents.

The process of the at-bats, or the pitches thrown, will always be more predictive in the long run than just assuming players who are performing poorly will continue to do so and vice versa. We know it doesn’t work that way and it would be boring if it did. So, let’s check out some of the players that have been hurting rosters recently and see if, based on what’s going on under the hood, we can figure out how to proceed.

All stats in this edition are through through August 6th.

 

Adolis García, OF, Texas 

 

Things have not been pretty for Texas this season, Adolis García is the third Rangers player I’ve written about in my brief tenure on the Patience or Panic team. There is no question that the defending World Series champions have been underperforming this season, or maybe they simply overperformed on their run to a ring last season…  Nonetheless, Garcia is the latest Texas player to fall victim to the post-championship slump monster, but will he turn it around? Or is this just what we’re going to see from the slugger for the rest of the year?

Garcia is sitting at 53 R, 18 HR, 54 RBI, and 9 SB, which really aren’t bad marks for counting stats, but the rate at which he’s getting on base, currently at .271 OBP, is hurting. To make matters worse, this might be obvious because you don’t land yourself in this article without such, but it’s gotten worse recently. In his last 30 games, which comprises a bit more than 25% of the at-bats he’s had this season, 114 of 405 (28%) to be exact, Garcia has recorded just 11 R, 3 HR, 11 RBI, 3 SB on a .250 OPS. The production in this period is clearly below what would have been expected 30 days ago and there’s no doubt that this type of downturn has hurt the fantasy teams that have kept him on the roster.

So, what’s going on, exactly? Why is Garcia seeing issues and how can we use a proper diagnosis to advise our trust in him for the rest of the fantasy season? What stands out is that we’re seeing a major increase in pop-ups this season, 10% to 14%, as well as a regression to the mean in barrels after a near 16% rate last season (12th in MLB) to a more pedestrian 11% this year (47th in MLB). Another interesting aspect is that he’s simply seeing betting pitching. In the last three seasons, Garcia had never experienced a Q-BP% (Quality – Bad Pich Rate) above 8%… this season it’s at 14.2% and he’s feeling it. His Hitter Performance (a metric that rates hitters against the Pitch Level Values they’ve seen) is down to -1.6 this season after back-to-back years of 28.8 and 38.4… I think the jury is in…

Verdict: PANIC – Maybe you saw this coming from a mile away but this is not just a run-of-the-mill slump. This is something that has been plaguing Garcia all season and is now just rearing its ugly head in full force as he’s fallen off further from a worse benchmark rather than proving that there’s any sustained momentum toward better performance.

Just take a peak at the difference in the Process+ charts (below) for this year and last, I’m shocked these are the same player. Now, if he could go from one to the other, we certainly can not rule out a return to dominance, but not only is he making worse decisions on pitches, the power has fallen to below-average levels. He had a good run in the middle of June that saw his choices and contact get closer to average, but since July 1st it really has gotten a bit ugly. Maybe there’s a sliver of hope here as you can see the orange of the contact peeking over the midline, but if Garcia’s power has been sapped, there’s little reason to include him in your lineups.

 

Nick Lodolo, SP, Cincinatti

 

Lodolo is coming off a nice start yesterday, August 6th, where he allowed two runs on two hits and three walks, striking out seven across six innings against the Marlins, but it’s been rough in the starts leading up to this. In the six starts prior, against Boston, Colorado, Miami, Washington, Tampa, and most recently, Chicago, Lodolo posted a 6.54 ERA with a 1.45 WHIP. This includes two outings with more runs than innings pitched, including last time out against Chicago, and when he survived just three and two-thirds innings at home against Colorado. This is all a stark contrast from his first half of the season where he allowed just 20 runs in his first 11 appearances, including a five-game win streak in June.

The most prominent reason for the decline is that his fastball hasn’t been as effective. From the start of the year to the start of July, Lodolo’s fastball had a PLV of 5.24, making it a very valuable asset. He used 46.7% in those first 11 starts, but something’s been a bit off since. He’s lost a half inch of both Induced Vertical Break and Arm Side Break, while also being able to locate it a bit less precisely. This has led to a drop to a PLV of 5.02 on the pitch since the start of last month, which is below the MLB average.

 

I’d imagine he’s aware of it, the usage of the fastball has decreased by 7% to around 39.6% in this seven-game stretch since, including yesterday’s Miami start. The expected data shows a bit of luck during the hot run and a lack of it during the cold as well, so it’s probably a mixture of fatigue and some regression that’s plaguing Lodolo.

Verdict: Panic – The Reds have a bit of an unforgiving schedule remaining, with the 9th toughest average opponent win percentage of all 30 MLB teams. Two series against Milwaukee, plus Atlanta, The Mets, Minnesota, and Kansas City. Even the ‘easier’ series aren’t great with Toronto and Chicago along with Oakland. Plus, they play at one of the toughest parks for pitchers. They’re 23rd in home ERA and 2nd in road ERA as a team. So maybe look to capitalize on good opponents for Lodolo when away from Great American Ball Park but I’m not holding him just to hope he gets a shot at Oakland.

The fastball needs to return to form to start to feel good about him again against tougher opponents. The curveball that he’s thrown 27% of the time this year also can fail to return whiffs, and if the location isn’t there the strikeouts could easily start to dissipate against the tougher stretch coming up. It seems more likely that Lodolo will continue to struggle and while the Reds bats do have pop, chasing wins or strikeouts isn’t advisable in this current form.

 

Luis Castillo, SP, Seattle

 

Castillo is an intriguing question mark, and it’s not often I’ll make those inquiries about a player when they’re coming off a six-inning shutout. But, context reigns supreme, as it always does, and I’m not giving Castillo all that much credit for blanking the Angels. The story of his season appears to be that of a matchup-dependent pitcher—he has five starts of 20 where he allowed less than two runs and they came against the Angels twice, Colorado, Atlanta, and Toronto. I’ll give some credit where it’s due against Atlanta, but even that isn’t the accomplishment it once was.

More context, his last two starts were included in those ‘easy five’—so we’re kind of glossing over those and acknowledging that when Castillo lines up against one of the weaker offenses in the majors, he’s a worthwhile start—but most pitchers are! In the five starts before these most recent two, Castillo earned his position in this article; he only got out of the sixth inning once while giving up a total of 19 runs and just 22 strikeouts in 26 innings. Not good. Very not good.

The issue has been the command of the heater, it’s just not there frequently enough, and seemingly it depends on whether he’s facing teams that have the pedigree to challenge him. The Angels, for example, do not, and so when he’s on the mound against those hitters he feels confident enough to fire the fastball in there for strikes—teams the like Guardians, Twins, Royals, and even the Rays have seemingly made him question his pitch mix, going to the secondaries more and struggling to keep hitters off balance with the heater, which is his M.O.

Verdict: Patience, Probably – Look, having a guy that you know will dominate the easy matchups while giving you a good shot in the tougher ones is worthwhile, especially in the current state of the starting pitching landscape. Castillo will face easy opponents in the AL West and also is potentially lining up to see the White Sox and Tigers in the second half. He will dominate those, but I would recommend watching and waiting to see how the first few outings against top-tier competition go. It would not surprise me to see some of the better teams continue to challenge Castillo and his fastball with some potentially dire results to come from it.

His baseline seems to be around six innings with a couple of earned runs every time out, and while his strikeout rate and ground ball rate are both lower this year, pitching in Seattle will continue to give him some big advantages. There’s worry about the elevated xERA of 4.31 and the fact that he’s allowing the highest xwOBA of his career thus far, but unless the fastball command really slips—he should be more than serviceable. I’m maybe trying to acquire him for less than the actual price, but I’m also not averse to moving him for a fair return if pitching isn’t the weak point of your fantasy roster.