Salivating Over Salazar

There’s a lot of discussion about what we should do about Danny Salazar, who had the most Salazar night with a 5.0 IP, 5 ER, 6 Hits, 2 BBs, 9 Ks line against the...

There's a lot of discussion about what we should do about Danny Salazar, who had the most Salazar night with a 5.0 IP, 5 ER, 6 Hits, 2 BBs, 9 Ks line against the Rays Tuesday evening. I actually see most people loving to chase him and I'm not so confident about that. On one hand, his 13.50 K/9 is the highest in the majors with a 3.18 xFIP as his HR/FB rate has soared to 23.5% and BABIP sits at .383. Clearly, those will come down and voila! We're in business. Well...not really. His walk rate is as bad as it's ever been at 4.35 BB/9, groundballs have dipped ten points to 37.6% due to a huge increase of Changeups (his best pitch) that he either leaves up in the zone at hit hard or gets whiffs down in the zone. He's inducing only 13.6% soft contact meaning that the BABIP should come down, but still stay over .300, and I'm concerned that we're going to see a 3.80 ERA or so with an IPS still under 6.0 and a WHIP above 1.25. Yeah, the 7+ Ks per start are great and all, but are 2 strikeouts a start worth the big hit in ERA/WHIP on a given night? I legit don't have the answer here and I think it depends on the structure of your team.

Let’s see how every other SP did yesterday:

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Nick Pollack

Founder of Pitcher List. Creator of CSW, The List, and SP Roundup. Worked with MSG, FanGraphs, CBS Sports, and Washington Post. Former college pitcher, travel coach, pitching coach, and Brandeis alum. Wants every pitcher to be dope.