Curtis Taylor replacement?
Beware: it might be a TLDR. NC Dinos fans deserve better pitching from their foreign starting pitchers especially their new one in Curtis Taylor. They did have Drew VerHagen as their injury replacement pitcher for Riley Thompson and honestly, I would rather have kept him than Taylor as he was performing better than him with a higher strikeout rate along with a lower walk rate too. Since NC isn't going to be renewing his contract, I think they're going to be looking for a younger foreign pitcher instead. Since the league average ERA in the KBO is 4.57 with a K-BB% of just 8.6%, we're looking for someone who can likely do much better than this. I have found four candidates in particular that I think would be so much better than Taylor who has a 5.98 ERA, 4.50 FIP and a 5.04 xFIP with a K-BB% of just 5.1% in 43.2 IP over 9 starts. The reason why I'm looking at pitchers FIP, xFIP is because those statistics tend to be more predictive to future success. K-BB% is to tell who can prevent balls going into play and prevent free bases best. Swinging strike rate typically runs in a 1:2 rate with strikeout rates meaning a rough estimate of an expected strikeout rate is typically twice of the pitcher's swinging strike rate. O-Swing percentage is the percentage of balls hitters tend to swing at outside of the strike zone which tends to suggest that they are able to make the opposing hitters chase pitches and either whiff or make weak contact.
First of our candidates is probably my least favorite in 26 year old Trent Denholm who so far in AAA has a 5.45 ERA, 5.58 FIP and a 5.20 xFIP. Yeah, he doesn't look great in 36.1 IP but he does have a 11.4% K-BB in spite of his 8.9% walk rate and he does have better tendencies of throwing strikes and his control typically is in the 6.0% BB range. He typically runs groundball rates at over 40% and has a tendency to generate pop ups throughout his minor league career. He throws a five pitch mix of a Fastball, Sinker, Cutter, with a curve ball and a changeup. His fastballs average about 91.5 MPH which are thrown 50% of the time, with his cutter at 86.5 MPH being thrown 20%, his changeup at 81.7 MPH which is also thrown about 20% and a curve ball thrown 8.7% of the time at 78.3 MPH. Though the remainder of his pitches are classified by statcast as knuckleballs thrown at an average velocity of 78.3 MPH which is odd. Additional concerns include his swinging strike rate dipping to a career low of 8.3% which suggests that his 20.3% K rate is slightly unsustainable even though his strikeout rate is typically around 20-21% with a swinging strike rate of about 11% so it could be a fluke.
Our next candidate is a guy I was hoping KBO/NPB teams would try to get Tampa to release in the off-season as he doesn't have a clear opportunity to start at the MLB level despite arguably being the best pitcher in AAA last year. Which would be 27 year old Logan Workman. Last year he had a 4.02 ERA, 4.73 FIP and a 4.29 xFIP despite being more of a flyball pitcher. The reason being he had a 17.2% K-BB% over 152.1 IP in 29 games pitched (28 starts) while averaging 93.1 MPH on his fastball. He's not been as good with a 7.04 ERA, 5.68 FIP and a 5.70 xFIP in 40.1 IP in nine games pitched (eight starts)because he's gone even more flyball heavy. His K-BB% has shrunk to 12.5% in main part due to a decrease in first strike percentage from 51% to 42.7% with a zone rate decrease of 4% from 52.1% to 48.2%. Additionally, his swinging strike rate has also dipped to 12.1%. His O-Swing percentage is also down 5.8% from 31.7% to 25.9%. I think his problem is control based which could be as a result of a change in mechanics or could be caused by an injury which is concerning, but I thought this guy could be the next Joe Ryan. It's not like he's lost any velocity on his fastball, and is throwing his slider 1 MPH faster with a 1 MPH dip on his changeup. It seems like he has removed his cutter from his pitch mix though it could be confused with his slider as his slider use has increased has increased 4.3% compared to last year and his cutter was thrown 3.2% of the time so it's possible and pretty likely. Additionally, his fastball use is up 2% to 44.9% and his changeup use is down 3% to 20.8%. Admittedly, this would be a buy low on a high velocity arm that has shown he can start at the AAA level effectively in the recent past, but even now he likely would be better than Taylor right now.
Our next candidate is nearly my favorite as he's been really good this year and he's quite young at just 23 years old in Andry Lara of the Washington Nationals AAA affiliate. In spite of absolutely looking terrible last year at the AAA level, he looks like a completely different pitcher this year as while he has 5.22 ERA, he does have a 4.25 FIP and an even better 4.03 xFIP over 39.2 IP in nine games pitched (8 starts). What he's doing differently is he's getting almost as many groundballs (46%) as he did in complex league play at 18 years old in 2021, walking a career low 7% of batters and he's also improved his strikeout rate to 25.6%. Additionally, each of his pitches are up in velocity 1 MPH or more this year compared to last year. His pitch mix consists of a 94.6 MPH fastball thrown 35.6%, a slider that averages 86.2 MPH that is thrown 36.2% a splitter that is thrown 20.7% at 88 MPH which is nearly double of his rate last year and a sinker averaging 94.2 MPH while being thrown just 7.5%. He cut his infrequently used changeup as well. He is generating more swinging strikes at 11% and more O-Swing as he is throwing slightly more pitches in the zone and more first pitch strikes too. The reason he isn't my top candidate is because I think he might be called up to the MLB again to replace one of Miles Mikolas or Zack Littell as both pitchers have been especially bad this year.
Our last candidate, a pitcher still on the right side of 30 is doing something different in his age 29 season and is generating a lot more groundballs than ever. Davis Daniel of the AAA Louisville Bats of the Cincinnati Reds organization looks different in his nine starts and 47.1 IP this year: a 17.9 K-BB% fueling his 4.18 ERA, 4.39 FIP and 4.01 xFIP. The reason why his xFIP is lower is due to an influx of groundballs to 49.2% which is 9% higher than he has ever had in a sample of more than 12.1 IP. His fastball velocity is back up to 91.2 MPH this year with 18.6% usage, he also seems to be throwing a 85.2 MPH splitter 22.7% and a sweeper 15.7% at an average velocity of 81.8 MPH though statcast seems to be missing the remaining 43% of his thrown pitches which is concerning to me. Prospect Savant shows me his 91.3 MPH sinker he throws 26% of the time, and a cutter he's throwing 17.1% at 87.1 MPH which accounts for the discrepancy. He might not be able to sustain all the strikeouts as his swinging strike rate is 11% but his new ability to generate groundballs thanks to a new sinker should allow him to avoid the home run ball better. Additionally, Cincinnati also has plenty of pitching depth and would rather have Chris Paddack out there then give Daniel a shot at the big league level again so he should be able to get released from his minor league deal to sign with a KBO or NPB team easier.