Recently, I wrote about hitters I liked as breakout performers. Let's do the same thing for pitchers.
There are obvious candidates like Julio Urias of the Dodgers, Jon Gray of the Rockies or Carlos Rodon of the White Sox. What's more difficult is finding the Dallas Keuchel of 2015 or the Kyle Hendricks or Aaron Sanchez of 2016, the guys who surprise everyone by turning into Cy Young candidates.
Here are a few to keep an eye on for 2017.
The former top prospects
Jameson Taillon, Pittsburgh Pirates
2016 indicator: Command
The more I study Taillon, the more I like him. He didn't pitch in 2014 or 2015 after Tommy John surgery in April of 2014 and then a hernia operation in July of 2015. Despite the layoff, his rookie season was a huge success as he posted a 3.38 ERA over 18 starts and 104 innings (after starting the season in Triple-A).
Despite the long layoff from game action, he had just 17 walks in 104 innings. That's the Kyle Hendricks factor. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings, he finished 17th in ground ball rate. That's the Dallas Keuchel factor. Here's the thing, however: Taillon has a much better arm than those two, clocking in at 94.2 mph with his fastball velocity, with a big curveball his primary off-speed offering.
His approach is a little different from Hendricks, who paints the outside corner to both lefties and righties with his fastball, as Taillon runs his sinker in to right-handed batters. Hendricks also throws a cutter that became a huge weapon against left-handed batters, inducing a lot of soft contact. Taillon will have to continue developing his changeup to give him a third plus pitch against lefties.
The health issue still hovers. While Taillon made 28 total starts in 2016, he also sat a month with a sore shoulder. His strikeout rate was only league average, but I can live with that if he continues his high ground ball rate, and he has the quality stuff to improve in that department. The Pirates were a disappointment in 2016, but they also had no starter make more than 21 starts. If they can get 90 starts from Taillon, Gerrit Cole and Ivan Nova -- see below! -- they can sneak back into playoff contention.
Dylan Bundy, Baltimore Orioles
2016 indicator: Health
Bundy was one of the most hyped high school talents in recent years, going fourth overall to the Orioles in the 2011 draft (behind three college pitchers) and reaching the majors in 2012 at age 19, one of just five teenage pitchers in the majors since 2000. Tommy John surgery in 2013 halted his rapid progress and the Orioles were forced to carry him on the roster in 2016 as he was out of options. He started in the bullpen, pitching primarily when the Orioles were losing, but entered the rotation in mid-July and had a 4.52 ERA over 14 starts.
Bundy is still just 24 and has only 280 professional innings, so while he was considered pretty polished coming out of high school, he's still gaining experience. Importantly, he maintained his fastball velocity -- 93.7 mph -- after moving into the rotation and into September as he crossed 100 innings, and his strikeout rate actually increased as a starter to a solid 23.5 percent. His major problem was he served up 18 home runs (and he was worse on the road, so don't blame Camden Yards). He got pounded when he fell into hitter's counts, with a.380/.563/.720 batting line, and struggled the third time through the order as a starter, allowing a .633 slugging percentage in 55 plate appearances.
This points to the need for more experience and stamina, but perhaps as well the need for a fourth pitch. As it turns out, Bundy has one to go with his fastball/curveball/changeup. Many considered his cutter/slider his best pitch coming out of high school, but the Orioles forbade him from throwing it as GM Dan Duquette isn't a fan of the cutter, in part believing it can lead to health problems. Bundy got hurt anyway. Regardless, there were reports of one BP session this spring where Chris Davis faced Bundy and left muttering "What was that?" in reference to what Bundy refers to as a slider.
He has been throwing what he refers to as a slider in spring training games. If that turns into a weapon, he could break out in a big way.
The veterans
Ivan Nova, Pittsburgh Pirates
2016 indicator: Ray Searage magic
Through the first 131 games and 729 innings of his career, Nova owned a 4.41 ERA. Granted, that was pitching in the tough AL East at Yankee Stadium with its short right-field porch, but he was a back-end starter without any signs of moving up in the rotation order. The Pirates were on the fringes of the wild-card race on Aug. 1 -- they were four games behind the Marlins for the second wild card -- when they acquired Nova and in 11 starts with Pittsburgh he had a 3.06 ERA with the check-that-again total of three walks in 64.2 innings. The Pirates then signed him to a three-year, $26 million deal in what could turn into the bargain signing of the winter.
So what happened with the Pirates? Pitching coach Ray Searage, who salvaged Edinson Volquez and Francisco Liriano and helped turn J.A. Happ into a 20-game winner, told New York Post columnist Joel Sherman last August that he tweaked a few minor things, like having Nova keep his chin down in his delivery and not starting his curveball too soon in his delivery.
There were reports of Nova throwing his sinker inside more often to right-handed batters (the Pirates preach pitching inside), but he has always run that pitch in to righties. Indeed, his percentage of inside fastballs remained at 55 percent before and after that trade. He did, however, locate more of them in the strike zone -- 56 percent versus 51 percent. As we've talked about often, the difference between success and mediocrity in the majors can be a few extra strikes here and there. Maybe all it took was throwing a few more fastballs in the zone to turn Nova into a much better pitcher. Of course, this could also be small-sample size results, but Happ carried his success with Searage in 2015 into a big season with Toronto. If Nova pounds the zone like he did down the stretch in 2016, look for that improvement to stick.
James Paxton, Seattle Mariners
2016 indicator: Velocity increase
Paxton had such a rough spring last year that he began the season in Triple-A even though the Mariners had counted on him for their rotation. He returned to the majors in June with a lower arm slot courtesy of Tacoma pitching coach Lance Painter -- and added velocity on his fastball. Suddenly he was the hardest-throwing left-handed starter in the game, with an average of 96.8 mph on his fastball, two mph more than Danny Duffy, the No. 2 guy.
"It just feels natural coming out from that slot," Paxton said in June. "I was just working on getting everything on target and staying through the glove instead of to it and it worked out really good."
Of course, velocity alone isn't enough. Paxton's walk rate dropped from a career mark of 9.4 percent before 2016 to 4.9 percent. Over his final 11 starts he posted a 3.19 ERA with 71 K's and just nine walks in 67.2 innings. Paxton did make 31 starts between Tacoma and Seattle, a huge key for him as he's battled injuries throughout his career, including a lat strain, a strained tendon in his finger and blister problems. He's 28 now and appears to have figured things out. If he can stay healthy, don't be surprised if he supplants Felix Hernandez as the Mariners' ace.
Left-handers with promise
Sean Manaea, Oakland Athletics
2016 indicator: Strong second half
Manaea finished his rookie season with a 3.86 ERA over 24 starts, which is impressive enough to build the expectations for him, but compare his first-half numbers to his second half:
First half: 12 GS, 5.24 ERA, 67 IP, 20 BB, 55 SO, .278 AVG
Second half: 12 GS, 2.67 ERA, 77.2 IP, 17 BB, 69 SO, .220 AVG
Manaea looks like a big leaguer out there, with good size (6-foot-5, 240 pounds) and a plus fastball for a lefty (92-93 mph). He has a wipeout slider against left-handed batters and a good changeup. He comes with the prospect pedigree. As a junior at Indiana State, he was a possible 1-1 pick entering the season, but fell to the 34th pick after suffering a hip injury. The Royals gave him the second-largest bonus ever at the time for a supplemental first-round pick, and later traded him to the A's for Ben Zobrist.
While he impressed me the few times I saw him, one possible concern is that Tony Blengino's pitcher contact report at FanGraphs said Manaea wasn't impressive in this area, writing "his numbers were way better than they 'should have' been according to the granular data."
I still see upside here. He has improved his walk rate from his minor league days and he has the stuff to improve his K rate.
Robbie Ray, Arizona Diamondbacks
2016 indicator: Strikeout rate
If you've read SweetSpot all offseason, you knew this name was coming. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings, Ray's 11.25 K's per nine trailed only the late Jose Fernandez and Yu Darvish, two pitchers known for their electric stuff. Well, Ray has electric stuff as well. That list of southpaws with big velocity? Ray joined Paxton and Duffy as the only other lefty to average at least 94 mph with his heater.
So Ray has obvious swing-and-miss stuff. He also proved more hittable than you'd expect -- 185 hits in 174.1 innings -- and walked too many guys (71). When hitters did make contact, they hit the ball hard. When they hit fly balls, they hit it very hard. Blengino's contact report rated Ray the worst among National League starters. As one example, hitters hit .477 and slugged .785 on 1-1 counts, compared to the MLB average of .334 and .536. Some of this is fastball command. Ray can blow it by hitters a lot of the time, but you can't blow it by them all of the time.
Pitch selection could also have been an issue and as a fastball/slider guy, maybe he'll have to mix in a few more curveballs (he rarely throws a changeup) or two-seam fastballs. New catchers Jeff Mathis and Chris Iannetta, both longtime veterans, could help in this area. Guys like Ray don't always figure it out and Arizona is a good hitters' park, but he could turn into one of the game's best power lefties.
The pop-up guys
Robert Gsellman, New York Mets
2016 indicator: Late-season results
A 13th-round pick out of high school in Los Angeles in 2012, Gsellman wasn't a heralded prospect entering 2016 after some mediocre strikeout numbers in the minors in 2015. He pitched well enough at Double-A to earn a promotion to Triple-A Las Vegas, where he posted a 5.73 ERA in nine starts. Injuries to the Mets' rotation gave him a shot and he had a 2.42 ERA in 44.2 innings in the majors, including 42 strikeouts and just one home run allowed.
Skeptics have pointed out that Gsellman faced the Phillies or Braves in five of his seven starts, but remember that the Braves were the majors' second-highest scoring offense the final two months. Most impressively, the stuff looked legit with a fastball that averaged 93.7 mph and touched 96, with late life and sink that led to a ground ball rate over 50 percent. He added a hard slider in 2016 as well and big league batters hit just .179 against it. He mixed in a curveball and an occasional changeup, has Noah Syndergaard's long flowing locks and, like Jacob deGrom, could be a guy who blossoms into something better than expected. I've picked up Gsellman for my fantasy teams this year while he's competing for a rotation spot with Zack Wheeler and Seth Lugo; I think he takes it and never gives it up.
Zach Davies, Milwaukee Brewers
2016 indicator: Changeup and command
It's hard to believe the Orioles would trade away a good starting pitching prospect, but that's what they did at the deadline in 2015, shipping Davies to the Brewers for Gerardo Parra in one of the final moves Doug Melvin made as Milwaukee GM.
It's easy to see why the Orioles didn't completely believe in Davies: His fastball clocks in the upper 80s and he's an undersized righty, listed at 6-foot and 155 pounds. The kid knows how to pitch, however, with a four-pitch arsenal, including a changeup that has a chance to develop into one of the best in the game.
Last summer, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he believes his changeup is his best pitch, that "I'm at the point with that pitch where I can do so many meticulous things with it."
Davies is never going to rack up a ton of strikeouts, so like Hendricks his key will be inducing more soft contact. He has talked about improving his ground ball rate this year. Like Hendricks, as a guy without an overpowering fastball, he'll have to continue proving himself. I'm buying that he does.