Haven’t we been down this road before? A young, power pitcher looks poised for a breakout season only to produce inconsistent and/or mediocre results when it’s all said and done? In fact, that could easily be an accurate description of Chris Archer‘s 2014 season. Much like his blazing hot start to the 2015 season, he sprinted out of the blocks in his first two starts of last season and looked to be destined for superstardom. It didn’t quite work out that way. While his ’14 numbers were very respectable (10 wins, 3.33 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 173 SO), Archer failed to finish among the top 30 MLB starting pitchers in any of those key fantasy categories. There’s no question that a low-end #4 SP has it’s uses in fantasy, but as the old saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Or something like that. Is Archer ready to make the leap into ace territory? Or is he likely to produce similar results to years past?
First, let’s take a look at the average velocity for each of the pitches in Archer’s repertoire:
| Year | Fourseam | Sinker | Slider | Change |
| 2014 | 95.72 | 95.55 | 87.08 | 86.96 |
| 2015 | 96.21 | 95.94 | 87.81 | 87.07 |
Archer’s velocity is up across the board which is always an encouraging sign. However, the increases aren’t so dramatic that vastly different results should be expected based solely on these minor improvements.
Now, let’s take a look at his pitch usage percentages to see if he’s featuring a particular pitch or pitches more than he has previously:
| Year | Fourseam | Sinker | Slider | Change |
| 2014 | 24.79 % | 41.07 % | 28.91 % | 5.24 % |
| 2015 | 37.60 % | 14.88 % | 39.43 % | 8.09 % |
Well that’s quite a drastic change in approach. Archer has been phasing out his sinker and increasing the usage of each of his other three pitches. The slider in particular has been quite a weapon for him. It graded out as the 11th best in baseball among qualified starters last season, and the #1 overall slider in the game thus far this year, producing a 24.3% SwStr% and .289 OPS against that offering in the early going. Very impressive.
But how has this change in approach affected Archer’s overall production? Let’s take a look at his early results in 2015 and compare them to his results from last season. And because I can’t resist throwing a comp in somewhere, I’ll include a mystery player to be named later for comparative purposes:
| Season | Name | K/9 | BB/9 | K/BB | SwStr% | GB% | AVG | BABIP | LOB% | WHIP | ERA | FIP |
| 2014 | ??? | 8.75 | 2.72 | 3.22 | 10.70% | 50.90% | 0.2 | 0.264 | 74.90% | 1.04 | 2.61 | 2.6 |
| 2014 | Chris Archer | 8 | 3.33 | 2.4 | 9.20% | 46.50% | 0.239 | 0.296 | 71.60% | 1.28 | 3.33 | 3.39 |
| 2015 | Chris Archer | 10.66 | 1.78 | 6 | 13.80% | 58.30% | 0.178 | 0.241 | 89.10% | 0.83 | 1.07 | 2.56 |
As you can see in this table, Archer’s strikeout rate is up, his walk rate is down, he’s inducing more ground balls, and generating more swings and misses this season. The mystery player is someone who produced a breakout season in 2014. His production was slightly better than Archer’s across the board last season, but his numbers fall short of the early success that Archer has enjoyed thus far this season. The mystery player is none other than Garrett Richards.
I used Richards as a comparison for Archer to illustrate what Archer might be capable of this season if he maintains his current velocity and pitch selection. The two players are predominantly fastball/slider pitchers who appear to be similar in size, age, velocity, tendency to induce ground balls, control, and ability to miss bats. Richards was the 15th best starting pitcher last season according to the Razzball Player Rater while pitching just 168 and 2/3 innings due to a knee injury which cut his 2014 season short. Is Archer capable of achieving a similar breakthrough in 2015? He certainly has the stuff to do so, and it looks like he might have finally figured out how to use it effectively. If he can maintain even a fraction of the improvements that he’s shown in the early going this season, a Richards-like leap into top 15 territory is within his grasp.
Final Verdict:
