Johnny Cueto has been a controversial player in Major League Baseball for quite some time. There was that ugly Jason LaRue incident during a Cardinals/Reds on-field brawl in 2010 in which Cueto repeatedly kicked LaRue in the head and ultimately forced the former catcher to retire prematurely. Of course, there’s also the issue of his extremely unorthodox windup that has been compared by some to that of former Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant, the legality of which has been questioned in recent years. However, one thing that hasn’t been questionable is Cueto’s results this year. In his first season with the Giants after signing a six-year, $130 million deal last offseason, Cueto has been one of the best pitchers in baseball during the first few months of 2016. His 11 wins are more than any pitcher in MLB outside of Chris Sale and Jake Arrieta. His 2.42 ERA is the 8th lowest among qualified starting pitchers. His 1.79 BB/9 rate is the 11th lowest in baseball. He’s giving up fewer home runs (0.31 HR/9) than any other starter. The question is: can Cueto maintain this impressive production?
Let’s take a look at Cueto’s profile to determine what can be expected from him during the remainder of the 2016 season. Here are a few observations:
• He’s allowing home runs at a historically low rate. Cueto’s 0.31 HR/9 that I mentioned earlier is the second lowest single season rate among 1,273 qualified starting pitchers this century. His 4.7% HR/FB is the 12th lowest such ratio during that same time period. While it might be difficult to sustain a rate that low, the Giants home stadium, AT&T Park, currently ranks 29th out of the 30 MLB ballparks in terms of park factor for home runs, and has been in the bottom three in baseball in each season since 2011. Of course, that’s not the only reason that he’s keeping the ball in the park, as…
• His groundball rate is up significantly. Cueto’s 52.4% GB% is currently the 16th highest rate among SPs and would represent the 2nd highest rate of his career. This is unlikely to change anytime soon as he features four pitches (sinker/cutter/slider/change) that generate grounders at above average rates. This trend is an encouraging one considering the fact that…
• He’s generating fewer swings and misses. Cueto’s 9.2% SwStr% represents his lowest swinging strike rate since 2012, and his 80.7% Contact% is his highest since that same season. In fact, over his last six starts (39.2 IP), his SwStr% is just 6.8% while his Contact% is up to 85.2%. His K-rate is 7.03 over that span. Those are Bartolo Colon esque numbers. That efficient approach of throwing strikes and pitching to contact might not be a bad idea considering the fact that…
• He’s had the second largest workload of any pitcher since the beginning of the 2014 season. Cueto’s 571 innings pitched in the regular season since the start of the 2014 season trails only David Price over that span. Corey Kluber, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Dallas Keuchel, and Jeff Samardzija round out the top eight in that category. Kershaw and Bumgarner are among the best pitchers in baseball, but they are also the youngest out of this group. Price is having one of the worst seasons of his career. Scherzer is allowing homers like never before. Keuchel has struggled to duplicate his breakout season from a year ago. Samardzija seems to have hit a wall recently and is starting to look like his 2015 self recently following a strong start. Is Cueto the next pitcher to jump onto the 30 year old, overused regression train? The heavy workload might also be a reason why…
• He tends to perform worse in the second half of the season. Throughout most of his career, Cueto has typically performed better in the first half of the season (2.93 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 3.05 K/BB, 0.81 HR/9) than in the second half (3.73 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 2.75 K/BB, 0.99 HR/9). Is his run in Kansas City during the second half of last season (81.1 IP, 10 HR, 6.2 K/9, 4.76 ERA, 1.45 WHIP) indicative of what can be expected from an aging, heavily used Cueto going forward?
Bottom line: Johnny Cueto has unquestionably established himself as a frontline starting pitcher in recent years. The beginning of his career as a San Francisco Giant has been nothing short of incredible as well. Terrific control, lots of groundballs, very few home runs allowed, goes deep into games, deceptive delivery, varied arsenal of pitches. What’s not to like? The pitch to contact approach tends to be reliant on luck at times, and his heavy workload in recent years is a concern. The Giants second half schedule isn’t exactly a cakewalk either, with trips to Arizona, Colorado, Chicago, Washington, and Boston (among others) upcoming. Cueto should be fine going forward for the most part, but I do see some regression coming. If your pitching is solid and you have a need elsewhere, selling Cueto at peak value is recommended.
Final Verdict:
