Pitching 3D: 10 Pitchers Who Missed the Cut

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Updated on March 9, 2017 3:25AM EST

With our ranking of the top-80 fantasy starting pitchers now complete, there were a handful of pitchers who slipped through the cracks of the system or who rose to the cusp of cracking the top 80 but fell just short. Before we get into list of players who missed the cut, here's a rundown of the pitchers who were ranked according to the DT system, broken down approximately 10 at a time.

Introduction to the ratings
Rating NFBC SP 1-10
Rating NFBC SP 11-21
Rating DT SP 22-30 (and 19)
Rating DT SP 31-40
Rating DT SP 41-50
Rating DT SP 51-60
Rating DT SP 61-70
Rating DT SP 71-80

There was a definite funneling effect, such that the fantasy pitcher pool filled up the DT point system like a fancy wine decanter, as just 18 pitchers scored 35 or more points in the system out of a possible 50, yet 54 players fell within a narrow range, scoring 29-34 points. To some this might be viewed as a flaw in the system, but I think that it is a fairly accurate reflection of the fantasy pitcher pool, with a handful of truly elite players at the top and then a thickening of players with each successive tier of value. It's an extension of the player pyramid, as the pool gets progressively thinner as the level of competition gets higher (i.e. there are far more players in high school ball than college, more in the minors than the majors).

There

Introduction to the ratings
Rating NFBC SP 1-10
Rating NFBC SP 11-21
Rating DT SP 22-30 (and 19)
Rating DT SP 31-40
Rating DT SP 41-50
Rating DT SP 51-60
Rating DT SP 61-70
Rating DT SP 71-80

There are a few reasons why a player would fall into the bucket of pitchers left on the outside looking in, most of which involve uncertainty as to their projected contributions in 2017. Let's divvy up 9-10 different pitchers who fell off the grid for one reason or another to see how they might fit into our plans on draft day.

We'll start with a trio of pitchers who just barely missed the cut.

Alex Cobb
NFBC ADP: 102
DT Rank: 81

K	6
ERA	4
WHIP	4
W	2
IP	3
Stuff	4
Mechanics	5
TOTAL	28

The ranking is considerably higher than where Cobb falls in the NFBC ranks, though the value difference between players this low on the totem pole is not as high as the ordinal ranking might suggest. Cobb came back in September of last season after missing all of the 2015 campaign and most of '16 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. I'm not expecting a big chunk of innings this season, an element that helps to suppress his value, but there's no denying the potential impact of a player that tallied more than 300 frames of 2.82-ERA baseball in 2013-14. His ultra-slow delivery (including his goofy actions with his lift leg) are a point against from this evaluator's perspective and his velocity is merely adequate, sitting in the low-90s with his fastball, but the slow pace is par for the course with Rays pitchers and Cobb's secondaries are a better reflection of his upside. Whether his pitch command survived the trip under the knife will likely determine how high Cobb can fly in 2017.

Mike Montgomery
NFBC ADP: 94
DT Rank: 82

K	6
ERA	4
WHIP	3
W	2
IP	3
Stuff	5
Mechanics	5
TOTAL	28

Montgomery is another pitcher whose stock is adversely impacted by a low count of projected innings this season. He's competing for the last spot in the Cubs rotation, and though the oft-injured Brett Anderson will likely do little to thwart Montgomery's workload even if the former wins the spring competition, the fact that Montgomery has never topped 151 innings in a pro season (he topped out in 2011) and tossed just 100 frames last year conspire to keep the expectations grounded. The converted reliever averaged just 5.1 innings in his seven starts last season, and though the Cubs are likely to give him a longer leash in the role this year, the team's heavy lineup is the only thing keeping Montgomery in the 2-point range for wins, while the likelihood of his posting a total worthy of just 1 point is entirely reasonable. He still gets to pitch in front of the vaunted Cubs defense, but beware that this year's squad won't be as strong as the gloves of last year's Cubs and the team-wide regression that expected will have an adverse impact on his WHIP.

Eduardo Rodriguez
NFBC ADP: 72
DT Rank: 83

K	6
ERA	3
WHIP	3
W	2
IP	5
Stuff	4
Mechanics	5
TOTAL	28

Rodriguez has solid baselines when it comes to the physical aspects of pitching, from a solid delivery to mid-90s heat and effective secondary pitches, though nothing stands out aside from his left-handedness. Rodriguez will battle with Drew Pomeranz and Steven Wright for the fifth starter's role in Boston's rotation, though the spring injury to David Price will push into more definitive work in the early season. Rodriguez had an insane game to close out last season, registering 13 strikeouts out of 16 total outs generated in a game on September 25, but beware that he has never delivered an outstanding K rate in either the majors or the minors. Big-league hitters were able to square up everything that he threw last season, resulting in an ISO of .167 or higher on each of his pitches, and the southpaw's value comes more from his floor than his ceiling.

Next we'll look at a handful of players who were destroyed by the system, whose NFBC ADP suggests that they should have been covered a week ago but who profile very poorly in a system that incorporates stats, stuff and mechanics.

Anthony DeSclafani
NFBC ADP: 56
DT Rank: NR

K	5
ERA	3
WHIP	3
W	2
IP	6
Stuff	5
Mechanics	3
TOTAL	27

DeSclafani is a somewhat popular choice as an under-the-radar player for whom some are expecting a breakout. The stuff merits some excitement, as opposing batters struggled mightily to get any lift on either of his breaking pitches last season and the low-to-mid-90s velocity is enough to be considered an asset, but the numbers have just not been there. He's established a consistently-low K rate over his 341 innings in the majors and he's given up a high frequency of hits every step of the way. The right-hander is coming off a season with a tidy 3.28 ERA, but it was his first mark below 4.00 and his 2016 FIP of 3.96 was actually the highest of his tenure. His breakout featured a WHIP that was more than a tenth of a point below previous marks, but at 1.22 the WHIP was an acceptable part of his stat profile rather than a hook to hang his value upon. I think last year's ratios were an aberration, and if they rise via the magnet of regression then DeSclafani will lack the impact in other categories - strikeouts, wins - to make up the difference.

Matt Shoemaker
NFBC ADP: 66
DT Rank: NR

K	6
ERA	3
WHIP	4
W	2
IP	4
Stuff	4
Mechanics	4
TOTAL	27

Shoemaker avoids many of the various maladies that plague his teammate in the Anaheim rotation, with categorical value that drift near the mean rather than dot the extremes. I am a big fan of Shoemaker's splitter and his success has followed his use of the pitch, as he has had the most success when he has thrown more splitters. He's a strike-thrower whose WHIP typically outpaces his ERA due to a high homer rate along with few walks, but Shoemaker is also at greater mercy to the gloves behind him due to copious amounts of balls in play. He has totaled between 130-160 innings in each of the previous three seasons, making it tough to project him for any more than 150 frames this season, but he might be worth the gamble later in drafts as a player that will likely put up a decent line without sacrificing any individual categories, so long as a ballclub has enough innings stashed with the rest of the fantasy rotation.

Ivan Nova
NFBC ADP: 67
DT Rank: NR

K	4
ERA	2
WHIP	3
W	2
IP	5
Stuff	4
Mechanics	5
TOTAL	25

Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage has been something of a miracle worker, getting excellent performance from a number of veteran retreads, and Nova is the latest to get the magic touch after being traded to the Pirates at midseason. What kills his ranking in the DT system isn't that small-sample performance (64.2 innings) but rather the 730 frames worth of subpar performance that preceded it. Nova walked just three batters (against 52 strikeouts) in his one-third season in Pittsburgh, but prior to that he had a league-average walk rate and had settled into the range of a mid-4 ERA and 1.35 WHIP.

Nova made some small mechanical adjustments with Pittsburgh, streamlining his momentum to carve out a more efficient path to the plate, but the performance far outpaces these mechanical gains. I expect some of the gains to carry forward, and in that sense maybe a "2" in ERA was a bit harsh, but I don't see the raw ingredients to justify a vault up the rankings. It's possible that Nova has found a new performance threshold, but the overwhelming sample of ineffectiveness, the small sample of success and the relatively slight physical improvements make me skeptical that he can sustain impact ratios over a full season, masking a K rate that has been subpar throughout his career.

Garrett Richards
NFBC ADP: 68
DT Rank: NR

K	6
ERA	4
WHIP	3
W	1
IP	3
Stuff	6
Mechanics	2
TOTAL	25

The case of Garrett Richards involves a perfect storm of disappointment. He has elite stuff that includes a fastball that can reach the high-90s and a sharp-breaking slider, ingredients that one would expect to lead to an immense K rate, but he has a career K rate of 19.7 percent that is below the major-league average over that stretch. The strikeouts spiked as high as 24.2 percent in 2014, but it was his only MLB stretch above 23.0 percent and even that peak rate would only earn seven points in this system. The WHIP has been a struggle his entire career, with just one campaign on his resume that checks in below 1.24, and the fact that he led the majors in wild pitches for two consecutive seasons underscores his struggles with controlling the baseball.

The delivery is a mess that severely lacks balance or stability, leaving little hope that he suddenly fixes the issues with walks. He leans over like a submariner during the stride portion of his delivery, strides toward the back of the right-handed batter's box but is too closed off for his own signature, has grips of spine tilt near release point and a very floppy glove side. Throw in the fact that he hurt his UCL in late April of last season and missed the rest of year, opted against Tommy John surgery and instead went for a stem cell procedure, and his projected innings are completely up in the air. There's a non-zero chance that the elbow flares up again, and the Angels have already said that they are going to cap Richards at 100 pitches in each game, which for a player who allows copious baserunners could result in many short outings, further dimming his hopes at a decent count of wins. The downsides are too numerous to count, so I'll let someone else roll the dice on draft day.

Finally, there are a trio of prospects (or former prospects) who could vault up the rankings if they can combine development and opportunity this season. I couldn't bring myself to project such gains, but these players are inherently volatile and could improve their stock in a hurry - though in at least one case, that improvement will have to come in 2018.

Alex Reyes
NFBC ADP: 41
DT Rank: NR

K	9
ERA	4
WHIP	3
W	2
IP	0
Stuff	6
Mechanics	4
TOTAL	28

Prior to the announcement that Reyes would require season-ending Tommy John surgery, I had given him a lofty ranking and 31 points in the DT system (the "innings" were a 3). Those projected innings had to be erased for obvious reasons but he still carries value in dynasty leagues. Here is what I wrote about him prior to the injury:

"Reyes offers a very particular set of skills that differentiate him in this group of pitchers. To say that the young phenom is a high risk / high reward pitcher would be a serious understatement. He has the stuff to pile up strikeouts, but his lack of experience, the pitching depth of the Cardinals and his limited frame-count from last season (111.1 combined IP) will be a barrier to his impact via volume. His K rate has been massive all the way up the ladder, his delivery has developed to be a solid-plus attribute and his stuff is unquestionably filthy, especially the changeup, which plays nicely off his high-90s fastball."

He did carry a few red flags for injury, namely his high-90s velo and a penchant for elbow drag, the mechanical explanation for a pitcher with a habitually late arm and the biggest precursor to elbow injury. He also had modest torque for a flamethrower, placing more of the kinetic toll on his throwing arm, so there were injury-related caveats that existed before he went under the knife. That's not to say that the injury was expected - there are a multitude of variables in the injury equation and our collective understanding of those variables is surprisingly weak - but as a prospect he exemplified the all-too-familiar correlation between high-end stuff and injury risk.

Lucas Giolito
NFBC ADP: 115
DT Rank: NR

K	7
ERA	4
WHIP	4
W	1
IP	1
Stuff	6
Mechanics	4
TOTAL	27

Giolito was all the rage coming into last season, though I felt that the fantasy hype was premature given the strong likelihood that he would spend most or all of the 2016 season in the minor leagues. Then he got off to a slow start, struggled with some club-mandated mechanical adjustments and showed up to the majors with stuff that - while solid - generated nowhere near the level of excitement that he had promised earlier in his career. Giolito was once viewed as a guy with two potential pitches that graded out as a perfect 80 on the 20-80 scouting scale, with a fastball that could reportedly touch triple digits and a curve that fell off a steep cliff. The curve is still intact - the depth of his hammer is truly a sight to behold - but the velocity had lost a couple of ticks and his command left something to be desired.

I have long been skeptical of Giolito's mechanics, which feature a staggeringly-slow delivery, and the fact that he was unable to make the adjustments that the Nats requested is not a point in his favor (though many have rushed to point out that he pitched better once he scraped the mechanical changes). Now with the White Sox, it will be an interesting subplot to see how Giolito responds in a new environment. He still has the stuff for tremendous success, and White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper has a tremendous track record, but Giolito is more interesting for what he might do than for what he has done in his pro career so far.

Jose Berrios
NFBC ADP: 118
DT Rank: NR

K	6
ERA	3
WHIP	3
W	2
IP	4
Stuff	4
Mechanics	5
TOTAL	27

I was all over Berrios at this time last year. I thought he had a shot at rookie of the year, as a pitcher with a tremendous delivery, great stuff and plenty of opportunity for the fledgling Twins. Everything seemed on track when he debuted in late April, but the version of Berrios that showed up to the majors was weak in ways that he had previously been strong. Most alarmingly, Berrios' delivery was compromised, as his angle of stride and momentum was completely off-kilter. He spent nearly all of last season directing his energy toward the right-handed batter's box, then trying to direct the ball back towards the plate with zero-to-little success. He couldn't hit targets on the left side of the plate to save his life, and MLB batters quickly picked up on the tendency and started looking for strikes in the only sectors that Berrios could hit.

It took him all season, but the young right-hander did finally fix the issue, and in his final start of the year his delivery was back in alignment. Mechanics are simultaneously the source of his greatest advantage and his greatest vulnerability, but the evidence from that final game of 2016 is encouraging and it's possible that he gets right back on track this season. Don't write him off just yet.