Draft Day Hits: Zach Eflin

Last week I took a look into what went wrong with Reid Detmers, a guy whom I invested in heavily during draft season but who didn't pan out. This week it's time for a deep dive into a guy who did work out.

How did Zach Eflin do it? Should fantasy managers be happy to scoop him up in drafts again next spring?

Zach Eflin, SP, Rays

When it was reported last December that the Rays had agreed to terms with Eflin on a three-year, $40 million contract, I must admit that I did a double take. I know I wasn't the only one.

The $40 million deal was the biggest Tampa Bay had ever handed out to a free agent. That the Rays decided Eflin was the guy they wanted to splurge on was eye-opening. This was a guy who, to that point, held a career 4.49 ERA and 1.30 WHP with a strikeout rate below 20 percent. The only time he posted an ERA below 4.00 came during the shortened 2020 campaign, and his ERA that year was still just 3.97. Knee troubles had just led to a move to the bullpen for the end of the 2022 regular season and playoffs.

Clearly, the Rays saw some untapped potential with Eflin. They were able to tap into that potential this season.

Eflin wound up winning 16 games for Tampa Bay in 2023, which is five more than he totaled over the previous three seasons. He set new career bests with a 3.50 ERA, a 1.02 WHIP and 186 strikeouts over 177.2 innings. Eflin also made a career-high 31 starts after not even reaching the 20-start threshold across his last three campaigns. His 3.11 xERA and 3.01 FIP suggest that the righty's numbers probably should've been even better.

It was a career year for Eflin, one which saw him finish as a top-10 starting pitcher in roto leagues. That's after he was barely taken inside the top-100 starters (and top-300 players overall) in drafts this past spring. What a return on investment for those lucky enough to roster the right-hander.

I count myself among those that were able to reap the benefits of Eflin in multiple leagues. I must admit, though, that my calculus on using a draft pick on him wasn't super groundbreaking. It basically boiled down to "he's cheap and the Rays see something in him," which was good enough for me.

One big difference-maker for Eflin in 2023, as you can see from the image below pulled from Fangraphs, was upping his groundball rate from above average to elite.

Eflin's 49.8 percent groundball rate in 2023 ranked fifth in baseball among qualifiers. Forcing the opposition to pound the ball into the ground more often is always a good thing, but it's particularly good when you go from having the Phillies' defense behind you to the Rays' defense behind you. The Rays ranked 11th in baseball in DRS in 2023, which included the majors' second-best ranking at shortstop and fourth-best at third base. For context, the Phillies ranked 25th, 30th and 28th in DRS during Eflin's last three seasons there.

The Rays, unsurprisingly, had Eflin throw his best pitch — his curveball — more often, and the offering scored a plus-10 on Statcast's Run Value. That wasn't even Eflin's highest-rated pitch, either, as his sinker scored a plus-12. He was one of only seven pitchers to have two pitches score that high. The others were Gerrit Cole, Blake Snell, Shohei Ohtani, Kodai Senga, Michael Wacha and Kyle Bradish. That's out of 2,475 pitches to qualify for the leaderboard.

We also saw Eflin's spin rates go up across the board, as you can see from the graphs below taken from Baseball Savant.

2023:

2022:

The spin rates on Eflin's curveball (2381 to 2502) and cutter (2151 to 2236) in particular went up significantly. Was it altered mechanics? Grip tweaks? Something… else? I'm not sure, but whatever it was certainly helped. Eflin's chase rate went from the 59th percentile in 2022 to the 95th percentile in 2023. There are no doubt a variety of reasons for that, but being able to spin the ball more while still maintaining elite command and control is one of them.

Probably the biggest driving factor in Eflin's breakout was simply staying healthy. He did have a minimum-length injured list stint with a back issue and also had a knee problem flare up in the second half. Eflin's back and knees have been issues before, and at this point we should probably just count on them popping up again at least once or twice in 2024. They didn't keep the righty from making 32 starts or crossing the 180-inning barrier (regular and postseason combined) for the first time in 2023, though.

I see little reason to doubt the legitimacy of what Eflin did this season. My concern would be a less than stellar track record of durability and a strikeout rate that's still probably more likely to hurt you than help you.

Fantasy managers must prepare for a bigger price tag for Eflin in 2024. In early NFBC drafts, he's been going inside the top-100, just behind the aforementioned Kyle Bradish and just ahead of Justin Steele, among starting pitchers. That seems fair to me and leaves plenty of room for profit even if there's regression, although I see some other hurlers in that range I'm more comfortable in drafting. If the draft room I'm in is more skeptical, I'll be happy to run it back with Eflin.