Jake Odorizzi was a first round selection by the Brewers in 2008. Each year from 2011-14 he entered the campaign as a top-100 prospect in baseball. After a bit of a slow start his performance really took off to the point that he was one of the better waiver-wire additions in fantasy baseball in 2014. What type of encore will the righty offer this season?

THE MINORS

2008: As an 18 year old he tossed 20.2 innings at Rookie Ball going 1-2 with a 3.48 ERA and 1.31 WHIP.

2009: Pitched 47 innings going 1-4 with a 4.40 ERA and 1.36 WHIP in Rookie Ball. 

2010: Won seven games against three loses over 120.2 innings at Single-A ball. Posted a 3.43 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 10.1 K/9 mark. Trade by the Brewers to the Royals.

2011: Baseball America ranked him as the 69th best prospect in baseball while Baseball Prospectus had him ranked 77th. Pitched at High-A and Double-A ball going 10-7 with a 3.73 ERA, 1.21 WHIP and 9.6 K/9 mark. 

2012: Baseball America ranked him as the 68th best prospect in baseball while Baseball Prospectus had him ranked 47th, the same as MLB.com. Pitched at Double and Triple-A. Made it through 145.1 innings of working going 15-5 with a 3.03 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and 8.4 K/9 mark. Dealt by the Royals to the Rays.

2013: Baseball America ranked him as the 92nd best prospect in baseball while Baseball Prospectus had him ranked 83rd. MLB.com checked in at 45th overall. Saw action in 19 games going 11-3 with a 2.93 ERA and 1.35 WHIP. Saw his K/9 dip to 7.4. 

2014: Baseball America ranked him as the 67th best prospect in baseball while Baseball Prospectus had him ranked 92nd. MLB.com dropped him to 56th.   

TOTALS: 43-27, 3.47 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 9.1 K/9, 3.2 K/BB over 605 innings

THE MAJORS

2012:  Appeared in two games for the Royals allowing four runs in 7.1 innings. 

2013: Made four starts and seven appearances for the Rays going 0-1 with a 3.94 ERA, 1.21 WHIP and 6.67 K/9 mark over 29.2 innings

2014: Won 11 games, but lost 13, as he made 31 starts. In 168 innings Odorizzi struck out 174 batters, walked 3.16 per nine, and posted a 1.28 WHIP. 

GET YOUR COPY OF THE 2015 FANTASY ALARM BASEBALL DRAFT GUIDE AND DOMINATE. CLICK ON THE LINK TO FIND OUT HOW TO PICK UP YOUR OWN COPY... FOR FREE.

 

THE SKILLS

Success was always in the cards for Odorizzi as it's clear all who saw him pitch could see the potential. In that respect his "breakout" 2014 effort isn't at all surprising. How did he achieve that success? Some thoughts follow.

The first thing to note with Odorizzi is that despite the strikeouts, he really doesn't throw that hard. Somewhere along the line he lost a few mph and his average fastball in 2014 was just over 90 mph. He's not an upper echelon heat tosser.

Odorizzi used to toss a changeup, an average pitch at best, to support his fastball. He hunkered down, started working with teammate Alex Cobb, and the results were obvious. He now throws a split-change as does Cobb. Really, for the sake of simplicity, it's a split-fingered fastball. Some systems might still list his splitter as a changeup up, but if you look at Pitchf/x data it's there. Instead of throwing his changeup about 15 percent of the time he now throws his split more than 20 percent of the time (the change has allowed him to lesson his reliance on his heater). Batters hit just .251 with a .661 OPS off of his splitter in 2014 showing it to be a very effective pitches when located properly (batters hit only .219 off his heater in '14, but the OPS was slightly higher at .685). While batters hit 58 percent of the batted balls off his fastball into the air, that number tumbled to a mere 30 percent on the splitter as he's able to get the ball down in the zone. 

Odorizzi has what many describe as a "riding fastball." His fastball is often up in the zone - it rides high and doesn't appear to have much sinking motion. It's why so many of his his heaters end up as fly balls. However, the splitter is obviously the exact opposite sitting at, or hopefully below, the knees when it crosses the plate. That's very tough for a hitter. Hitting is about timing. A pitchers job is to mess that timing up. A pitcher can vary speeds or work in an out to accomplish that. Another staple of pitching is changing a batters sight line. This 1-2 combo - fastball and splitter - for Odorizzi does just that hitting the upper and lower quadrants of the strike zone. The splitter helps to explain his big league success, zero doubt about that.

Given all of that I bet you would be surprised to hear me say I expect some regression in his K/9 mark, right? I simply don't believe that his "stuff" supports more than a K per inning. We could still be looking at a mark with a batter of last season seasons 9.32 mark though, and that would still be an impressive level.

I do worry about the walks though. Last season he walked 3.16 batters per nine, worse than the league average. Add in his short work in 2012-13 and we end up with a 3.12 mark for his young career. His minor league career mark was 2.9. Not impressed there. 

All the strikeouts and walks effect his ability to go deep into games. There were only five pitchers in baseball who made at least 31 starts who didn't throw 180-innings in 2015: C.J. Wilson, Travis Wood, Eric Stults, Kyle Gibson and Odorizzi. Jake was the only one who didn't reach 170-innings. Odorizzi didn't pitch eight innings in one start last season. Nine times he didn't make it through five innings and eight other times he failed to reach six innings pitched. That's 17 of 31 starts in which Odorizzi failed to last six innings. Pretty hard to rack up the wins if you aren't pitching deep into games.

Returning to the batted balls... I noted above how the splitter has helped him to start generating ground balls. At the same time though, his overall game is decidedly fly ball centric. About 47 percent of the batted balls from 2011-13 in the minors was a fly ball. Through 205 big league innings that number is 47.6 percent. That's a big number that can lead to big flies (his 1.05 HR/9 mark is pretty tame given all the fly balls to be honest). Odorizzi has also been squared up pretty well. His 22.3 percent line drive rate at the big  league level is a tad elevated, though his .293 BABIP couldn't be any more average (thanks to the fly balls since they end up as hits much less frequently than grounders and liners). Bottom line here. He allows a lot of fly balls and needs to generate more grounders. He's been able to keep that HR/9 mark around one since he became a pro, but with all those fly balls could end up in the seats with relative ease, and that could play havoc with his ratios. 

CONCLUSION

Despite his success last year Jake Odorizzi still went 11-13, had a 4.13 ERA and 1.28 WHIP. That's completely league average production. The strikeouts stand out in a positive way, and his new splitter certainly should help keep batters on their toes. At the end of the day though, we're talking about a guy who  had league average ratios (ERA/WHIP) and a worse than league average walk rate. Also I worry a bit about all the fly balls, he runs into a cold spell and allows a few homer here and there more than average and that ERA has little chance of coming down. There's also the fact that the Rays offense is far from impressive which might mean wins aren't exactly the easiest thing in the world to come by. Odorizzi is a depth arm with K upside, nothing more, at this point. 

10 team lg: He's merely a last ditch, last arm on the staff, kinda guy in this format. There are simply too many other arms with more stability to offer in the ratio categories, and with wins not likely to be prevalent...  Odorizzi is a streamer in this format. 

12 team lg: Jake could be a weekly starter in this format, but he's still an SP6/7 type that will likely be on multiple teams in 2015. If the strikeouts regress a bit like I expect, he becomes a very middling option. 

15 team lg: An SP 5/6, he'll have a role here. The punchouts, even if he loses a batter per inning, will play. If he could work a bit deeper into games too, that would certainly improve his outlook.

AL-only: Punchouts in this format are worth a bit more. Have to be weary of Odorizzi being a league average type with the ratios though, so don't overpay just to get the punchouts. If you're smart about it you can find those Ks with your middle relievers.