2016 MLB Player Profile: James Shields

James Shields is aging and coming off a disappointing season statistically. At least in some respects. Shields actually pitched remarkably similar to the way he always does last season with two main differences – the walk and the homer. The key to success in 2016 for him will be reducing both of those marks back in-line with career expectations. If Shields does he might just end up being a rather cheap, productive member of fantasy rotations in 2016.

Here is a link to all the players that have been reviewed in the 2016 Player Profile Series.

THE NUMBERS

* Per 34 starts: 14-10, 3.74 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 197 Ks in 226 innings

WINS

In a decade long career he’s won 15 games twice. That’s not impressive. However, check out that consistency. Over the last nine seasons he’s won at least 11 games each year. Do you know how many pitchers have won 11 games each of the last nine years? ONE – Shields. That’s it. Consistently effective is Shields as he’s averaged 13.4 victories the last nine years.

*NOTE: SHIELDS IS THE ONLY PITCHER IN BASEBALL WHO HAS WON AT LEAST 11 GAMES IN EACH OF THE LAST NINE SEASONS.

INNINGS

Shields has thrown at least 200-innings each of the last nine seasons. Do you know how many pitchers can match that run? The answer is zero.

*NOTE: SHIELDS IS THE ONLY PITCHER IN BASEBALL WHO HAS THROWN 200 INNINGS EACH OF THE PAST NINE SEASONS.

STRIKEOUTS

Shields, because of all the innings he throws, is a very stable option in strikeouts. In three seasons of his career, including 2015, he’s struck out at least 215 batters. Moreover, Shields has struck out at least 160 batters each of the last nine seasons. There are only two other hurlers in baseball that can match that run of success – Cole Hamels and Felix Hernandez. Shields also has struck out 180 or more batters each of the last six years. There are only three others who have struck out 180 the past six seasons: Hamels, Fernandez and Clayton Kershaw. That’s elite level stuff folks.

Shields posted a 9.61 K/9 rate in 2015, the best of his career. That effort was nearly two and a half batters better than his mark of 7.14 in 2014 which was a six year low by the way. It’s rare for a guy to post a career best K-rate in his 10^th season. It’s also rare to see a guy post a decade best swinging strike rate in his 10^th season. Shields was at 12.4 percent in ’15 after two seasons in single digits. His career mark of 10.4 percent is slightly above the league average.

When he threw the ball in the strike zone last season batters generated a contact rate of 84.4 percent when they swung. That’s the lowest mark batters have ever posted against Shields (87.6 percent). Moreover, batters had an overall contact rate of 72.5 percent on all swings. That was the best mark of Shields career as well (career 77.8 percent). Batters just didn’t hit what Shields was throwing in 2015.

Let’s look at PITCHf/x data to see if he radically changed his approach to batters.

Shields threw his fastball 41.4 percent of the time last season. His career level is 40.2 percent. The same as always.

Shields threw his cutter a bit more last season at 18.1 percent versus his career mark of 11.4 percent.

Shields threw his change up 21.1 percent of the time versus a career mark of 24.6 percent.

Shields increased in his curveball rate from 11.1 percent the first nine years of his career to 18.8 percent last season.

He basically threw pitches at roughly the same pace with a bit more of the curve and the cutter.

WALKS

Shields has a 2.27 walk rate per nine for his career. That’s more than half a batter below the league average. It’s an impressive mark. Additionally, over the first nine seasons of his big career his walk rate was never above 2.74 and that was way back in 2006, and only twice in nine years was the mark over 2.40. So what the hell happened last season when the mark shot up to 3.60 per nine. Great question.

As we’ve seen his K-rate went up. His swinging strike rate went up. Batters contact rates went down. Shields also posted a 60.6 percent first strike percentage last season that was just two tenths below his career rate, so it wasn’t like he was constantly falling behind batters. The real change was the fact that he threw less strikes overall (despite the strikeouts). Shields posted a 41.8 percent strike rate according to PITCHf/x, a career low. Last season was the first time he posted a mark under 47.7 percent, so it bears watching.

ERA

From 2011-2014 Shields posted an ERA of 3.17. Last season the mark shot past his 3.74 career rate all the way up to 3.91, a five year high. As we’ve been discussing, it should be obvious by now that the expectation for Shields in 2016 is that the ERA will improve. Some thoughts to consider. Let’s look at the last three seasons.

As the above table shows, Shields effort last season wasn’t as far off as many think.

WHIP

Shields posted a 1.33 WHIP last season. That was his first mark above 1.24 in five seasons. The sole reason for that bump was the walk rate. We could see his WHIP return to his career levels with ease, if he can cute that batter off his walk rate.

BATTED BALL

Let’s take a look at Shields work last season compared to his career average.

* P/C/O = Pull field, Center field, Opposite field

Go through the numbers.

His line drive rate was one percent off. Practically speaking that is the same.

His ground ball rate was just two tenths off his career mark.

His fly ball rate was a mere 1.2 percent off his career rate.

His GB/FB was slightly better, though 0.05 is virtually the same.

His BABIP was off by one point.

His Pull/Center/Opposite field batted ball rates were one percent off.

EVERYTHING was the same except… his homer-to-fly ball ratio which went up 50 percent from 11.7 to 17.6 percent. Let’s look at that a bit more.

HOME PARK

Petco Park is all pitchers, all the time. At least that was what folks thought heading in to last season. Turns out that wasn’t exactly accurate though. Take a look at Petco’s 2015 Park Factors for a moment.

Petco was 20^th in runs at 0.931.

Petco was 10^th in home runs at 1.085

Petco was 16^th in hits at 0.966

Clearly the park still favors hurlers but note that, in homers, the park was much worse for pitchers than you likely believed. That played into some of the struggles with Shields. As noted above, Shields fly ball rate was 1.2 percent under his career rate so the homer increase wasn’t because of more balls being hit upward. The increase in homers last season with Shields had to so with the massive increase in his HR/FB rate.

Shields owns an 11.7 percent HR/FB ratio for his career.
In 2013 in Kansas City the mark was 8.6 percent.
In 2014 in Kansas City the mark was 9.7 percent.
In 2015 in San Diego the mark was 17.6 percent.

The Royals park is far from a homer haven, but seeing Shields mark sky rocket in San Diego last season is shocking. After 4-straight seasons with a HR/9 mark under 1.00, the mark leapt to 1.47 last season. We’ve seen this from Shields before, the mark was 1.50 in 2015 in Tampa, but the totality of data would seem to suggest that a reduction in the homer rate seems almost certain in 2015. That is especially true when you note that Shields allowed five more homers in San Diego than on the road last season despite throwing 5.2 fewer innings at home than on the road. 

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide which includes more than 600 Players Ranked, auction values, rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well as all the info you need if you’re ready to start playing DFS. 

OUTLOOK

Shields has some warts, is 34 years old, and coming off his worst ratio effort in years. He also had a hard time throwing strikes last season while giving up a ton of big flies. He still wins games though and strikes batters out, and I think there will certainly be room for some profit this season given the extremely low expectations for the righty.

10-team Mixed: Youngins will be the theme of the day. Folks generally don’t like to take hurlers that happen to be veterans coming off down seasons. That can play into your odds of adding Shields if you so desire. I think you should. Shields would seem like an ideal 4^th starter pitcher.

12-team Mixed: I’m targeting him as my 4^th starter, but if he falls as my third I’m OK with that. Why? Because taking him third would allow me to take a shot on my 4/5 starters with younger arms that have less certainty. Remember, you’re putting a team together. Adding stability ain’t a bad thing if that allows you to take shots on arms like Kevin Gausman, Luis Severino or Taijuan Walker.

15-team Mixed: An ideal third starter here. His win and strikeout totals will make him relevant, and as we’ve been discussing throughout, things aren’t as bad as they looked last season, and Shields draft day cost will be much lower than you expected.

NL-Only: Stability, strikeouts and wins. They are all there. The ratios may not move to the level of impressive, but I would expect both his ERA and WHIP to improve, at least a little bit, to the point that he certainly isn’t going to weigh down your staff. He will be a target of mine.

To see where Shields ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).