2017 Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Jharel Cotton

Jharel Cotton

25 years old

Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 5’11”, 190 lbs

Position: Starting Pitcher

THE NUMBERS

In 2014 Cotton had a 7.07 ERA over his first 42 innings. Seemed liked it was never going to happen for the youngster. Then, pitching coach Matt Herges noted Cotton was tipping his pitches. Problem fixed, Cotton posted a 1.11 ERA has final 48.2 innings. Note that Cotton still seems to tip his pitches at times do to a wiggle with his glove.

In 2015, to augment his fastball, chose to work diligently on his changeup. It’s now his best pitch and one of the best in baseball.

In 2016, his performance resulted in a career-high innings pitched count, 165 innings, and strong work with the Athletics.

THE SKILLS

An interesting thing happened on the road to fantasy stardom for Jharel Cotton in 2017.... reality struck.

On March 21^st Cotton struggled mightily in an outing against the Mariners walking five batters while being charged for five runs over 3.2 innings. Batters have only hit .179 off Cotton through four outings this spring, but in 11 innings he’s walked nine batters, and that certainly will not do.

Who is Cotton?

Let’s explore.

Cotton has a fastball that can hit 95-96 mph, and it sat at 92.2 mph according to PITCHf/x last season with the Athletics. It may not be a plus pitch, but it’s close. He stays on top of the pitch well, but the pitch is more about velocity than movement as it gets little run because of his over the top motion. Speaking of that, he stands only 5’11” so he needs to maintain that over the top motion of he will lose the plane on the fastball causing it to flatten out. Cotton is a good athlete, but his motion does contain a bit more effort than one would like to see cause some concern when he gets tired in an outing. All of this leads there to be concern about his K-rate in the big leagues, despite the impressive minor league numbers (note his K/9 last season with the Athletics fell three batters from the pace he set at Triple-A).

His changeup is his best pitch, the 4^th best in baseball last season according to Eno Sarris. It’s a pretty sick offering really. Check out the movement on this sucker. Cotton throws the changeup 15 mph slower than his fastball at 77.2 mph and the pitch has extreme downward movement and also moves like screwball (it darts toward right-handed batters). He maintains his arm speed on the pitch, further adding to the deception. Thirty-one plate appearances ended on a changeup last season. Batters produced one hit in 30 at-bats on the pitch. It’s an elite offering.

The cutter/slider is the third pitch, one he desperately needs if he hopes to solidify himself as a starting pitcher in the big leagues. The reason is simple. Starting pitchers need at least three pitchers. Very few hurlers who start can get by throwing just two pitches. A third offering, even if it’s just an average pitch, is really what is needed to sustain that starting success. Before last season there was no third pitch of note. Last season there was the cutter/slider. It was effective, extremely so, with a 22.2 percent swinging strike mark. It’s extremely unlikely he will be able to sustain that pace. It’s almost certainly a result of a small sample size leaving the offering in the questionable category heading into 2017.

THE STRIKEOUT

With two pitches he can trust he’s not going to be a K per inning arm.

With his size and lack of angle and movement on his fastball he’s not going to be a K per inning arm.

His stuff just doesn’t play like that in the big leagues.

Last season, in 29.1 innings. He posted a K/9 mark of 7.06 with a swinging strike rate of 12.5 percent. The swinging rate suggests we could get a boost in the K-rate this season, but a move to even the league average rate of 8.1 per nine seems somewhat unlikely.

THE WALK

As we’ve seen this spring, walks can be an issue with Cotton. Don’t buy the 1.23 BB/9 rate from his five starts last season. Just not who he is. His walk rate in the minors was more than double the mark he posted last season with the A’s.  

THE HOMER

When you throw a flat fastball, and a changeup, you are likely to be homer prone. Therefore, it’s not surprising to see that Cotton is often taken deep. Last season he allowed 20 homers in 135.2 minor league innings before permitting four big flies in 29.1 innings with the Athletics. As concerning as the homer pace is the fact that all he did was allow fly balls last season. With the Athletics as his fly ball rate was 48.2 percent leading to a 0.78 GB/FB ratio in his five starts. That’s a dangerous neighborhood for a pitcher to be living in.

THE LUCK FACTOR

We’re dealing with a small sample size with Cotton, so it’s not surprising to see some oddness in the numbers. That said, his 14.1 percent line drive rate and .198 BBAIP as absurdly low. Both numbers could rise by 50 percent in 2017 and that would still leave him in the normal range (20-21 percent and .300). When that happens his ERA/WHIP will vault upwards.

PLAYING TIME

With Sonny Gray sidelined, there is no doubt that Cotton will begin the year in the Athletics rotation.  

AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION DATA

As of this writing, here is the ADP data for Cotton.

Fantasy Alarm Player Rankings

CONCLUSION

I’m still uncertain whether or not Cotton would be better served working out of the bullpen. He will certainly get a chance to prove himself this season in Oakland out of the rotation, so we should get a nice sample size to draw our conclusions from at the end of the season. As noted above there are concerns about his strikeouts, repertoire and the fly ball rates (homers), and all of that makes me extremely concerned with the current cost of Cotton in the fantasy game.  

10-Team Mixed: I’m not drafting him in this format. Neither should you.  

12-Team Mixed: As the last arm on your staff, fine. Problem is, his ADP is suggestive that he will need to be your 5th, or at worst, 6^th starter. That’s simply too costly for the unproven youngster.

15-Team Mixed: Taking risks is something needed in this format. If you decide that Cotton is worth it, make sure to augment his selection with an Ian Kennedy or Ervin Santana type to give you some coverage.

AL-Only League: Given the cost the hype will engender, it’s pretty risky to be rostering Cotton in this context if you have to pay full price.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM EDT PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).