What a 2019 season it was for Boston left-hander Eduardo Rodríguez . He logged 203.1 innings, easily a career-high, with a 19-6 record, a 3.81 ERA and 213 strikeouts. His strikeout rate actually dropped a bit last year, but he made some nice steps in his development, both in a statistical and peripheral sense. The majority of his metrics improved, and we’ll get to that, but the first thing that led to this breakout was the fact that he stayed healthy. It was the first time in his career he made more than 24 starts and it was a huge jump in innings. In 2018, including the postseason, he threw just 139.2 innings. Is there some cause for concern since he’s coming off such a large jump in innings pitched? Absolutely, but the delay to the start of the season, in theory, benefits him a bit, as he gets some extra time to recover.
Let’s start with his ground ball rate, because that was the first thing I was most excited about, aside from staying healthy, for Rodriguez’s 2019 season. He threw his sinker and changeup more in 2019, leading to a reduction in his launch angle. From 2015-2018, it was anywhere from 10.7 degrees to 18.5 degrees, however, last year, it was just 9.1 degrees. Excellent. Throwing his changeup and sinker more allowed him to induce more ground balls, and from the chart below, you can clearly see that.
His sinker isn’t mean to be a pitch to get batters out with by any means. In fact, his sinker had a Z-Contact rate of 93.6 percent, meaning that when he threw that pitch in the strike zone and the batter swung, contact was not made just 6.4 percent of the time. Now, when that pitch induces a ground ball over half of the time and a fly ball under one-fifth of the time, it’s okay. Also, compared to 2018, it was exciting to see Rodriguez move his sinker around the zone, and not just on one side of the plate. Take a look at his heat maps for the pitch in 2018 versus 2019.
Versus 2019
Sure, there’s a lot right in the heart of the zone, but hopefully he can stay on the corners, and pepper the lower part of the zone to make this pitch a near automatic grounder. Also, with runners on base, just pepper sinkers to induce countless double plays! That would be ideal.
He throws the sinker to contact, but if he needs the batter to whiff, he’s coming with the changeup, since that pitch has generated a swinging strike rate north of 18 percent each of the past four seasons, including 19.5 percent in 2019. His fastball is solid as well, generating just a 74 percent contact rate, the lowest of his career, as well as a career-high 11.6 swinging strike rate. Those are just some other nice improvements for the southpaw.
Interestingly enough, despite having opponents chase more, and making less contact on pitches in the strike zone, his strikeout rate decreased. Furthermore, the 11.7 percent swinging strike rate was the highest of his career, and overall, the opposition made less contact!
More often than not, when you get more swings outside of the zone, with less contact made and more whiffs, that strikeout rate is going to increase. That wasn’t the case for Rodriguez in 2019, but I wouldn’t shut the door on his strikeout rate getting closer to where it was in 2017 and 2018. Now, that doesn’t mean that his 2019 mark was bad, or even that far off from previous seasons, but it was slightly down. You don’t notice it really in terms of strikeout percentage, as it was just two-ish percentage points away, but in K/9, that mark was substantially lower.
Lastly, per Baseball Savant, Rodriguez ranked in the top six and four percent in average exit velocity and hard hit rate respectively amongst qualified pitchers. When you look at the rolling graph below, he spent the majority of the 2019 season below the league average in exit velocity. LOVE THAT!
While improvements were made across the board, his fourseam fastball, and sinker played a big part in driving this down.
Rodriguez isn’t elite by any means, but he’s a solid fantasy option that will give you an ERA in the upper threes with over a strikeout per inning. Durability remains the big question, but at least we have a full season that we can point to where he stayed healthy and produced over the course of the entire year. He missed time in previous seasons, but not in 2019, and that will be the key for the southpaw yet again in 2020. It’s encouraging that his sinker became an elite ground ball pitch, and his four-seam fastball and changeup are above-average offerings to mess with opposing hitters.
Rodriguez is currently the 47th pitcher off the board and makes for a solid, reliable SP3 in all formats. If you take him as your SP2, you will need that strikeout rate to bounce back a bit, but he’s the perfect SP3 option, because injuries aside, you know exactly what you’re going to get from him. Fingers crossed that the Boston offense, sans Mookie Betts , can give him plenty of run support.
Statistical Credits:
fangraphs.com
baseballsavant.mlb.com
nfc.shgn.com/adp/baseball