Mike Fiers has always been effective, some might even say dominating, throughout most of his professional career. Be it because of injury or the fact that he got a late start in the bigs or because the radar gun doesn't love him, he's had a hard time sticking in the big leagues. After all the success he had last season it seems like a good bet that he'll have no such issues find regular starts for the Brewers in 2015. 

THE MINORS

2009: Drafted out of college (he went to three schools) after overcoming a car accident that resulted in four fractures in his back, a fractured hip and a dislocated leg, the 24 year old made his big league debut pitching in 22 games at Rookie, Low A and High-A ball. In those 40.2 innings, all in relief, he posted a dominating 1.33 ERA, 0.72 WHIP and 13.1 K/9. He also walked a mere five batters leading to what would be his hallmark moving forward – an impressive K/BB ratio.

2010: Made 19 starts out of 27 appearances with a 3.53 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 4.06 K/BB ratio with 30 punchouts in 125 innings. He appeared at High-A ball and Double-A.

2011: Went 13-3 with a 1.86 ERA and 0.94 WHIP over 126 innings at Double and Triple-A. Walked 36 total batters leading to a 3.67 K/BB ratio. 

2012: Ten starts at Triple-A produced his worst numbers as a minor leaguer. Over 10 starts he had a pedestrian 4.42 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP an a mere, for him, 2.72 K/BB ratio.

2013: Six outings led to a 2.86 ERA, 1.21 WIHP and 38 Ks in 34.2 innings. Broke his arm on a line drive from Kevin Kouzmanoff ending his year.

2014: Made 17 starts at Triple-A going 8-5 with a 2.55 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 11.3 K/9 and sick 7.59 K/BB ratio over 102.1 innings. 

TOTALS: 30-22, 2.75 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 10.0 K/9, 4.48 K/BB ratio over 483.2 innings

THE MAJORS
 

2011: Two outings covering two innings. Walked three and struck out two.

2012: Made 22 starts (23 appearances) going 9-10 with a 3.74 ERA, 1.26 WHIP and 135 strikeouts over 127.2 innings.

2013: Disaster. In 11 outings, three starts, he went 1-4 with a 7.25 ERA, 1.52 WHIP and a mere 6.04 K/9 ratio.

2014: Went 6-5 with a 2.13 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and 76 strikeouts over 14 outings (10 starts). 

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THE SKILLS

This guy has a 2.75 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 10.0 K/9 mark an a 4.48 K/BB ratio during his minor league career. Those aren't just top shelf numbers those are elite. We use that term too much in fantasy baseball, elite, but re-read those numbers again. If Felix Hernandez posts numbers like that we're impressed. That's how good they are. Fiers has nothing to prove in the minors where he's flat out dominated.

Fiers, who turns 30 in June, has also crushed it in the big leagues. His record might be a here 16-19, but the rest of his fantasy pitching line is... well impressive. Through 50 outings, 35 starts, Fiers has a 3.54 ERA and 1.18 WHIP. Last season the following hurlers were close to those numbers: Scott Kazmir (3.55 and 1.16), Phil Hughes (3.52 and 1.13) and Jered Weaver (3.59 and 1.21). Those guys are by no means elite hurlers, but hopefully you get the point with Fiers - he's been damn effective. 

Fiers has struck out 9.17 batters per nine innings, and yes that is more than one per inning. Only 11 men in baseball could better that mark last season. Even Madison Bumgarner couldn't (9.07).

Fiers has a 3.68 K/BB ratio for his career. Only 23 men bettered that in 2014. 

So, how many hurlers had an ERA under 3.55, a K/9 rate of 9.15 an a K/BB ratio of 3.65 or better last season? There were only eight men who did that: Zack Greinke, Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw, Corey Kluber, David Price, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg.

Versus lefties he allows a .301 wOBA.
Versus righties he allowed a .292 wOBA.
At home his wOBA is .293.
On the road his wOBA is .301.
Lefties have a 10.5 percent HR/F.
Righties have a 10.7 percent HR/F.
You seeing much difference? A minor one...
Lefties have a higher line drive rate at 28.9 percent (righties are at 22.3).
Lefties have a lower fly ball rate at 37 percent (righties are at 45.3).

Really though, pretty stable against both sides of the dish has Fiers been.

Picture is coming into focus isn't it?

So there must be some negatives, right? Sure there are. Here are a few.

(1) Fiers throws his fastball in the 88-89 mph. It's not hard. He also throws it 57 percent of the time. One would think that wouldn't lead to positive results, let alone dominance, yet, there it is. He did make a change moving to the right side of the rubber in his setup, and that seemed to help him to avoid leaving the ball in the prime hitting zone so he was able to nibble more effectively. Still, the radar gun doesn't love him.

(2) His GB/FB ratio is 0.81. that's a heck of a lot of fly ball action including a 47 percent mark in 2014, a number he will need to bring back down (his career 1.09 HR/9 mark and 10.6 HR/F ratio are decidedly normal, but will likely trend to worse than average if he keeps allowing so my fly balls). Alas, the real issue has been the 25.6 percent line drive rate. When batters hit the ball off Fiers they hit it hard, really hard (no pitcher in baseball who threw 162 innings last season had a line drive rate that high). He must locate his pitches because when he doesn't frozen ropes are flying everywhere. 

PLAYING TIME CONSIDERATIONS

Fiers is finally locked into the rotation with the Brewers. The top of the rotation is set with Kyle Lohse, Matt Garza and Wily Peralta, and with the trade of Yovani Gallardo to the Rangers there's an opening for the 4/5 spots in the rotation, not just the 5th. Given his success last season, heck his career long success, seems totally logical to posit that Fiers is the 4th starter and that, barring injury, he's making 30 starts in 2015 (the 5th starter will almost certainly be premium prospect Jimmy Nelson who will look to establish his MLB bonafides). 

CONCLUSION

The radar gun doesn't like him. The eyeball test may not like him either. Still, you cannot argue with the results. Simply put, Fiers knows how to pitch, always has. In recent years he's move to the right side of the rubber to take advantage of the movement of his pitches to right handed batters, and he's also started to throw his cutter to them a bit more which has helped. It's anyone's guess if he can sustain success over 180+ innings at the big league level since he's never done it before, but the totality of the data suggests that a worse case scenario would make him a replacement level arm in mixed leagues. The best case scenario is that he ends up being a 2/3 starter in mixed leagues, one that will likely cost much less than that on draft day. 

10 team lg: He doesn't have the name, but as we've seen he has the game. Current ADP numbers from the NFBC have Fiers listed at 50th overall. I personally have him well above that mark. Either way, if he does indeed fall to being a 5/6 SP in this format, consider yourself lucky to be able to roster him at that point.

12 team lg: If he's my SP4 I'm feeling it. It's a balancing act. I would suspect in most leagues he will fall further than that level meaning that you can likely wait until the SP 4/5 territory before feeling that your feet are being held to the fire and you have to jump into the mix to roster him. 

15 team lg: Huge fan here if he falls. Fiers gets you big strikeout numbers, but even better, he offers ratio stability that many others with strikeouts don't, and that could be a big advantage in a deep league like this one. As an SP3 he might be worth the risk. 

NL-only: As you can tell from the entirety of this report, I'm a fan of Fiers. If he's your SP2 you need to keep building depth just in case, but if he falls to being your SP3, as I assume he will in many leagues, you're sitting in a good place.