2016 Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Nathan Eovaldi

Nathan Eovaldi stands 6’2”, and weighs in at about 220 lbs. Last season the then 25 year old righty threw his average fastball at 96.6 mph according to PITCHf/x data. Amongst pitchers who threw at least 140-innings last season that was the hardest mark in baseball (one tenth ahead of Noah Syndergaard). Nathan also won 14 games against only three loses for the Yankees. Alas, he still had a disappointing season with a 4.20 ERA and 1.45 WHIP. Are there any reasons to think that things will be different in 2016?

THE NUMBERS

Eovaldi is 11 games under .500 for his career.

Eovaldi has a 4.16 ERA that is worse than the league average since he began his career (3.83).

Eovaldi has a 1.40 WHIP that is worse than the league average since he began his career (1.28).

Eovaldi has 6.61 K/9 mark that is worse than the league average since he began his career (7.57).

Eovaldi has a 2.88 BB/9 that is ever so slightly better than the league average since he began his career (2.95).

Eovaldi has allowed 9.68 hits per nine that is worse than the league average since he began his career (8.56).

THE ARM

You can’t teach arm talent. A guy has it, or he doesn’t. If Mark Buehrle could throw this hard he would be mentioned as one of the five greatest lefties of all-time. Alas MB didn’t have that arm, Eovaldi does. Conversely if Eovaldi has Buehrle’s ability to pitch he might be one of the top-5 righties in baseball right now. That’s laughable at this point with Eovaldi. He is still searching for his groove, and it will never be on the level of a true pitcher like Buehrle.

THE SKILLS

Eovaldi’s greatest skill is his heat that I’ve already discussed. However, he’s never learned how to transition from throwing hard to getting batters out. I mean, look at the numbers again. How can you throw that hard and strike out just 6.61 batters per nine (his career number)? Eovaldi has never struck out more than 7.06 batters per nine innings actually. Embarrassing really. Did you know that despite all the heat that Eovaldi only has one game, out of his last 30 starts, with nine strikeouts? He’s just not a strikeout arm, a fact driven home by his completely ordinary 8.4 swinging strike rate for his career. He’s not even average in that category.

At least Eovaldi has cut down the walks a bit the past few seasons. He had an under two per nine mark in 2014 before seeing that number rise to 2.86 per nine last season. That’s a league average number so at least the walks don’t kill him.

Eovaldi throws his fastball 65 percent of the time over the course of his career. He’s recently started to rely more heavily on a split finger fastball throwing it 17 percent of the time last season according to PITCHf/x (the pitch is recorded as a change up by some services). Both those pitches have nice downward movement and that helps Nathan to keep the ball in the yard. Over the course of his career Nathan has a 0.67 HR/9 mark and he’s never had a mark over 0.75 for a season which is why it’s laughable that he’s already allowed four homers in just 17.2 innings this season in three starts. He allowed 10 big flies all of last season and 14 the year before. Guys just don’t hit the ball into the seats against him.

Though he keeps the ball down the fastball gets hit pretty hard. According to the data from PITCHf/x, here is how batters fare against his offerings for his career.

The pitch he throws the most, the pitch he thrown the hardest, that’s the one batters hit the best. That’s obviously a concern for Eovaldi and his chances to show marked improvement in 2016.

It’s only been three starts in 2016, so it’s really hard to reach too much into such a small sample size, but there are a couple of positives that if he were to hold on to then we, and by that I mean “I,” would start to get excited.

For his career Eovaldi has thrown his first pitch for a strike 60 percent of the time. This season that number has jumped to 69.7 percent. If he can get ahead and put pressure on the batters, he can then let his heat/downward movement take over. He might learn to “trust” his stuff which would, in theory, help him to put hitters away.

Second, Eovaldi is inducing swings on 39.2 percent of the pitches he has thrown outside the strike zone through three starts. That mark is just 28.4 percent for his career. I think it likely that the increase here goes back to Eovaldi being able to get ahead of batters. He may not be a strikeout arm, but if he’s ahead of you 0-1 and he can drop a 96 mph fastball on the knees on you, it’s not like you’re going to make good contact with that very frequently. Putting the hitter on the defensive a bit more would be huge for Eovaldi. Of course, we’re talking three games from a guy who in five seasons never posted a mark above 30.2 percent in the swing at pitches outside the zone category.

CONCLUSION

As you have read, Nathan Eovaldi has one terrific arm. He’s also had a darn difficult time being anything other than a league average arm for the majority of his career. The talent is there for something more, but the data simply doesn’t point to the reality of success being a likely outcome for the man with a golden wing.

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).