In 2014 I wrote that Corey Kluber would be the breakout star on the hill. He went 11-5 with a 3.85 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in 2013, a solid season, but there was no buzz/hype at all with Kluber heading into 2014. He went out and won the Cy Young award for the Indians (18-9, 2.44 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 269 Ks in 235.2 IP).
In 2015 I wrote the following. “Who will be the Corey Kluber of 2015? It's a question I get nearly every day. I often get it more than once a day. The back story for those of you that don't know. Last year I predicted that Kluber would come out of nowhere and have a big season. He did. And then some. People now expect me to pull another rabbit out of my hat. It's certainly not fair to expect me to name any guy as a potential Kluber in 2015. Hell, as much as I loved Kluber I would have called you bonkers if you had predicted the numbers he posted on the way to the AL Cy Young award… But if we're talking about an out of nowhere arm who could surprise…let's go with Shane Greene… Let me once again reiterate the obvious. Shane Greene will not win the AL Cy Young award… Greene is a shot in the dark.”
So I’m 1-for-2 at predicting the breakout candidate on the hill. Shocking to me really, the anger that was thrown at me last season when I was talking about Greene. Anger may not be the right word, perhaps scorn is better. Look, I admit it, Greene was hurt and flamed out miserably last season. Why the scorn though folks? Did you really loose last season because your 26th round draft pick didn’t pan out? Of course you didn’t. Did you bother to read my actual words or just think you knew what I said? I repeated, multiple times in the Greene piece last season, that you shouldn’t be expecting him to be the Cy Young winner. Ask the general public and they will tell you I predicted Greene would win the Cy, or at worst be a fantasy star. Not what I wrote folks. Guess folks just love to beat a guy when he is down.
On to 2016…
I could have said Andrew Cashner (Player Profile).
I could have said Trevor Bauer (Player Profile).
Hell, Kyle Gibson might even take the next step if he finally brings the strikeout pitch (Player Profile).
I considered going with Erasmo Ramirez but there just isn’t enough strikeout upside.
I wanted to go with Jesse Hahn until reports surfaced that he will ditch his slider this season.
In the end I will go with a name that everyone knows but no one is really targeting in drafts --- Kyle Hendricks.
Here is a link to all the players that have been reviewed in the 2016 Player Profile Series.
THE NUMBERS
| League | W-L | ERA | WHIP | K/9 | BB/9 | IP |
2011 | A, AA | 2-2 | 2.02 | 0.84 | 9.6 | 1.5 | 35.2 |
2012 | High-A | 6-8 | 2.99 | 1.07 | 7.5 | 1.1 | 147.2 |
2013 | AA, AAA | 13-4 | 2.00 | 1.06 | 6.9 | 1.8 | 166.1 |
2014 | AAA | 10-5 | 3.59 | 1.18 | 8.5 | 2.0 | 102.2 |
2014 | MLB | 7-2 | 2.46 | 1.08 | 5.27 | 1.68 | 80.1 |
2015 | MLB | 8-7 | 3.95 | 1.16 | 8.35 | 2.15 | 180.0 |
Career | 15-9 | 15-9 | 3.49 | 1.14 | 7.40 | 2.01 | 260.1 |
SIMILARITIES ABOUND
Let’s compare Hendricks to Kluber, pre breakout. Remarkable similarities actually.
| W-L | ERA | WHIP | K/9 | BB/9 | GB-rate | GB/FB | HR/9 |
Kluber 2013 | 11-5 | 3.85 | 1.26 | 8.31 | 2.02 | 45.5 | 1.60 | 0.92 |
Hendricks 2015 | 8-7 | 3.95 | 1.16 | 8.35 | 2.15 | 51.3 | 1.91 | 0.85 |
Now, realize that despite all of that, Hendricks has no shot to match the bust loose effort of Kluber in 2014. The main reason? Hendricks simply won’t strike out 10 batters per nine innings like Kluber, just not happening. We’ll get back to that in a second, but I just wanted to show you the superficial comparisons that make the pitchers look like identical twins.
I say it all the time. I want strikeouts, walks and grounders. On the surface Hendricks might be able to bring all three of those.
Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide which includes more than 600 Players Ranked, auction values, .png)
rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well as all the info you need if you’re ready to start playing DFS.
STRIKEOUTS
As a minor leaguer Hendricks produced 7.7 strikeouts per nine innings. The mark was 8.5 in his final season in the minors when he was able to post that rate in 102.2 Triple-A innings in 2014. Last season the mark, with the Cubs, went up three full batters from his rookie season to 8.35. If we only had the overall minor league mark, and his 2015 Cubs’ rate, we could easily posit a K/9 rate of eight this coming season. However, we have more data that needs to be looked at. As a rookie his K/9 rate was 5.27. How in the heck did he add three full batters to his K/9 rate last season?
Did he generate more swinging strikes? Nope. The rate in his two big league seasons are 8.2 and 8.1 percent.
Did he throw more first pitch strikes? Nope. The rate in his two big league are 64.2 and 63.1 percent.
Huh.
Let’s look at some PITCHf/x data.
One area in which his K-rate improve dramatically was with his sinker. As a rookie his K-rate was 5.2 percent, a rate he tripled in his second season at 15.6 percent. Oddly, his swinging strikeout rate only moved by a tenth of a percent.
Growth was also seen with his changeup. After posting a 24.7 percent K-rate as a rookie his second year mark grew all the way to 35.4 percent. He also saw a dramatic increase in his strikeout rate on the pitching as his swinging strike mark went from 16.7 to 23.9 percent.
It’s pretty obvious why his rate went up last season, though without an accompanying swinging strike rate increase it seems likely that his 2016 strikeout ratio will be closer to his 7.40 career K/9 mark than the 8.35 rate he posted last season.
WALKS
Hendricks doesn’t beat himself. Love that.
As a minor leaguer he walked 1.6 batters per nine innings.
As a big leaguer he’s walked an average of 2.01 batters per nine innings.
That mark of 2.01, amongst pitchers who have thrown at least 250 innings the past two seasons, is 24th best in baseball.
He’s not going to issue more than a couple of free passes each time out which helps to limit the damage. A lack of walks also helps to keep his WHIP in check. Pretty sure you weren’t aware that he has a 1.14 WHIP the last two seasons or that, among hurlers with 250 innings pitched, that the mark is 20th best in baseball.
That will play.
GROUND BALLS
Hendricks gets grounders.
As rookie his ground ball rate was 47.8 percent.
Last season his ground ball rate was 51.3 percent.
The last two seasons have led to a 50.1 percent ground ball rate, a mark which is 22nd best in baseball (minimum 250 innings).
Given that he’s thrown his sinking fastball 66.1 percent of the time according to PITCHf/x data it’s no surprise he offers grounders in copious amounts.
All those grounders also help him to keep the homers in check. His HR/FB ratio is a league average 9.6 percent, but he only permits a fly ball rate of 29 percent leading to a HR/9 mark of 0.73. Don’t think that mark changes much in the coming season.
IS IMPROVEMENT COMING?
Hendricks posted a 2.46 ERA as a rookie but the mark swelled to 3.95 last season. What happened?
His K-rate went up.
His K/BB ratio went up.
His ground ball rate went up.
His GB/FB ratio went up.
So why did his ERA go up?
Looking squarely at you left on base percentage. After posting a too high to repeat mark of 78.5 percent as a rookie the marked dipped to 69.9 percent in his second season. I can buy the 72.5 percent career rate more than either of the two season marks.
Take a look at his SIERA (3.37) and x FIP (3.25) marks as well. Both numbers point to a guy who pitched better than his raw ERA would lead you to believe in 2015.
Two other measures that I’m fond of point to a likely ERA improvement in 2016. In the 2016 MLB Draft Guide I discussed two of my favorite measures, because I invented them. According to SWIP (K-BB / IP) and ABA (Total Bases + walks / IP), Hendricks pitched pretty darn well last season. According to SWIP Hendricks was the 22nd best performer in baseball last season while he came in 22nd in ABA.
The signs are all there for Hendricks.
OUTLOOK
Hendricks will not win the Cy Young Award. He will not “pull a Kluber.” However, he owns the skills to greatly outpace his relative value according to the way that the fantasy universe is valuing him at the draft 
table.
10-team Mixed: Without any strikeout upside you don’t want to go a reaching on Hendricks. Stable he is, and his ratios figure to be solid as well, so you won’t be harming yourself if you roster him.
12-team Mixed: A nice target in this format. He’s not sexy so he’s not going to gin up any draft day battle for his services. That means he’s a nice mid-round buy when folks are looking to fill out their rosters at nearly every position.
15-team Mixed: A prime target here for the stability his ratios offer. Strikeouts, walks and grounders. Youth. A strong offense to support him. He’s not a sexy name like Berrios or Glasnow, but that doesn’t mean he won’t end up being a much more valuable arm for you in 2016.
NL-Only: Hendricks has the talent, the role, and the opportunity to throw 200 solid innings for the Cubbies. With his ability to keep the ball in the yard, and to generate ground balls, he is one of those stable types that bring tons of reward given the moderate price paid on draft day.
To see where Hendricks 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).