Player Profile: Dallas Keuchel, Is a Repeat Possible?

I doubted Dallas Keuchel heading into the 2015 season. Do I doubt him again heading into the 2016 campaign? Read on to find out.

Dallas Keuchel won the AL Cy Young Award in 2015. He led the circuit in innings pitched (232), WHIP (1.02), ground ball rate (61.7 percent) and wins (20) and was second with a 2.48 ERA. He also posted a career-best 8.38 K/9 mark and 1.98 BB/9. It was a phenomenal season from any angle. He owns that. Let’s now analyze what it means moving forward.

ERA

Keuchel hurled 493 innings at the minor league level through the 2013 season. In that time he posted a blah 3.74 ERA. Over his first two efforts in the big leagues in 2012-13, comprising of 239 total innings, his ERA was 5.20. That means his ERA over his first 732 professional innings was 4.23. That’s well below the level that would interest anyone. Yet despite that track record, and less than dominating stuff on the radar gun, Keuchel posted an ERA of 2.93 in 2014. Huh? Couldn’t possibly repeat that, could he? Well guess what? He improved upon it with a 2.48 mark in 2015. Those two efforts led to a two-year ERA of just 2.69 which was fifth-best in baseball in that span (Clayton Kershaw 1.96, Jake Arrieta 2.08, Zack Greinke 2.16 and Jacob deGrom 2.61). But now a couple of measurements we use to talk about ERA (mentioned elsewhere in this Guide in Beyond ERA: DIPS, FIP, xFIP & SIERA) such as FIP, xFIP and SIERA need to be investigated. How did Keuchel do the last two years in those three categories? Did he “deserve” the ERA he posted? Here are the numbers from 2014-15:

2.69 ERA

3.05 FIP

2.96 xFIP

2.96 SIERA

So yes, the number that Keuchel produced the last two years was earned, at least in terms of his ERA. At the same time, all three measures suggest that another run at a sub-3.00 ERA is no lock for the lefty from Houston.

WHIP

Let’s do here what we did with ERA.

Over 493 minor league innings Dallas’ WHIP was 1.23.

From 2012-13 his big league WHIP was 1.54.

In 2014 the mark was 1.18.

In 2015 the mark was 1.02.

So Keuchel was solid in the minors, hideous in his first two big-league seasons, impressive in his third and elite in his fourth campaign. Below I’ll try to explain why the drastic change occurred. Let’s just say he doesn’t beat himself anymore.

K/9 RATE

Of all the issues that can be brought up against Keuchel being an elite arm, this is the biggest one. Through 67 big-league outings spanning 439 innings Keuchel had a K/9 rate of just 6.29. In 2015 that number was two full batters higher at 8.38 per nine. Guys just don’t do that, no matter how talented they are. Don’t forget that his K/9 rate in the minors was a mere 5.90. The bottom line is that for six professional seasons Keuchel didn’t strike anyone out. What changed in 2015 to allow him to drastically jack up his strikeout punch?

The first thing he did was stop throwing his curveball. In fact, the last two seasons he’s hasn’t thrown the pitch after using it about 10-percent of the time in his first two campaigns. Of course, he didn’t jack up that K-rate in 2014 by cutting out the curveball so there has to be more to it.

I’ll speak to his fastball below in the walk column, but note one change he’s made with that pitch. Over the first three seasons of his career he “grooved” his 4-seam fastball about six-percent of the time. Last season that number was roughly half of that. He simply didn’t leave the fastball out over the plate.

Let’s examine the breakdown of his pitches a bit deeper. Prior to last season here are his pitch usage marks in certain situations.

2012-14

Here is how things changed in 2015

• The above tables are from Brooksbaseball.

We just found it. Keuchel cut back on his 4-seam fastball in an extreme way when he was ahead in the count in 2015. He threw his slider at the same rate as always, but traded in his 4-seam fastball for the sinker and as a result his strikeout rate took off. Let’s look at the sinker a bit closer.

From 2012-2014 the sinker resulted in a swinging strikeout rate of 11.9 percent. Last year that mark was 15.4 percent. It may not seem like much but that’s close to a 30-percent increase which is significant. Moreover, here are the slash line results of the pitch for our two data segments.

2012-2014: .265 AVG, .363 SLG and .097 ISO

2015: .235 AVG, .311 SLG and .076 ISO

ISO = Isolated Power

He simply refined the pitch and used it to great effect. I’m still skeptical of his ability to maintain his overall K-rate, as should you, but it would seem that he has a better chance this season to be closer to his 2015 mark than the level we expected from him through his 2014 campaign.

BB/9 RATE

Keuchel has also done something remarkable that you will rarely see (other than the massive strikeout increase). He’s cut his walk rate for three-straight years while halving his initial mark. Here is the data.

2012: 4.11 per nine

2013: 3.05 per nine

2014: 2.16 per nine

2015: 1.98 per nine

How does a guy cut his walk rate in half? He really improved, dramatically, with his 2-seam fastball. Here is how his walk rate dropped each of the last three years on the 2-seamer.

2012: 14.7 percent

2013: 13.4 percent

2014: 7.5 percent

2015: 7.3 percent

He mirrored that growth with his 4-seam fastball as well.

2012: 11.4 percent

2013: 5.4 percent

2014: 6.9 percent

2015: 6.4 percent

Facts are facts, and the way it is now Keuchel just doesn’t miss with his fastball anymore. As a result he rarely walks anyone.

GROUND BALL RATE

In 2014 Keuchel had a 63.5 percent ground ball rate. That led baseball.

In 2015 Keuchel had a 61.7 percent ground ball rate. That didn’t lead baseball as Brett Anderson was first at 66.3 percent, but Keuchel did lead the AL.

No pitcher in baseball has a ground ball rate over 60 percent the last two seasons other than Keuchel at 62.6 percent. There is no one better at generating grounders.

I doubted he would repeat his 2014 mark heading into the 2015 season. He didn’t, but he was just barely off. Facts are facts and after two years of doing it I’m going to have to say that it seems possible that Keuchel just might be the best ground-ball arm in the game. Repeating a 60-percent rate in three-straight seasons rarely happens, but perhaps DK has the “goods” to do just that. Perhaps. Understand that 60-percent is a significant number. Here are the league leaders the past few years.

2005: Brandon Webb (65.0), Derek Lowe (63.1), Jake Westbrook (61.7), Mark Mulder (60.5)

2006: Derek Lowe (67.0), Brandon Webb (66.3), Chien-Ming Wang (62.8), Jake Westbrook (60.8)

2007: Derek Lowe (65.0), Robert Hernandez (64.3), Tim Hudson (62.0), Brandon Webb (61.8), Felix Hernandez (60.8)

2008: Brandon Webb (64.2), Derek Lowe (60.3)

2009: Joel Pinero (60.5)

2010: Tim Hudson (64.0)

2011: zero

2012: Trevor Cahill (61.2)

2013: zero

As you can see, guys rarely hit 60-percent with the old ground ball rate and they hardly ever repeat at that level (only two men have hit the number three years in a row since 2005: both Derek Lowe and Brandon Webb each did it over four-straight seasons). Should we just say that Dallas has done it two years in a row so he’s a lock to do it a third time? I’m of the opinion that, well you know, caution is needed.

CONCLUSION

The truth is, Dallas Keuchel has been, more or less, the same hurler for two-straight seasons. The only massive leap forward he offered in 2015 was a huge uptick in his strikeout rate. The jump was so significant that I’m far from sold that his 2015 level is the “new” Keuchel. At the same time, even if he gives back half those gains, a sub three ERA with a WHIP in the low one’s is possible. I’m a bit reluctant to give a 100-percent endorsement of his skills, but after two seasons of impressive work it’s not fair to doubt him. If rostering Keuchel, I would feel much better if he was an SP2 as opposed to your ace, even if that isn’t reasonable given how folks will view him heading to drafts. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see across-the-board regression in wins, ERA, WHIP and strikeouts from him in 2016. Again, I’m not predicting any kind of flame-out here, but just realize that the 2015 effort of Keuchel was as good as it gets, so don’t pay/draft him expecting a full repeat.