Player Profile: Danny Salazar, Ready for Stardom?

When you take a class on writing, they tell you that, in order to grab the attention of your reader, you need to shake them up in some way with the first sentence you write. You want to titillate the reader with something that elicits a meaningful response. Let’s see if I can do that here. I’ll use a few sentences, and hopefully the statements will draw you in to carefully read the rest of this piece.

Danny Salazar had a better ERA than Carlos Carrasco in 2015 (3.45 to 3.63). Salazar had a better WHIP than Chris Archer in 2015 (1.13 to 1.14). Salazar had a better K/9 rate than Jake Arrieta in 2015 (9.49 to 9.28). Salazar had a better BB/9 rate than Sonny Gray in 2015 (2.58 to 2.55). His talent is immense and he could be even better than the numbers he posted last season. One of those men won the NL Cy Young Award, another was third in AL Cy Young voting and another was second in the AL in strikeouts while the other was fifth in baseball in K/9.

How am I doing? Your attention grabbed? If it’s not, you must be (A) drunk, (B) high, (C) a football fan, (D) a Jeff Mans fan or (E) you just hate the truth. I’m looking right at you Alex Rodriguez.

So with that, let’s delve into the outlook of Danny Salazar for 2016.

Danny Salazar was locked into the Indians’ starting rotation last spring until he wasn’t. He was actually demoted to the minors on March 27 after he went 1-2 with an 8.18 ERA and 14 hits allowed over 11 innings in camp. Salazar was therefore dropped down many draft boards, including my own, because it appeared that the Indians had mistakenly given up on a guy who deserved more of an opportunity. You gotta have a spot in the rotation to produce, and until a few months ago it didn’t seem like the Indians trusted Salazar. However, Salazar made a mere single start in the minors before being recalled on April 18. He shouldn’t make another minor league start for the duration of his career unless he’s rehabbing an injury.

STRIKEOUTS

Salazar can dominate with the strikeout ball. Last season 9.49 K/9 was the lowest of his professional career. That mark was only slightly below his 9.86 career mark, by the way. He’s a strikeout per inning arm – period. Don’t really need to say more now, do I?

WALKS

Here is where Salazar is way better than the average fan realizes. Most think Salazar walks too many people. He doesn’t. He throws too many pitches at times, and I’ll get to that in a second, but let’s focus on the walks first. Over three major league seasons, Salazar owns a 2.67 BB/9 rate. Since 2013 that rate is better than Jake Odorizzi (2.77), Justin Verlander (2.78), Sonny Gray (2.80), Michael Wacha (2.80), Garret Richards (2.95), Chris Archer (2.96) etc. (minimum 345 innings pitched). The league average since Salazar began his career is 2.95 per nine. Yep, better than the league-average is the seemingly “wild” Salazar.

As for pitches thrown, Salazar does often lose the strike zone. That’s true. When he does, he racks up pitches and has a hard time going deep into games. Let’s take a look at last season which might not be what you were expecting. Salazar made 30 starts and threw 185 innings in 2015, an average of 6.17 innings a start. Here’s the breakdown.

7+ innings: 12

6-7 innings: 8

5-6 innings: 4

Fewer than 5 innings: 6

Before you judge him too harshly, realize that Salazar’s teammate, Carlos Carrasco, made 30 starts last season and lasted just 183 2/3 innings. That’s the same amount of starts but four less outs than Salazar. Why does no one worry about Carrasco’s volume of pitches hurting his ability to go deep into games? Exactly.

Of more concern for Salazar than the walks is the fact that the Indians often chose to pull the righty from the game before his pitch total climbs. Or do they? In 30 starts last season Salazar threw at least 100 pitches times 20 times, fully two-thirds of his outings (Carrasco hit triple-digits just 17 times).

So, in closing this section two key points stand out.

1. Salazar dos not walk as many batters as you think he does.
2. Salazar throws more pitches per outing than you think he does.

BATTED BALLS

Let’s work through Salazar’s performance, category by category.

BABIP – As a rookie the number was .298. That sounds about right, given his skills. In his second season, the mark swelled to .343. That doesn’t sound right. Last year the number was .278. Add it all up and Salazar is at .302 for his career, nearly smack dab on the league average. 

Line drive rate – This mark is 21.2 percent for his career. A bit high, but it works. The good news is that after back-to-back seasons with a mark over 23 percent, things normalized last year to the tune of an 18.7 percent line drive rate.

Ground ball – Exciting improvement here. Salazar went from identical 34.4 percent ground ball rates in 2013 and 2014 to a much more palatable 43.9 percent mark in 2015. Hold on to that mark Salazar, hold on.

Fly ball – Obviously his fly ball rate receded as his ground ball rate has grown. The first two seasons of his career Salazar was the owner of a 39.8 and 42.2 fly ball rate. Last season that number dropped to 37.4 percent.

HR/FB – Salazar has long had issues with homers. When he makes mistakes he often leaves them out over the plate and they get hit deep. In each of his three seasons Salazar has had a HR/FB ratio between 10.0 and 13.7 percent. In 2015 the number was 12.4, just above his 11.7 career rate. Last season he posted a 1.12 HR/9 mark, an exact match for his career rate.

PITCH USAGE

*According to PITCHf/x

As can be seen from the table, there was a pretty big shift last season for Salazar. He cut his fastball usage significantly. He also ramped up the 2-seam fastball, meaning he really cut down the 4-seamer by a ton. What is a 2-seam fastball? A 2-seamer move a bit more left/right versus the 4-seamer that goes up and down in a truer path. You get more movement when throwing a 2-seamer. The 2-seamer is the pitch that looks like a screwball, the one a righty starts out off the plate to a righty but then leaks back over the corner of the plate for a strike. Batters hit .269 off the 2-seamer with a .790 OPS, a pretty strong rate actually, and that 25.0 HR/FB ratio is awful. Obviously Salazar needs to refine his usage of the pitch. As he learns to refine the 2-seamer, he could take off.

A better pitch for Salazar was the changeup. He used it well last season and has continued to refine the pitch. As a rookie, batters posted a .522 OPS. In his second season the mark dropped to .513. Last season it fell even further to a sick .411. Of the 187 at-bats that ended on the changeup last season, batters had a .235 SLG with two homers hit. In fact, according to PITCHf/x data his wCH – Changeup Runs Above Average – was the third best in baseball (Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels). It’s a dominating pitch.

CONCLUSION

Look, I get it. Salazar can look awful if you catch him on the wrong night. He can struggle to go deep into a game and can maddeningly throw pitch after pitch with seemingly no end in sight. Alas, those outings are more infrequent than you think. The guy is a strikeout machine, and as he learns to lean more heavily on his off-speed stuff, it’s conceivable that he will get even better. He strikes out a batter per inning, doesn’t walk as many batters as most think, and really needs to harness just two things to move into the stratosphere of fantasy hurlers -- (1) Consistency. He showed more of that last season as a good start. (2) The ability to throw 200-innings. The 26 year old hurler threw a career-best 191 innings last season, but only 20 1/3 innings more than his 2014 total which indicates that a step to that 200-inning threshold is certainly doable in 2016. Danny Salazar will be part of many a championship winning team this season.