Jack Flaherty has not been as advertised this so far this season. He entered the 2019 season as a strong SP2 option and was a favorite among many analysts. Unfortunately, it has not gone as planned. I am going to dive in and see if I can find cause for the lackluster start to year. Has anything changed in his approach this year? Was last year a fluke and this is really who he is? There is a lot to cover, so let’s get to it.
Breaking Down Jack Flaherty
CURRENT PRODUCTION
Jack Flaherty has had an uninspiring first half to say the least. He is 4-6 on the year with 107 K, an ERA of 4.64 and a WHIP of 1.23. The ERA indicators aren’t any better. Flaherty currently sports a FIP of .473, a xFIP of 4.07 and a SIERRA of 4.11. What has caused the step backward in production? Let’s keep diving.
ADVANCED STATS
I previously mentioned the FIP, xFIP, and SIERRA but these aren’t the only red flags.
The first thing I notice is the drop in K rate. Flaherty still has a good K rate at 26.4% but that’s down 3.2% from last year. His walk rate has improved to 7.9% which is above league average. So at least he has made improvement in a category. The BABIP is at .273. You would think that would come down but he does have a career BABIP of .269 so this may just stick where it’s at.
The HR/9 has jumped up to 1.86 as well as the home run-to-fly ball rate, or HR/FB, which is currently 20%. They go hand in hand and definitely explain some of the struggles we’re seeing with Jack Flahery. Other than the improved walk rate there has been little success elsewhere.
The chase rate has also slightly taken a hit as well from 2018. This also comes with an increased contact rate on pitches outside the zone. Not to mention the swinging strike rate has dropped to a career-worst 12.6%.
Ultimately, the lower chase rate and better contact on pitches outside the zone explain a lot of the issues with the dip swinging strike rate. This also explains the dip in strikeout rate as well.
I did mention the ugly HR/FB rate, well he isn’t doing himself any favors with the changes he’s made in the batted ball data. He is allowing career highs in LD% and FB%. These are sitting at 25.1% and 38.6%. Both of which have basically come from the GB%, which is a career-worst 38.6% at the moment.
He is inducing a career-best soft contact rate of 23.8%. However, this is also accompanied by a career-high hard-hit rate at 40%. It appears to be a little bit of all or nothing with Flaherty.
THE SPLITS
Jack Flaherty is flat out struggling vs lefties this year.
He’s faced 24 fewer left-handed batters and has allowed 3 more home runs on the year than vs righties. Lefties are currently slashing .260/.325/.491 with a wOBA of .341 against him. If you look at 2018 he dominated lefties in comparison.
In 2018 he only allowed lefties to hit .191/.300./310. So you’d think something has to give. Well unfortunately he showed some similar struggles in his brief stint in 2017 allowing lefties to hit .341/.413./.683.
So he has improved since 2017 obviously, but was last year too good to be true? Was he due for regression for this year? I think a little bit of both is the answer to these questions.
As if the lefty/ righty splits weren’t bad enough, the home/ road splits also send up some more of those red flags.
Jack Flaherty has really had issues on the road this season. His road ERA of 5.96 is exactly 2.5 runs worse than his home ERA of 3.48 as a matter of fact. In 2018 he was also worse on the road but by under a run. This is definitely due for regression and a lot of road ERA inflation is due to two big time blow up starts in Milwaukee for sure.
The first start at Milwaukee he had an 8.31 ERA and the second start he had a terrible 16.88 ERA. They’re not his only bad starts on the road but they’re two of his three worst road starts and have definitely caused inflation in the road numbers.
Lastly, Flaherty has also struggled more and more each time through the lineup.
He has just been plain bad that 3rd time through the lineup and there’s reason to believe he may not be given opportunities if he doesn’t get a handle on it and turn it around.
Jack Flaherty Pitch Mix
As you can clearly see, Jack Flaherty has changed his pitch mix a bit. He has increased the usage of the 4-Seam fastball while slightly reducing the usage of his best pitch in the slider and another pitch he’s had success with this season in the sinker. Here’s how his pitches have faired so far on the year.
It goes without saying that Flaherty has not faired well with his curveball this season. For some reason he’s thrown it the 3rd most of any pitch. Whereas in 2018, he threw the sinker the 3rd most of any pitch and the curveball the 4th most.
Let’s actually take a look at each pitch individually, shall we?
THE 4-SEAM FASTBALL
You’ve seen an increase in the usage of the fastball and there’s good reason for it.
The 26.1% chase rate and the an increase of swinging strike rate to 10.2% are likely a big reason for the increase usage. These are both career bests to this point and the pitch is proving to be more effective as a swing and miss pitch. There is an issue with the FB rate increase, but his fly ball increase is up as a whole and although his FB% is up for his 4-Seamer, his HR/FB is not.
THE SLIDER
Now this slider is Jack Flaherty’s bread and butter pitch. He has had continued success with the slider and it appears to have even improved in terms of chase rate and swinging strike rate so far on the year. Flaherty has also increased the ground ball rate to 42.9% as well while decreasing his FB% to 31.7%. Unfortunately his LD% on the slider is pretty rough at 25.4%. The HR/FB rate is also a ridiculous 35.5% and will all but certainly regress.
What doesn’t add up is the chase rate and swinging strike rate increase with a decrease in both the walk rate, which is at 5.4%, and the K rate, which is down 1.7% from last season and is sitting at 37.8%. This is still a great k rate but it should actually be better. This suggests maybe he’s leaving the sliders in the zone a bit more than he should.
It is still his money pitch and there’s no reason for the decline in usage this season. I actually expect results of the slider to improve going into the second half of the year.
THE CURVE
You never would’ve guessed by these numbers that the curve was one of his most effective pitches last year. It has taken a turn for the worse. He appears to lack feel for it as a whole. Flaherty cannot seem to get the chases or swinging strikes he was able to last year on it. Not to mention it is getting absolutely demolished this year. Part of the issue is the placement of the pitch.
Taking a look at 2018, he was able to place the pitch consistently out of the zone and it brought the k rates and swinging strike rates with it.
2019 has been a completely different story as you can see he’s leaving a lot of those curveballs hanging in the zone and the outcome has not been pretty. If he cannot find a feel for that curve he will continue to have struggles. It is curious as to why he continues to throw so many curve balls considering how bad of a pitch it’s been this year. What really makes no sense is why he increased the usage of this curve over the usage of the sinker that has been the better pitch this year.
THE SINKER AND CHANGEUP
In 2018, Jack Flaherty utilized the sinker the 3rd most among his pitches. The sinker has once again been a solid offering here in 2019 and with how mightily he’s struggled with the curve I don’t understand why he’s decided to change that approach.
The sinker has a higher swinging strike rate of swinging 8.3%. Which is up 1% exactly from last season. He induces a solid ground ball rate of 47.8%. That’s a bit lower than last season but still solid as a whole and although he’s allowing more fly balls on it this year, the HR/FB rate is exactly the same as last season at 14.3%.
I truly believe he’d be best served reverting back to a higher sinker usage and less curve usage going forward. At least until he gets that feel for the curveball back.
The changeup is rarely thrown as it is and there just isn’t enough data to break it down. It’s almost a non-factor with less than 4% usage most months.
OVERALL STATCAST DATA
Unfortunately, the statcast data isn’t offering much hope of that bounce back we are all rooting for.
As you can see, outside of the walk rate improvement, he has regressed across the board from last year and the regression lines up with the current production. He has an xBA of .243, xSLG of .420 and a xWOBA of .297. He’s allowing a career high hard hit rate of 35.8% and a career high barrel rate of 9.4%. The barrel rate has almost increased 50% from last year. The increase in both these metrics definitely explain the increase in average edit velocity of 87.3 MPH.
REST OF SEASON OUTLOOK
Jack Flaherty was not a fluke last year by any means, but I believe we are just in the middle of a sophomore slump and the league has adjusted him a bit. If he changes some of that pitch mix and some of that HR/FB regression takes place as it should, the metrics should adjust with it.
He has flashed plenty of upside and is still a solid player but expectations for this season should be tempered. He has the stuff to be a solid pitcher but right now I view him as a solid SP3 with high end SP2 upside.
Flaherty is currently behind names like Mike Clevinger, Caleb Smith and Matthew Boyd for me. Even names like Mike Minor and Lance Lynn have surpassed him for the time being. I’d be looking to buy low in dynasty formats without a doubt. I have Jack Flaherty pegged around a top 30-40 SP the rest of the way but with more upside than the other SP in that range.
Mike Kurland is a new contributor for FantraxHQ covering fantasy baseball. He began with Fantrax in June of 2019. He is also the creator and host of Bases Loaded Podcast which is a fantasy baseball podcast. Mike is new as a whole as a fantasy baseball analyst but he has really embraced it with open arms. Feel free to reach out to Mike on Twitter @Mike_Kurland with any of your fantasy baseball questions, he is always happy to answer them.
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