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Nathan Eovaldi is taking the long-awaited step forward

Nathan Eovaldi is finally taking that step forward that everyone forecasted for him as a youngster. The Dodgers saw it when they offered him a big bonus out of high school, despite the fact that Eovalid was a late-rounder that had already undergone Tommy John surgery as an amateur. The Marlins saw it when they acquired him in exchange for the long-time centerpiece of their team, Hanley Ramirez. The Yankees saw the same enticing fastball-slider combo that the other two teams did, and so they pulled the trigger on landing him as well. Of course, in order for a team to acquire his services, that means that another team had to be willing to part with those services. Eovaldi has always had great stuff, yet he seems to be the player that teams seem to want much more than the team that currently owns him. Prospecting teams see the triple-digits fastball coupled with the manageable walk rate, and believe they can mold him into a frontline starter, because as the old saying goes, you just can’t teach velocity. However, the teams surrendering Eovaldi see a guy that is way too hittable and can’t seem to get swings-and-misses. This season, Eovaldi seems to finally be taking that leap into the realm of above-average starter, and the Yankees are fortunate that they were the ones standing with the golden ticket.


Yes, this would seem to be a conveniently timed post. Eovaldi had just finished holding the Rays to just one run over six brilliant innings, marking his fifth straight win in as many starts. But it’s more so the year-long process that validates his recent success that has me excited.

In 2015, his first season in pinstripes, Eovaldi set a new career-high, striking out 7.06 hitters per nine innings. However, that mark was only marginally better than his previous high of 6.60 K/9, and it was still rather uninspiring. However, Eovaldi has taken a much larger jump up this season, currently sitting at a promising 8.46 K/9 mark. He’s also trimmed his walk rate from 2.86 batters per nine innings in 2015 to a mere 2.26 this season. Striking out more hitters and walking fewer is a recipe for success, and that represents two of the three main tenets of FIP. The third one is limiting home runs, a skill in which Eovaldi has always excelled. With a career 0.67 home runs allowed per nine innings, and a mark of 0.58 in 2015, it’d appear that this category would be the easiest for Eovaldi to score a good mark in 2016, but he has actually struggled with the longball, allowing 1.04 home runs per nine. It’d appear that Eovaldi took two steps forward and one step back this season, which would still be good, but not quite as productive as three steps forward.

Year GB% HR/FB%
2014 44.8 6.6
2015 52.2 7.8
2016 54.3 13.7

However, looking at the groundball percentage column of this table, it appears that Eovaldi has actually taken a step forward in this category as well. After making a huge jump in worms killed last year, Eovaldi has improved again this season. The culprit in his lack of homer prevention is his high HR/FB rate, which has been known to show little correlation from year to year. As long as Eovaldi continues to pitch the same, and continues to get grounders, his HR/FB rate will drop, and along with it should go his HR allowed and ERA. Looking at the rest of his peripherals, every other aspect of his game has remained stable, which is a very promising sign moving forward. In other words, Eovaldi has improved in a few aspects this season, while he has regressed in none.

What does this mean for his outlook going forward? Well, barring any sudden regression in skill set, all of the signs are promising. No matter which statistic you like to use, the future looks bright — his DRA is sitting at a career-best 3.62, while his SIERA and xFIP are both sitting at career-bests of 3.43 and 3.36 respectively. His FIP is slightly higher, at 3.52, but only because of the home runs allowed, but as we discussed earlier, those should drop as well. All of the DIPS combine to express the notion that Eovaldi is probably now a true-talent 3.50 ERA pitcher, or perhaps even a little bit better. And that is remarkably valuable in the rugged AL East, where runs are scored more often than this author makes bad jokes.

In a Yankees season filled with more disappointments and meh moments than exciting ones, Eovaldi stands out as a bright spot. At the ripe age of 26, it’s possible that Eovaldi has turned the corner for good, and this is just the start of what will be many years of effectiveness that everyone had always seen coming.

 

Photo: Adam Hunger / USA Today Sports

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