One of the things that most every sports fan knows -- along with the fact that Mike Gundy was once a man because he was 40 and Allen Iverson thought we should all loosen up because, after all, it was just practice -- is that the Chicago Bears were who Dennis Green’s Arizona Cardinals thought they were.
Green’s tirade, in the moments after a Monday Night Football meltdown against the Bears in 2006, has lived on because of his actions and the delivery of the “they are who we thought they were” line. But I also inevitably come back to it at some point every baseball season as well, hearing it play in my mind when looking at a player’s numbers at season’s end.
Most players are, at the end of the day, who we think they are. The baseball term is, you are what the back of your baseball card says you are. With few exceptions, baseball players are remarkably consistent. [[ad:athena]]
There do exist exceptions, though. Every year, a handful of players make and keep notable gains in their abilities. It’s too early to say definitively which players have made real changes and which are masquerading as such, but with two starts under their belt we can at least examine what we’ve seen in some of the best and worst beginnings to the season.
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Luis Castillo
After a tale of two halves in 2018 -- Castillo endured a nightmare first half before righting the ship around midseason -- Castillo has picked up where he left off last fall, turning in two terrific starts. The big driver behind that seems to be his changeup, which he’s throwing 30 percent of the time and which has been one of the most valuable pitches for any starter in the majors this year. He’s striking out more than one-third of his batters faced so far, and even though walks have been an issue in his two starts, the past performance, pedigree and underlying metrics suggest there’s not a whole lot fluky about this start.
Aaron Nola
Nola’s numbers paint a clear picture: Through two starts, he doesn’t seem to know where the ball is going, and knowing that, batters have laid off and forced him to find the zone. Anecdotally, Nola was the victim of a small strike zone on Opening Day, and he was still effective despite being squeezed a bit, so it’s really just one poor outing that’s driving his ugly numbers. Considering that it was the first time he’d allowed more than four runs since September 2, 2017, the 25-year-old gets some leeway here.
Matthew Boyd
Boyd first caught people’s attention when he struck out 23 in 25 2/3 innings in spring before the 2017 season. That didn’t bear a lot of success once the real games began, but it showed his ability and his 27.5 percent strikeout percentage last September lent credence to the idea he may be putting it together. Through two starts Boyd has been even better, refining his pitch mix -- he’s ditched his sinker and committed to throwing his four-seamer more to complement his slider and curveball -- to help him strike out an obscene 18.26 batters per nine innings. That, of course, won’t last, but there are plenty of reasons to believe this could be the beginning of a breakout year for the 28-year-old southpaw.
Zack Greinke
Greinke likes to have fun with the media with regards to his velocity, but the fact is, when it’s down and he’s getting shelled like he did in his first start of the year, people begin to worry. It was a bad one, too -- the 35-year-old served up four homers in 3 2/3 innings. Greinke was markedly better in his second start, though, striking out 10 without issuing a walk, and if there’s a pitcher who can make it work with diminished velocity it’s the cerebral Greinke. He picked a bad time to have probably his worst start of the year, but that homer-prone first start against the Dodgers will likely look like an outlier at season’s end. Greinke should be fine.
Matt Shoemaker
The thing about early statistics is that even when they scream for obvious regression, there’s still sometimes room enough for both regression and maintaining respectable numbers. Such is the case with Shoemaker, who will not, sadly, continue to strand 100 percent of his baserunners while limiting opponents to a .138 BABIP. Even so, little else about his profile suggests he’s going to fall off a cliff; on the contrary, he’s back to doing what he did so well in the past when he had success, throwing his terrific splitter one-third of the time with great results. Health has been Shoemaker’s downfall in recent years, and even though the environment and surroundings in Toronto aren’t ideal -- especially if the Jays continue to shed talent -- the 32-year-old’s fast start seems rooted in sustainable skills.
Nathan Eovaldi
Little has gone right for last October’s postseason hero. There’s very little discernible difference from last fall in terms of pitch selection and velocity, but the results couldn’t be more opposite. According to Statcast, the right-hander is living in the strike zone less than 50 percent of the time, but hitters aren’t chasing like they have in the past. What’s more, when they do chase, they’re making contact at a much higher rate than they have historically, and batters are barreling the ball 13.9 percent of the time. Put simply, when guys are swinging, they’re hitting it, often hard. That’s not going to work in Eovaldi’s home park, especially because a lot of the belief in Eovaldi this year was factoring in the step forward he took in generating swinging strikes last year. It’s cause for early concern.
Jordan Zimmermann
Zimmermann is one of the more difficult cases to crack after the first few weeks. One one hand, he’s made real adjustments to his game, throwing his good slider almost 40 percent of the time after pitchers like Patrick Corbin have had success in recent years going heavier with the breaking ball. On the other, the 32-year-old has years of mediocrity to his credit and has still relied on some smoke and mirrors -- a .184 BABIP, 87.5 percent of baserunners stranded, no homers allowed -- to turn in a 0.66 ERA and 0.59 WHIP through 13 2/3 innings. Without a strong strikeout arsenal to prop him up when those numbers regress, it’s hard to see Zimmermann retaining mixed league value all year. This may end up being his best year with the Tigers, but Zimmermann’s best is still just OK these days.
