Matt Garza is good. He’s never been great, never really lived up to the early hype, but he’s working on one heck of a solid career. Alas, injuries have been a big bugaboo of late, nothing major for the most part, but issue after issue has limited his innings and eroded the faith that used to placed upon his shoulders in the fantasy community. Does all of this mean you should pay any attention to Garza on draft day?

THE MINORS

Taken in the first round of the 2005 Entry Draft by the Twins 25th overall. 

Before the 2007 season he was ranked as the 21st best prospect in baseball by Baseball America and 13th by Baseball Prospectus.

TOTALS: 23-15, 2.88 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 3.88 K/BB over 322.1 innings

THE MAJORS

2006: Appeared 10 times for the Twins going 3-6 with a 5.76 ERA and 1.70 WHIP.

2007: Made 15 starts going 5-7 with a 3.69 ERA and 1.54 WHIP. Spent time on the DL with an inflamed radial nerve in his elbow.

2008: Took the ball 30 times pitching 184.2 innings. Won 11 games with a 3.70 ERA and 1.24 WHIIP in his first season of true worth in his first year with the Rays.

2009: Went just 8-12 but had a 3.95 ERA, 1.26 WHIP and 8.38 K/9 mark over 203.2 innings. 

2010: Went to the hill enough to accrue a career best 204.2 innings. Won a career best 15 games with a 3.91 ERA and 1.25 WHIP.

2011: Dealt to the Cubs and won 10 games with a career best 3.32 ERA. Also had a 1.26 WHIP and career best 8.95 K/9 mark over 198 innings. Missed some time with an elbow contusion.

2012: Went 5-7 with a 3.91 ERA and 1.18 WHIP over 103.2 innings. Missed almost three months with a stress fracture in his elbow.

2013: Spent time with the Cubs and Brewers going 10-6 with a 3.82 ERA and 1.24 WHIP over 155.1 innings. Had a lat strain in his right shoulder that cost him two months.

2014: Made 27 starts covering 167.1 innings for the Brewers. Struck out just 6.94 batters per nine but still had a 3.64 ERA and 1.18 WHIP. Missed almost a month with an oblique strain.

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THE SKILLS

Matt Garza is only 31 years old. Did you know that? Bet you didn’t. 

I bet you know he was always hurt, or at least nicked up to the point that he is often missing time. Consider the following.

Garza threw at least 184 innings each year from 2008 to 2011.

Garza has two 200-inning seasons in his career. They were in 2009-10.

Garza has failed to reach 165 innings in any of the past three seasons. 

Those are facts, and they have to cause pause when the name of Garza is brought up. No way around that. His ill health also causes something to happen on draft day. His cost is often moderate to extremely low. According to Howard Bender’s Mock Draft Army ADP, Garza is being taken at spot 320 overall. That’s behind guys like Yusmiero Petit, Henderson Alvarez and CC Sabathia. I don’t know how you personally feel about those other three, but it’s pretty obvious that no one has much faith in Garza if he’s being grouped with those guys (if you’re interested in Henderson Alvarez check out his Player Profile).

That’s the downside. Now the plus side.

Even with injury, or should I say despite the injuries, he’s still been extremely consistent. 

ERA

From 2007 through 2014 Garza never had an ERA in the 4’s.
From 2007-10 his ERA was between 3.69 and 3.95.
From 2007-14 his ERA has been between 3.32 and 3.95.
Over those eight seasons, his ERA has been between 3.64 and 3.95 seven times.
The league average last year was 3.74, just below Garza’s 3.81 career mark.
Garza is consistently average-ish. 

WHIP

As remarkable as his ERA consistency has been, the same can be said about his WHIP. Truly remarkable really.

From 2008-14 his WHIP has never been higher than 1.26.
From 2008-14 his WHIP has never been lower than 1.18.
That’s 7-straight years with a WHIP between 1.18 and 1.26. Remarkable.

There are only two men who have had a WHIP under 1.26 each of the past seven years. They are Hiroki Kuroda and Mr. Garza.

Simply put, there isn’t a more consistent ratio producer in baseball. Look all you want, you won’t find one. Now the issue is that the ratios Garza posts are merely league average stuff, so it’s not like you should push his ADP up 180 spots from where it currently is. Still, some props have to be given to Garza because of that consistency, does it not? 

Want some more consistency? Check out his walk rate. Over the past five seasons his BB/9 rate has been between 2.43 and 2.86. 

Unfortunately, the consistency doesn’t bleed into his strikeout rate. In 2011 Garza posted a career best 8.95 K/9 mark. Then it dipped to 8.33 in ‘12, the third best mark of his career. In 2013 he took another step back to 7.88 per nine. That’s fine though given that his career mark is 7.54. Unfortunately he took a big hit in ’14 dropping down to 6.94 per nine. What happened?

His velocity was only down half a mile per hour. 

He threw his fastball two percent more than his career mark. 

He threw his changeup less than ever before but his other three pitches were pretty much at their normal levels. His K-rate is only 7.3 percent for his career on the offspeed pitch – compared to 12.5 percent for his heater and 43.4 percent when he throws his slider – so he didn’t miss the changeup. 

It’s the slider that is the key. For his career batters have hit .177 off the pitch. Even last year with the arm issues he held batters to a career best .123 on the pitch. With a .420 OPS. That’s sick. 

Garza had a 20.7 percent line drive rate last season. His career mark is 19.8 percent. Totally reasonable.
Garza had a 1.20 GB/FB ratio last season. His career mark is 1.07. Totally reasonable.
His 8.9 swinging strike percentage was a dead on match for his career rate.
His 64.4 first pitch strike percentage was the best of his career. 

The real issue seems to be a lack of pinpoint control. Last season he threw 47.5 percent of his pitches inside the strike zone according to Pitchf/x data. That’s the lowest mark he’s had in five seasons. Batters also had a 90 percent contact rate when swinging at pitches thrown inside the strike zone. That was the worst mark in six seasons.

Add all that data up and it’s certainly possible, with health, that Garza pushes his K-rate back up to his career level in 2015.

PLAYING TIME CONSIDERATIONS

With Yovani Gallardo no longer part of the program after being dealt to Texas, this is the look of the Brewers rotation to start the 2015 season: Kyle Lohse, Matt Garza, Wily Peralta, Mike Fiers and Jimmy Nelson (for more on Fiers here is his Player Profile). Garza is locked into the rotation. Duh.

CONCLUSION

Garza is remarkably consistent on the bump. Unfortunately he’s only slightly better than a league average arm at this point of his career. Still, the wily veteran is capable of solid work every five days, and at least in my eyes, I give his year-to-year consistency enough credit that Garza might end up as a late addition to a few of my clubs in 2015. 

10 team lg: No need to pay him any mind here. He’s nothing but a streaming option in a league that is this shallow. 

12 team lg: I will take the plunge very late on Garza, like the last starter on my staff kinda stuff. He falls in that range of place holder types – guys you could use anywhere from 10-25 times over the course of the year depending on how your team is holding up on the bump.

15 team lg: A nice late round target. Others will go ga-ga over rookies or be looking at players that overperformed like Danny Duffy (Player Profile). I’ll roster Garza on the cheap as like a 6th starter, and if doesn’t go well I’m not going to be out a large draft day cost.

NL-only: Garza is likely to be cheap, and as we noted above the 31 year old is very stable. I’ll take that as a depth arm in this setup. If you set your expectations at 140 innings, and he gives you 180, you will likely be a happy person.