2016 Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Nick Tropeano

Nick Tropeano is a nice talent, a 6’4”, 200 pound righty who has less than 65 innings of big league work under his belt. Right now he’s getting a chance to start for the Angels as he tries to prove to the club that he’s deserving of a starting spot all season long. We’ll take a look at his minor league work, what he has done in the majors and the skills he possesses before assessing the level of desirability he owns in the fantasy game.

THE MINORS

Tropeano has made 108 appearances in the minors, 96 of them starts, over five years.

2011 (Low-A): Went 3-2 with a 2.36 ERA and 1.18 WHIP over 12 starts. He struck out 63 batters over 53.1 innings.

2012 (Low, High-A): Trop went 12-7 with a 3.02 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and 166 punchouts over 158 innings

2013 (Double-A): 7-10, 4.11 ERA, 1.34 WHIP with 130 strikeouts over 133.2 innings.

2014 (Triple-A): 9-5, 3.03 ERA, 0.99 WHIP with 120 strikeouts over 124.2 innings

2015 (Rookie, Triple-A): 3-7, 4.64 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 102 strikeouts over 95 innings

TOTALS: 34-31, 3.49 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 9.3 K/9, 2.8 BB/9

THE MAJORS

2014: 1-3 with a 4.57 ERA over four starts

2015: 3-2 with a 3.82 ERA over eight outings (seven starts)

2016: 1-0, 5 shutout innings with six strikeouts

TOTALS: 5-5, 3.78 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 7.97 K/9, 2.94 BB/9 over 64.1 innings

THE SKILL SET

PITCHf/x data has Nick throwing his fastball at 90.6 mph. In his limited work at the big league level he’s thrown his fastball about 56 percent of the time (he throws his 2-seam fastball about 36 percent of the time, the 2-seamer being the pitch that moves more, usually in a downward direction often spinning to the pitcher’s arm side, in essence appearing to be a very hard thrown screwball). Essentially a three pitch hurler, Nick thrown the slider about 20 percent of the time and the changeup about 22 percent.

As noted above, he struck out a batter per inning in the minors and over his last 42.2 big league innings he’s punched out 44 batters. Clearly the strikeout isn’t a huge concern. He will bring a strong total to the table with his 11.1 percent swinging strike rate.

The free pass isn’t something that he’s great at limiting, but he’s also been at a perfectly acceptable level since becoming a pro with a rate of just about 2.9 per nine innings which puts him right on the league average. I’m not going to get all excited about a guy at level average levels but I’m also smart enough (I hope) to admit that if he can maintain his current 2.71 K/BB ratio that he could have lots of success.

What I’m about to say sounds a little counter intuitive. Though he’s allowed just two homers over 64.1 innings, I’m a little nervous. Why? For his young career Tropeano has a fly ball rate of 43 percent, well above the league average (34 percent). That’s a lot of fly balls to keep your home run rate down. How has he kept the ball in the yard? Check out that 2.4 percent HR/FB ratio that is about a quarter of the league average. Those numbers simply don’t jibe with one another. It’s extremely likely that Tropeano will see a relative explosion in his HR/9 rate that sits at 0.28 currently. He’s always shown an ability to throw his heavy fastball/slider combination and keep the ball in the yard, but he’s simply not going to keep his current pace. Even if the rate doubled in 2016 we’d still be talking about a mark that was about half the league average. Note two things. (1) Tropeano owns a 0.77 HR/9 mark in the minors which would support a tripling of his current big league mark, something I could see happening. (2) He does pitch in a park that should help as 2015 Park Factors show Angel Stadium of Anaheim as the 21^st best homer park for a batters and 7.9 percent below the league average.

On the plus side Tropeano hasn’t shown much of a split disadvantage at the big league level.

THE ANGELS ROTATION

When healthy it’s hard to see a spot for Tropeano in the rotation. Then again, the Angels aren’t healthy. Here’s what they have: Garrett Richards, Hector Santiago and Jered Weaver as the top three. After that the team can use Tropeano, Matt Shoemaker, Andrew Heaney, Tyler Skaggs and C.J. Wilson. Heaney is out for a while with a left flexor strain, but when healthy it would be a shock if he wasn’t in the rotation. That means Wilson, Shoemaker and Tropeano will all be battling for the 5^th spot in the rotation. As you can tell, Tropeano isn’t a lock to make 25-starts this season, even if he’s the most talented option they club has to work as their 5^th starter.

CONCLUSION

Tropeano is a nice talent who should bring with him the strikeout. There are questions about his ratios, especially his ERA if the homer rate rises as I assume it will, so that is a level of concern. There’s also the added fact that he might not be starting for this team in three weeks. Be careful not to drop a more established arm just for the “upside” of Trop, you still need a spot in the rotation to be a big-time fantasy performer.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).