Mat Latos is 28 years old. He’s still pretty young. He’s also been a pretty darn good hurler at times, particular from 2010-13 when he was one of the ascending righties in the game. The 6’6”m 245 lbs righty has fallen on hard times the last two seasons as he looks to rehabilitate his career with the White Sox. Off to a tremendous start, let’s take a look at the goods that Latos still possesses.

THE NUMBERS

 

W-L

ERA

WHIP

K/9

IP

2009

4-5

4.62

1.30

6.93

50.2

2010

14-10

2.92

1.08

9.21

184.2

2011

9-14

3.47

1.18

8.57

194.1

2012

14-4

3.48

1.16

7.95

209.1

2013

14-7

3.16

1.21

7.99

210.2

2014

5-5

3.25

1.15

6.51

102.1

2015

4-10

4.95

1.31

7.74

116.1

2016

3-0

0.49

0.60

5.40

18.1

Career

67-55

3.46

1.17

8.03

1086.2

THE SKILLS

Is health a skill? I don’t know for sure, but the more I follow this game the more I lean toward it being one. Let’s start out with the obvious – he hasn’t been able to take the bump with any consistency the past few seasons. Most of the time that Latos has missed the past few years relate to his troublesome knee. Ongoing issues with it have limited him to 218.2 innings the past two seasons, just barely more than he threw in his last full season of 2013 (210.2 innings). As I noted at the top he’s just 28 years old, but when you have two seasons wiped out by injury it’s hard to trust a guy. Simple really.

Let’s talk 2016.

Let’s look at his performance this preseason. Over three outings covering 13 innings, Latos had a 10.38 ERA, 2.23 WHIP and 1.50 K/9 mark. He was terrible, and he said so. "I've got to start stringing together pitches, there's no doubt about it," Latos said. "I throw no-hitters all day in the bullpen, but when you get out here and try to test things out, it's a lot different.”

So in three spring outings he was terrible. In three regular season outings he’s been – impressive. Latos has twirled 18.1 innings in his three outings leading to a 0.49 ERA and 0.60 WHIP. Wow is right. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In 2014 he was blah. In 2015 he was just average. In his first three starts this season he was terrible. In his last three outings he’s been impressive. Where’s the truth? Come on, you have to tilt toward worrisome if you’re being honest. There’s just too much going on here to say anything to the contrary.

Even with his success this season Latos has a mere 5.40 K/9 mark. That’s light years from his 8.03 career mark. Moreover, the last time Latos struck out eight batters per nine innings was in 2011. Latos has a career swinging strike rate of 10.2 percent. The last time he hit that mark was in 2013. The rate is a mere 5.6 through three starts this season. Note that he’s hitting a mere 90.3 mph according to PITCHf/x on his heater, 2.5 mph below his career mark and the lowest of his career. Without those miles per hour it’s unlikely that he will see a bump in his strikeout rate. Keep an eye on the velocity numbers.

At least Latos isn’t walking anyone. For his career he has walked 2.65 batters per nine innings. The last time he was over that rate was in 2012. The last three seasons he’s been under 2.50 per nine and he’s at it again with a 2.45 mark this season. Normal stuff here.

Latos currently has a 41.2 percent ground ball rate. His career rate is 43.4 percent.

At this point he hasn’t allowed a homer. That will change of course, but Latos has a lot of downward movement on his pitches which has helped him to keep his HR/9 rate low at 0.83 for his career. He pitches in a park that can lead to the homer, so keeping the ball around the knees is a good idea.

CONCLUSION

At one point Latos was the bee’s knees. He was consistent, successful and often times undervalued on draft day. However, that was years ago now.  

Let’s be honest here. Can I be? Hope it’s OK.

This year half of Latos’ start have been there, half have been a mess. Over the last two years he’s also been a mess. How can we extrapolate anything out of this mess? That’s a good question. Answer – we cannot with any certainty what his 2016 season will look like.

I can say this. Last year Latos had a 7.74 K/9 mark with a 2.48 BB/9 ratio. He also was the owner of a 1.38 GB/FB ratio. All of those marks, if repeated this season, would lead to a lot of success. We have no idea if he will be able to last a full season of starts, and we have no idea how his body will hold up even when he’s on the field. Will he be able to repeat his delivery? Will he struggle with his release point? Is his knee truly fixed? Will the velocity return on his fastball? There are just so many questions.

Some final thoughts.

1 – You can’t trust Latos to remain healthy.

2 – You cannot trust his early season success. Look beyond the ERA and WHIP and you will notice that even with the success there are still concerns.

3 – He pitches in the AL now and in a ballpark that can often favors the hitter.

You can add Latos in most scenarios. Note though that he’s far from certain to sustain any type of success this season, there’s just so much white noise. Don’t drop a slow starting arm like Justin Verlander or Michael Pineda for him, but if you took a plunge on a Wade Miley or Matt Cain type you can let er’ rip.

 

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).