2016 Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Luis Severino

Luis Severino is a 22 year old who was born in the Dominican Republic. Standing 6’2”, and weighing in at about 210 lbs, the righty has a heavy fastball that allowed him to shred the minor league competition. He had immediate success last year with the Yankees, and though he’s had a hiccup early this season there are still plenty of reasons to like the arm of the righty of the Yankees.

THE MINOR LEAGUE NUMBERS

Entering last season Severino was ranked as the 35^th best prospect in baseball according to Baseball America. He was ranked 51^st at Baseball Prospectus and 23^rd at MLB.com.

 *DOSL – Dominican Summer League

Those are some utterly dominating numbers.

THE MAJOR LEAGUE NUMBERS

THE SKILLS
 

Let’s talk about his fastball. Over the course of his 15 big league starts Severino has thrown his fastball an average of 95.3 mph according to PITCHf/x. Since the start of the season, amongst guys who have thrown 15 innings, Severino is 6^th in baseball with a 95.6 mph mark on his fastball.

At this point of his big league career, here’s how things have gone with the fastball.

Let’s talk about his slider. PITCHf/x shows his slider this season to be coming in at 89.6 mph, six tenths more than last season. Since the start of the season, amongst guys who have thrown 15 innings, Severino is 2^nd in baseball with a 89.6 mph mark on his slider. The only man who has thrown his slider harder is Noah Syndergaard, and I wrote about the dangers of that Tuesday.

At this point of his big league career, here’s how things have gone with the slider.

The point is that Severino throws hard, and his fastball/slider combo, in terms of velocity, has only been bettered by one man in baseball – Syndergaard. If that was the only data point you had with Severino, how could you not be excited?

Severino has also been able to effectively spot his changeup which he doesn’t throw frequently (13 percent of the time).

Let’s talk the batted ball.

For his career Severino has a .311 BABIP. That’s right in the normal range. This year the mark is .417. It will drop as the innings pile up, likely back down to his career level with enough frames. I mean, come on. After posting a 20.0 percent line drive rate, a league average mark as a rookie, that mark has soared to 33.8 percent after the beating he took in his last outing. That ain’t gonna continue. #SampleSizeFunnyBusiness

The guy, on the plus side, doesn’t give up fly balls. Last year the fly ball rate was 29.2 percent, and this year it’s even lower at 14.9 percent giving Severino a career mark of 25.3 percent. That’s so low it’s hard to completely buy into it, but if he can maintain that, wow. Note that he’s allowed 1.21 homers per nine innings at this point of his career. How can that possibly continue if he never gives up the fly ball? There’s little reason to believe that his 17.5 percent HR/FB ratio will continue unabated. I base that on the league average of 10 percent, and the fact that during his minor league career his HR/FB ratio was about five percent.

Let’s talk grounders. Last year his ground ball rate was 50.3 percent. This year the mark is 51.4 percent. That leaves him with a career mark of 50.6 percent. That’s an excellent mark that was attained by only 21 men who qualified for the ERA title last season. Those grounders are key when you consider that he pitches in a home park that can lead to a few big flies.

Severino struck out more than a batter per inning as a minor leaguer. As a rookie with the Yankees he posted a strong 8.09 mark. This season the mark has plummeted down to 5.49 per nine. There nothing in his background to suggest that the mark shouldn’t increase, significantly, as the season moves forward. Note that his current swinging strike rate is 7.8 percent after a mark of 9.6 percent last season. Keep an eye on this measure.

Severino barely walked two batters per nine innings as a minor leaguer. Though the mark went up to 3.18 batters per nine last season it might surprise you to learn that his walk rate has crashed this season down to 1.37 per nine this season, even with all the struggles. In total he has a 2.74 BB/9 rate that is slightly below the league average. He should be able to sustain his career mark moving forward.

CONCLUSION

I say/write it all the time. I want strikeouts, grounders and no walks. Though the strikeouts are down a bit this season, Severino still profiles exceptionally well in all three of these measures. This is a profile that you want to own. Doesn’t mean things will turn around in his next start, but eventually they will. One would think that he has a relatively long leash with the Yanks, so he should be given a chance to work through this slow start. He’s a really nice talent.

In a 10-team league you can move on. Hard to roster strugglers when there is so much talent available on waivers.

In a 12-team league I would hold if I owned Severino. You can do the Jose Berrios, Sean Manaea, Michael Fulmer route if you want, and if you did that it could certainly work out, but note that Severino is a talent on par with those arms and that he is the only one with big league experience.

In a 15-team league I wouldn’t be a bailing on talent like this. Depends on the particulars of the club, but hold if you can.

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).