2017 Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Robbie Ray

Robbie Ray

25 years old

Bats/Throws: L/L

Height/Weight: 6’2”, 200 lbs

Position: Starting Pitcher

THE NUMBERS

THE SKILLS
 

Just like with Michael Pineda (Player Profile), Ray has one obvious flaw that he must overcome to reach the next level. He flat out stinks when he falls behind in the count, largely because he really can’t locate his slider. It’s a good pitch when an at-bat ends on the pitch, batters have a .671 OPS against it in his career, but the fact is that he only threw it for strikes last season 32.6 percent of the time. That was the 9th fewest pitches in the strike zone on a breaking pitch, by percentage, for an ERA qualifier in 2016. Fact is the slider was only useful when he was ahead in the count because it’s never really in the strike zone. The result is that batters just sit on the fastball knowing that if throws the slider early in the count that it won’t go over the plate. Here is how Ray faired last season based on the count (listed by OPS).

Even simpler.

When Ray fell behind batters have a 1.040 OPS. The league average on 1-0 counts forward in 2016 was .975, so Ray was slightly worse at 1.069.

When Ray got ahead 0-1 that OPS was just .484. The league average in 2016 when the pitcher was ahead 0-1 was .834, so Ray was vastly superior.

Pretty simple really. If he falls behind he’s exceedingly beatable, but when he’s ahead in the count he’s murder on the men with twigs in their hands.

The falling behind in the count has also led to a 3.57 BB/9 rate, a mark he totally has earned. Check out the mark he posted in his three big league seasons: 3.45, 3.45 and 3.67. Same guy every year. Distressingly, his first pitch strikeout mark last season was 55.7 percent, five full points below the mark he had in 2015. The league average last season was 60.3 percent by the way. As we established above, when he fell behind lots of problems occurred. The league average last season was under 3.20 walks per nine, so it’s pretty easy to see that he’s struggled to limit the free passes. Simply too many walks for Ray, and until he does a better job in this measure the next step in his development could remain out of reach.

Ray, who has a fantastic name by the way, has done something rather interesting in terms of the batted ball data. Check out the numbers from his three big league seasons.

That’s some seriously positive production showing the growth we all want to see. A 1.40 GB/FB ratio is a mark that would make any owner happy. It’s also hard not to be a fan of the positive growth the last two seasons.

Let’s talk homers.

Ray has an 11.8 percent HR/FB ratio for his career. That’s slightly elevated. The mark was way high last season at 15.5 percent. I would except some regression there. In fact, if you normalize things out with Ray guess what you find... it’s a guy who posted an xFIP of 3.45 last season. Moreover, his SIERA was 3.59 and his FIP was 3.76. Those are numbers that dwarf the actual 4.90 ERA he posted last season. Truth is, he did pitch better than his ERA last season suggested.

So, we’ve got diminishing liners, growing grounders, and a likely regression in homer rate to like. You might be asking yourself though, what about the strikeouts? Let’s get to those now.

Some swinging strike data.

In 2016 the big-league average was 10.1 percent.

In 2016 Ray posted a mark of 11.6 percent.

For his career Ray owns a 10.1 percent mark.

Ray has 356 strikeouts over 330.2 innings in his career, a K/9 rate of 9.69 for his career. Last season he struck out 218 batters over 174.1 innings (he threw 169.1 in 2015 in the minors with 176 strikeouts). The result of that effort last season was an 11.25 K/9 rate. As you can see from the following list, that mark was the 21st best in baseball history. Let me repeat. Ray is coming of the 21st best K/9 season in big league history. Let me be clear here. (1) There is no way Ray is repeating that 11.25 K/9 mark. (2) As a minor leaguer the mark was 8.92 strikeouts per nine. (3) Through 64 big league outings the mark is 9.69 per nine. (4) Though Ray posted the 21st best K/9 rate ever last season he was only 13th in the league last season with an 11.6 swinging strike rate. Expect his 2017 strikeout rate closer to his career MLB rate than the mark he posted last season.

Let’s talk splits.

Here is the slash line data for him in his career.

AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION DATA

As of this writing, here is Ray’s ADP data.

Fantasy Alarm Player Rankings

CONCLUSION

Ray has a big arm, a K-per-inning arm. He’s also generating more grounders than ever before and is death on lefties. Same time, he’s struggled pitching at home, is below league average against righties and he walks too many batters. Let’s just say it – he’s unrefined. Until he learns the value of early strikes, of how to consistently get ahead of batters so he can tempt them with his secondary stuff, he’s going to be an uneven performer in those games in which his control is just a bit off as batters just sit on his heater. Everyone is in on the arm, but there are just enough concerns to avoid going nuts with the expectations in 2017.

10-Team Mixed: You can invest, but be somewhat cautious. There are so many moving parts with Ray that it’s possible his ratios could hurt you in a league that is this shallow making the strikeouts less than worth it.  

12-Team Mixed: I don’t have a huge issue with him as my 4th here, I’d still likely him as my 5th starting pitcher of course, as long as I end up going with some stability later in the draft to give you something to turn to if Ray struggles out of the gate. There is risk with Ray, so make sure you don’t dilly dally too long before taking your support arm.

15-Team Mixed: An ideal SP4 for all the reasons enumerated. Think, Ian Kennedy as the target, and hope for more.

NL-Only League: He has a shot at another 200 strikeouts. That alone will cause the cost to swell to double-digits in an auction and for him to likely be drafted as a second pitcher (no worse than third). Will need strides in the walks column to significantly outpace his rising cost.  

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM EDT PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).