Nathan Eovaldi is such an enigma. He has 15 strikeouts in 11.2 innings, simply stupendous work. He has walked just two batters in two outings. Again over the moon impressive. Still, he is 0-1 with a 6.94 ERA and 1.29 WHIP. He reminds me a lot of Jeff Samardzija. Catch either guy on the right day and you think – all-star. Catch them on the wrong day and all you can think is ‘how can that guy, with that stuff, be so bad?’ Eovaldi still has an arm to be in awe of, but there’s been precious little consistency from him at any point in his career. I do know one thing, that four homers in 11.2 innings thing is absurd from a guy who has allowed a total of 0.68 homers per nine innings for his career (the mark is 3.09 this season).

Jose Fernandez has a 14.58 K/9 mark through three starts. That’s insane. Alas, there are still issues. First, his walk rate is 4.32 per nine. That’s more than double the rate he posted the last two years. Likely a sample size issue of course. But, it brings up another issue – workload. Because of all those walks, and all those pitches, Fernandez has failed to toss six innings in two of his three outings. In fact, check it out. Over his last eight starts Jose has lasted more than 5.2 innings just twice. Read that again. Only twice in his last eight outings has Fernandez posted 18 outs, and not once more than 18 outs. Hard to win ballgames when you aren’t even able to make it through six innings.

Five men have BABIP marks over .400: Jake Peavy (.473), Chris Archer (.436), Wade Miley (.429) and Michael Wacha (.412), Ubaldo Jimenez (.406). That mark is .189 points high for Peavy, .147 points high for Archer, .123 points high for Miley, .128 points high for Wacha and .111 points high for Ubaldo.

Matt Harvey has really struggled this year out of the gate. People are totally down on the flamethrower from New York, just as they are with the righty of the Indians named Corey Kluber. Should you be concerned? I gave my thoughts on both men in this Daily Trends piece.

Charlie Morton leads the way in the early going with an impressive 3.57 GB/FB ratio. Obviously he’s not going to sustain that rate for the Phillies but he does own an impressive 2.33 ratio for his career. He’s a middling mixed league option but could run into some value in NL-only leagues.

David Price has thrown more strikes than any pitcher in baseball with 210. Dallas Keuchel leads baseball with 324 pitches thrown. Ha also happens to lead the league with 131 balls while his total of 193 strikes is tied for 13th.

Dan Straily, Gio Gonzalez and Steven Wright are the only three hurlers in baseball who are getting less than a run per game of offensive support. Here are the numbers, in order: 0.68, 0.69 and 0.71.

Noah Syndergaard is a beast. Through three starts he owns a 13.05 K/9 and 1.80 BB/9. He’s also throwing his heat 97.7 mph and his slider at 92.3 mph according to PITCHf/x. I worry about how long his arm can handle that filthy stuff. It’s just so hard and dominant that it would seem to me that at some point something is just going to break. Regardless, I loved it Monday night when I suggested that Felix Hernandez is a better option than Syndergaard moving forward. While most of the April I’ve been haranguing folks about blowing out of proportion crappy starts, this is an example of folks blowing up a hot start a bit too much. Don’t forget that just three weeks ago that ADP data had Syndergaard and King Felix a mere seven spots apart in average draft position. I’m only slightly concerned with Felix’s 6.50 walk rate per nine as I’m pretty sure that’s a mirage of the sample size ghosts. Regardless, it’s not insane to suggest King Felix in this matchup, despite what three starts tell ya.

Vincent Velasquez, I wrote about him in his Player Profile, is doing one thing exceedingly well. He’s thrown his first pitch for a strike 77.8 percent of the time. That is the best mark in baseball.

Video is sometimes better than the written word, even if it’s my face you see. Check out my Big 3 Video where I break down the outlooks of Tyler Chatwood, Steven Wright and Gio Gonzalez. Note, I’m really a fan of the last guy (see Gonzalez’s Player Profile).

Jordan Zimmermann leads baseball with an 88.9 percent contact rate. He’s only striking out 4.85 batters per nine, and his walk rate has exploded in the early going flying up boards to 3.46 per nine. That is awful. It’s great to see a 0.00 ERA and 1.00 WHIP through two starts, but it’s been a really uneven effort to say the least. Keep an eye on how things shake out for the righty who saw some minor skills slippage last season. Not concerned, more like interested, about his next couple of outings.

 

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).