Brandon Finnegan is a 5-foot-11, 195-lb. lefty hurler of the Reds. Drafted 17th overall in the 2014 Entry Draft, Finnegan flew through the minor leagues and is now staring on the big league diamond early in the year. Is he long for success this season? Better yet, can the soon-to-be 23-year-old (his birthday is Thursday) be a fantasy big shot in 2016?

COLLEGE WORK

Finnegan worked three years with Texas Christian University.

2012: 4-5, 3.47 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 8.1 K/9, 4.3 BB/9 in 62.1 innings

2013: 0-8, 3.18 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 9.8 K/9, 4.0 BB/9 in 79.1 innings

2014: 9-3, 2.04 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 11.4 K/9, 2.5 BB/9 in 105.2 innings

THE MINORS

Finnegan was taken 17th overall in 2014. Deemed “major league ready,” Brandon wasted no time blasting his way through the minor leagues. In 2014 he threw a total of 27 minor league innings. He tossed 57.1 innings in 2015 before his call up. All told he has worked but 84.1 innings at the minor league level. That effort includes a poor set of ratios (4.27 ERA, 1.40 WHIP), a horrible walk rate (4.3 per nine), but a strong strikeout game (88 punchouts in 84.1 innings).

THE TRADE

July 26, 2015, Finnegan was traded by the Royals to the Reds. He was packaged along with Cody Reed for John Lamb, Johnny Cueto and cash.

THE SKILLS

One concern with Finnegan is his size. He’s not a big fella, and he doesn’t have a history of big innings on his arm. This is more of an overall quibble than something directly targeting Finnegan since clubs prefer 6-foot-2, 200-lbs. rather than 5-foot-11, 190-lbs. Still, we are left to guess a bit with Brandon. Here are his innings pitched marks since college.

2012: 62.1 innings

2013: 79.1 innings

2014: 139.2 innings

2015: 105.1 innings

Clearly, he’s never tossed 140 innings in a season, and last year he barely crested 100 innings. Would the Reds allow him to throw 170 innings this season, even if his arm/performance holds up? They could, but history suggests that 22/23 year olds that add 60-plus innings on their arm often times deal with all kinds of health issues. Keep that in mind before you go all in with Finnegan, especially in H2H leagues where there’s a serious question as to whether or not Finnegan will be pitching in September.

In terms of skills, Finnegan has something you cannot teach – talent. You can see his arm talent very clearly in his strikeout totals which includes a 9.18 K/9 mark at the big league level. He’s a legit threat to post a strikeout an inning, if not more, and there aren’t that many starting pitchers who you can say that about.

He’s also done something else that we love to see. He’s inducing copious amounts of grounders. Over the course of his limited big league work, 67.2 innings, Finnegan has posted a 55.2 percent ground ball rate. That would be an elite total over the course of a full season.

Strikeouts and grounders. Love that.

But boy, those walks…

As a minor leaguer Finnegan walked 4.3 batters per nine innings.

As a big leaguer he’s walked 3.72 batters per nine innings.

That means things are improving, right?

Maybe.

Note that he’s walked six batters in 12.2 innings this season, and it remains to be seen if he can keep his walk rate under four batters per nine as a starter pitcher since he was barely able to accomplish that last season with a 3.94 walk rate per nine as a reliever.

An interesting trend that is developing is that Finnegan has apparently changed his modus operandi as a starting pitcher.

As a reliever the last two seasons he threw his fastball 72 percent of the time. This season he’s dropped that mark down to 57 percent. He’s also nearly tripled his career use of the changeup moving things from 8.6 percent as a reliever to 24.4 percent this season as a starter. This happens frequently. As a reliever a guy will focus on his two best pitches. As a starter, when you have time to work into a pitch during a game, and more importantly have to face batters three or four times instead of once, so hurlers often open up their repertoire. They need to be able to attack batters in more diverse ways.

CONCLUSION

Tremendous arm is what I think of with Finnegan. You can’t take that away from him. He’s got the potential to be a Francisco Liriano type, and that’s pretty high praise. However, that’s also an apt comparison, and not just when talking punchouts. Finnegan, like Liriano, has innings pitched concerns, and there will likely be many times where he struggles to avoid the free pass as well.

Finnegan should be rostered in mixed leagues at the moment. Not saying he has to be on your team, but someone has to own him. There are concerns about how many innings he will be able to toss this year, and concerns if he can avoid blowing up your WHIP with all his walks, but he’s got a top shelf arm. In a 12 team league he’s in the SP7/8 range at the moment, with the talent to exceed that ranking (maybe up to a 5th SP type in 2016) even if there is the unknown factor of his arm will hold up over the course of a big league season.