Tarik Skubal, Steamer's SP3

The Projection System Is Quite Bullish....Too Bullish?

As fantasy sports trend more and more towards year-round drafting, the best form of offseason prep is actually just remaining engaged through the end of any individual season.

It’s understandable why folks begin dropping out of baseball as summer winds down, when the calendar shifts to September and a sport called football begins taking over.

If I didn’t work in this industry it would be impossible for me to fully keep up with both sports. I’m not even always able to remain as plugged in to each sport as I’d like. For instance, I’m still overdue for pieces on Nolan Jones and Cole Ragans — two second-half darlings who helped propel managers to fantasy championships.

Is what they showed in 2023 their new baselines? Or were they merely running hot? We’ll be answering those questions soon enough.

And then there’s Tarik Skubal, who checks in as Steamer’s SP3 in Fangraphs’ 2024 auction calculator. That might seem preposterous to anyone who moved on to fantasy football in August. It’s crazy enough for those of us who stuck with baseball until the end. So what gives? Is Skubal that good? Or is Steamer too high on him? We’ll be answer those questions right now!

An Improved Arsenal

Skubal’s 2022 campaign was cut short in mid-August as he underwent surgery for a flexor tendon repair in his left forearm.

By that point in his career Skubal had thrown 299 major league innings with a 4.15 ERA and a 4.32 FIP. There were flashes of dominance, including solid strikeout upside and a recent stretch of improved performance, but by no means was he a trendy breakout pick entering draft season last spring.

He 2023 debut was delayed until the 4th of July, but Skubal quickly demonstrated that he was a different pitcher upon return.

This was led by an increased fastball velocity, which Skubal attributes to subtle mechanical adjustments that “helped it come easier.”

Stuff+ has never been a big fan of Skubal’s fastball, and that remained the case in ‘23 despite the velo jump. The velo helped, though Skubal’s heater improved from bad to merely below-average.

Interestingly, the bigger development appears to have been improved command, with his fastball’s Location+ jumping from league average in 2020-22 to well above it in 2023.

Per Baseball Savant, here’s where Skubal located his four-seamer as a rookie in 2020:

And here’s 2023:

That’s a massive difference. And it helps explain why Skubal’s Pitching+ was fueled by an overall improvement in Location+ last year:

Of course, his overall Stuff+ still wasn’t elite, or even all that impressive, but we know the metric struggles with changeups, and that happened to be Skubal’s second-most thrown pitch last season.

Among changeups thrown at least 250 times last year, Skubal’s 50.6% whiff rate was third highest in the majors. The wOBA he allowed on it ranked second, behind just Shane McClanahan. And his changeup ranked 8th in Fangraphs’ pitch value (a volume stat) despite all the time he missed.

Skubal’s changeup has seen a sharp decrease in its vertical movement since he debuted, and that continued in 2023 (per Brooks Baseball):

He was also able to maintain an elite velocity differential between this offering and his new fastball. Additionally, Lance Brozdowski noted in September that Skubal is potentially benefitting from some deception that isn’t being measured in public Stuff+ models.

Statistical Dominance

So we’ve gotten granular and covered the specific improvements Skubal made to his arsenal, but how about some actual performance stats to back it up?

Well, in 2023, those numbers were outstanding. Among starting pitchers with at least 80 innings pitched:

Skubal’s league-leading 2.00 FIP is what stands out the most. The difference between him and No. 2 (Sonny Gray, 2.83) is the same difference between No. 2 and No. 26 (Eduardo Rodriguez, 3.66).

Skubal’s home park is undoubtedly a boost to his FIP, but he’ll be calling Comerica home again in 2024 so it’ll continue to be a benefit for him. It’s also impressive that he ranked first in xFIP and was in the 100th percentile for xERA (per Savant).

Instead of this being a situation where Skubal is merely a product of a favorable environment, it’s one where an elite talent is in the dream setup.

Steamer’s Projection

Skubal’s 2023 was always worth writing about, but he became a priority topic once Steamer came out. Projections are a hugely important component of playing fantasy baseball. They shouldn’t be treated as gospel, but one could do far worse than using them as a baseline for rankings.

In order to help determine to what degree we should buy Steamer’s projection for him, here’s a top-down view of where he ranks in each of the four starting pitcher categories:

• Wins: 25th

• ERA: 2nd

• WHIP: 4th

• Ks: 15th

This all comes with 171 projected innings, which Steamer has as the 46th most among starters for 2024.

So let’s start there. How reasonable is it to expect 171 IP this year? It would be a 76 inning jump from last season’s 95 combined IP (including the minors).

Here are Skubal’s totals from his previous pro seasons:

• 2022: 117 2/3

• 2021: 149 1/3

• 2020: 32

• 2019: 122 2/3

171 is a number Skubal has never hit before, one that’s over 20 IP more than his career-high as a professional, which came two years ago.

This is where I’ll remind readers that starting pitchers are balloons. As we’ve discussed in this piece, there are many reasons to believe Skubal is that good on a per-inning basis, but can we trust that he’ll hold up? He hasn’t shown us that yet, so it’s a risk. Whereas someone like Carlos Rodon has “failed” fantasy managers before, Skubal has yet to let us down since being elevated into the tier of true aces.

As for Steamer’s ratio projections for Skubal, they’re aggressive, but perhaps warranted after what he showed in 2023. He’s being given a 3.34 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP, both well above last year’s marks of a 2.80 ERA and a 0.90 WHIP.

It’s crazy to say, but Skubal should actually have positive regression working in his favor when it comes to his left on base rate. Over the past two years he’s just below 68%, which would be third lowest among starters if he had the innings to qualify. LOB% can often be an easy way to show if pitchers are getting lucky with sequencing or not. Some, such as Blake Snell, might be capable of posting multiple outlier seasons in this metric. Maybe Skubal will always post lower LOB rates, but there’s at least a chance he runs hot one of these years.

However, Steamer thinks Skubal will see negative regression in other areas of his game, such as his 0.45 HR/9 from 2023. The system gives him a 1.03 HR/9 for this upcoming season. A lot of that projection likely stems from Skubal’s first two seasons in the majors, which came before he refined his arsenal and when he most definitely had a homer problem.

Wrapping up, Skubal’s wins total will be influenced somewhat by how competitive the Tigers are. Recall that in this year’s FTN Draft Guide Rob Silver reminded us how to think about wins in fantasy baseball. Skubal’s strikeout rate is strong, so the volume of Ks will depend on innings and health.

Summary & 2024 Recommendation

Somewhat surprisingly, Skubal isn’t a Stuff+ darling, but his changeup and some possible deception might be undervalued by that metric. He also came back from injury throwing harder this summer. We saw Skubal make an enormous jump in Location+ last season, which isn’t as sticky year-to-year, but could be legit if stemmed from a mechanical adjustment that he says led to the improved velo.

Stats-wise, there’s little argument to make for an impending Skubal demise in 2024. He only logged a little over 80 innings last year, but within that body of work he was one of the very best pitchers in the majors. Steamer is therefore incredibly bullish on him for the upcoming season, and yet it isn’t even accounting for his full upside due to some poor 2020-21 HR/9 marks that are still being baked into his baseline.

The only reason to fade Skubal is innings, or if you’re a drafter who prefers building your staff with workhorse arms such as Aaron Nola or Logan Webb.

Skubal’s career-best workload as a professional is the 149 1/3 frames he tossed in 2021. His balloon then “popped” the next season and he ramped up to just 95 IP in 2023.

Could he go for 170 in 2024? It’s possible. We just haven’t seen it yet. Steamer’s 171 innings seem overly bullish to me, so I’m going to bet against him at their valuation.

We all are actually, since Skubal is “only” going as SP12 at the NFBC since December 1st, and he’s SP19 on Underdog Fantasy. That NFBC price tag is a little rich for me, but this also isn’t a situation where I’d be fading Skubal completely (regardless of the cost).

If you roster Skubal in roto just make sure you have enough bulk arms to account for an injury or workload limitations (just like you would for any Tyler Glasnow selections).

The weekly upside is worth it on Underdog, but he’s a fragile bet to give consistent production all summer long.

Overall, I’ll be rooting for Skubal this season and will be making sure I get some exposure. Since his balloon isn’t fully inflated, however, and since he’s being drafted among some other fully inflated SPs, I won’t be going overboard.