Fantasy Focus: Breakout Candidates- Chris Stratton

To give credit where it's due, ogc wrote up a very nice piece about Chris Stratton with much more detail about spin rates and how they translate into pitching success on his blog linked to the left.  If you haven't seen it already, go check it out.  That piece convinced me that Stratton is more than just in the mix for a Giants starting rotation spot in 2018.  He may be a legitimate breakout candidate with potential for significant fantasy value.

As you all know, Stratton is the much maligned first round pick, #20 overall, for the Giants in the 2012 draft.  His pro career got off to a rough start when he was hit on the head by a batted ball during batting practice in Salem-Keizer and suffered a concussion which reportedly took him a long time to recover from.  Since then, his minor league career has run hot and cold, but mostly cold.  I wrote him off as a prospect as recently as early 2017 after he got shelled in 3.1 IP in April and was sent down to Sacramento where he had a couple more rough appearances.  Then, he started to pitch better.  There were still rough games here and there but he was more than solid in most of his starts.  The Giants brought him back in July.  In his first start against the Tigers, he allowed 5 ER in the first 3 innings. Again, it looked like another quick turnaround back to Sacramento likely to never return.  Then, he settled down and shut out the Tigers for the next 3.2 IP and threw some really impressive looking pitches in the process.  From then on, Stratton put up an ERA of 2.59 over 48.2 IP including a couple of 10 K games.  His final start of the season was 7 innings of shutout ball over the Padres.

So, what happened here?  Is is sustainable?  We may never know and we'll find out the answers to those two questions, but one thing that has gotten some national attention is Stratton's spin rates which ogc details in his most recent blogpost.  The curveball is elite with the second highest spin rate in MLB.  The FB and Slider also come with strong spin rates making for an effective repertoire.  The one pitch that seems to lag in effectiveness is the changeup which may explain why Stratton continues to struggle against LH batters.

There is still risk here, with his not-so-distant past of ups and downs, but also clearly some intriguing upside.  The Giants willingness to trade Matt Moore without an apparent replacement plan on the trade or FA markets sends a strong signal of the Giants confidence in Stratton and virtually guarantees a rotation spot is his to lose.  When I look through the SP depth charts for all 30 teams, I see a whole lot of mediocrity and downright weakness out there.  A late round flyer on Stratton might pay big dividends for your fantasy team.