Tim Dierkes’ MLB Mailbag: Severino, Blue Jays, James Wood

Welcome to another edition of my subscriber mailbag!  If you're wondering where this paywall thing came from, please read about that here.  Today's mailbag gets into Luis Severino's solid start, the future of the Blue Jays, the trajectory of Nationals prospect James Wood, and assessing free agent mega-contracts.

Dmitry asks:

I noticed Luis Severino is doing much better this year. GB rates ticked up, along with his barrels % and overall FB runs value. What's different this year? Did the Mets unlock something Matt Blake couldn't? Better health? Just needed a change of scenery?

Severino has reinvented himself as a groundball pitcher.  His 56% groundball rate this year ranks sixth among all qualified starters.  In a sense it's good that he's done so, because as with last year's disaster season, his strikeout and walk rates have remained unimpressive.  I usually start by looking at a pitcher's K-BB%, and Severino's 11.0% mark is pretty bad and basically the same as it was when he posted a 6.65 ERA last year.

Most of Severino's success came in 2017-18, when he put up 11 WAR across 384 2/3 innings for the Yankees.  He missed almost all of 2019 due to a shoulder/lat injury, and then had Tommy John surgery in February 2020.  His TJ recovery included a setback along the way due to a shoulder injury. Severino's layoff between MLB games was just shy of two years.

Severino's 2022 season gave hope that he could return to his pre-Tommy John form.  Most of his velocity returned, and even though he missed more than two months due to another lat strain, his strikeout and walk rates were reminiscent of the Severino of old over a 102 inning span.  It was enough to convince the Yankees to pick up his $15MM club option for 2023.  Severino's 2023 season was so bad that he remarked last summer,"Right now, I feel like I am the worst pitcher in the game, no doubt about it."

As you might expect, Severino tinkered with his repertoire heading into 2024.  According to SNY's Andy Martino, Severino went to Driveline.  Martino wrote, "There, he split his hard slider into a cutter and a sweeper. Neither was as powerful as his old slider, but the two offerings combined to show hitters different speeds and different looks."  Martino added, "Severino has added ride to his velocity, creating a more powerful fastball. Played off his new cutter/sweeper mix, which features variances in speed, and a changeup and sinker that helps him get ground balls, and Severino looks like a more complete pitcher."  Martino provided a third reason as well, suggesting that Severino tipped his pitches often as a Yankee and has cleaned that up with the Mets.

Indeed, Severino has started using a sinker often.  He's using it 16.7% of the time so far this year, according to Brooks Baseball.  His career high for sinkers was 2.6% last year.  He explained to Tim Britton of The Athletic, "Just to have that pitch in my pocket that can help me get a groundball here, get a double play, get out of an inning with one pitch instead of striking out two guys. I was just thinking about how I can be more productive and save more pitches."  An open-mindedness toward sinkers, which have gone out of style in baseball, is a conscious choice for the Mets, which pitching coach Jeremy Hefner explains in Britton's article.

Severino has a 3.00 ERA as of this writing, and if he stays healthy and lands under 4.00 for the season, his one-year deal will have been a big success for Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns.  There's probably too much emphasis on that 3.00 ERA through these first 45 innings, though.  I think a pretty big correction is coming, because a portion of Severino's success comes from a .250 BABIP and 8.3% home run per flyball rate.  He's a bit less interesting with a league average strikeout rate and subpar walk rate, even as one of the league's best groundballers.  Severino's SIERA sits at 4.11, though Statcast's expected ERA is solid at 3.59.  So he's not allowing a lot of hard contact and could be a 2-3 WAR type moving forward.  What Severino is doing this year seems a bit like what Marcus Stroman did last year, but with more velocity.

I took a look at recent starting pitcher seasons with a K-BB% of 12 or below and a groundball rate of 50% or better.  There is a survivorship bias, because if that combo isn't working for a pitcher, he'll be removed from the rotation.  But this is a weird combination, especially for a pitcher who throws 96.  Here are a few comps other than Stroman's 2023:

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