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Posted at 11:30 AM EST. 

Seattle +165 over MINNESOTA

2:10 PM EST. In mid February, Matt Shoemaker (RHP - MIN) agreed to terms on a one-year contract worth $2 million. The Twins added depth to their rotation with this move and Shoemaker instantly became the early favorite to end up with the No. 5 spot in the rotation based on his experience, edging out Randy Dobnak, Lewis Thorpe and Devin Smeltzer. He has a career 3.86 ERA, but that is due in part to a 2014 season in which he made 27 starts and had a 3.10 ERA. Dude made six starts in 2020, giving up 15 earned runs in 28.2 IP with 26 K/9 BB. In his first start, Shoe was sharp with six innings of no-run ball at the Tigers in a game he had a 6-0 lead in after two innings. He struck out five and walked none but again, he had a big lead and it was therefore a stress free outing that the Twins scored 15 times in. His ground-ball/line-drive/fly-ball rates in his first start were 29%/24%/47%. It’s worth noting that his efforts last year were mostly wrecked by an overdone HR barrage due to a high fly-ball rate. You’ll notice that his high fly-ball rate didn’t go anywhere in his first start. Finally, Shoemaker is the 5th man in the rotation and a fifth starter probably shouldn’t be priced in this range, thus we have an overreaction to his first start. We also have a sneaky, under the radar pitcher going for us.

Real, live, honest-to-goodness baseball is back. We’re in the sweet part of the season where monotonous middle innings still feel fresh, but that means we’re also floating in an open space without much grounding us. We don’t quite know what to believe. Even old, reliable exit velocity may not be as helpful as it has been at this point in past seasons, given what changes Major League Baseball has made to the ball. We’re left mainly with the eye test, identifying what is different about players simply by looking at them.

Chris Flexen has given us something to look at. The changes to his game from the last time he was a major leaguer are substantive, so much that it’s probably fair to draw such a conclusion after just one appearance. Of course, we can’t speak to the implications of the changes. We don’t know that he’ll be a money-winner for us, but the important thing is that the changes are present, and that acknowledging changes in any starter can benefit your bankroll, no matter for how long.

The last time we studied Flexen he was a bullpen piece because of a thin repertoire that featured flittering velocity and command that was middling at best. After fizzling out in 2019, Flexen signed with the KBO’s Doosan Bears. He went 8-4 in 21 starts in Korea, posting a 3.04 ERA with a 1.09 WHIP and more strikeouts (132) than innings pitched (116 2/3). If you didn’t follow the KBO in MLB’s absence last year, know that it was still an offense-driven league despite successful efforts since 2017 to drive down run scoring. The league-average ERA is about 4.20, while the league-average WHIP is 1.40. His performance earned him a deal back stateside with the Mariners over the winter. In his re-debut on April 3 against a sneaky-threatening, lefty-heavy Giants lineup, he went five innings, tallied six strikeouts to two walks, and didn’t surrender any runs. His fastball still sat about 93, as it always had, but his entire approach was different:

Total pitches

2019: 274

2021: 94

Four seamer %

2019: 58.4%

2021: 37.2

Slider %

2019: 21.9

2021: 33

Changeup %

2019: 12

2021: 16

Curve

2019: 10

2021: 13.8

A couple of notes here. For one, Flexen was a pitch-classification nightmare in 2019. We’ve combined his slider and cutter because he came up with the Mets and learned the Warthen slider, which pushes the bounds on what a slider really is. Beyond that, Baseball Savant determined that he threw rogue two-seamers, too, which were probably just four-seamers that had a little more tail. The point is that Flexen had multiple pitches that looked different enough to be called different things, but he probably wasn’t doing it on purpose.

The other takeaway from the 2019 row in the above chart is that Flexen only threw 274 total pitches in 2019, across 13.2 innings. His K-BB rate was -4.3. He threw another 78.2 in the minors as both a starter and reliever. While we’re left with a small sample overall, it illustrates that he simply was not good. In contrast, during his first appearance of 2021, he threw more than a third of the total pitches he threw in 2019. His offerings were more distinct and more evenly thrown. He had at least three looks for righties and lefties. He was in the zone more. He was pretty good. His fastball command alone might tell us how he was driving the ship.

Flexen went from plastering all over and near home plate with a focus right down the middle to nearly painting the high arm-side corner. This becomes more relevant when we realize that his most common pitch pairing the last time he was in the majors was two fastballs back-to-back. Trying to spot a mediocre pitch once might not be a terrible idea by default. Trying to do it twice in a row, in different spots, without much of a threat that hitters need to worry about otherwise, probably is.

Stretching the zone works if you know where the zone is, but we already know that was not the case for Flexen in 2019. In his first start back, however, it looks like his slider and four-seamer are buddies—like the fastball is providing cover while the breaker causes trouble darting around the zone. The growth doesn’t appear to stop at his primary offerings. When he threw his curveball as a change-of-pace offering in 2019, it was mostly to his glove side. Now, it’s going to his arm side, like his slider and four-seamer. His changeup is doing the same thing. Both are being used off the plate. In total, he can throw four pitches up and down the zone, making it harder for hitters to square up a pitch because he’s capable of changing their eye levels and swing planes. It was one start, but, relatively speaking, it was a big one.

There is a lot to like about Flexen as a dog in this price range. If he goes out today and gets whacked or the Mariners lose, this will seem like a lot to read for one lousy bet but maybe not. Fantasy players may want to take note and bettors should put him in their back pocket because there is surely some profit in his arm along the way. The price here on Flexen is just plain sweet so dig in and hope for the best.

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