Pitching 3D: AL Keeper Conundrum

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Updated on August 19, 2016 3:42PM EST

There are a number of new entrants to the keeper kingdom in the American League, such as Danny Duffy and Aaron Sanchez, as well as returnees like Justin Verlander. Though lightly regarded in drafts prior to this season, those three pitchers represent one of the highest tiers of pitching in the AL, and the top end of the pitcher pool is so shallow that a late-season meltdown could still banish them from the kingdom in shallower leagues… and that's among pitchers having good seasons.

The overall landscape of AL pitching is bleak, with top-end pitchers getting crushed and leaderboards that are stacked with new faces, a flattening of pitcher value that effectively places a greater emphasis on separating the wheat from the chaff when establishing keeper value. The next six weeks could determine the keeper viability of a number of pitchers who are currently teetering on edge of a knife, ready to fall into the stash bucket for 2017 or the trash bucket, never to be heard from again.

There are myriad keeper formats that will render some of these players moot for each league, so we'll tackle a swath of players to cover some of these situations. Any pitcher having a good season that isn't completely out of character is assumed clean for keeping, but today we'll tackle a handful of players who have been up-and-down, each with incredible upside but currently lacking the resources to reach that branch.

(ages listed are as of October 1, 2016)

Kevin Gausman, RHP, Age 25

IP	ERA	WHIP	K	W
120.1	4.04	1.33	121	3

Gausman is now venturing into uncharted territory in terms of innings, as his previous peak at the highest level was 113.1 in a season, so we'll see how the right-hander responds down the stretch to maintain stuff and mechanics. I have noticed recently that he closes off on some deliveries, such that he ends up "cross-firing" because his torso doesn't get square to the target in time for release point. It only happens on some pitches, but on others he looks solid, so it's a wrinkle that he could iron out before the end of the regular season.

With the Orioles having legit offense and with Gausman limiting walks while piling Ks, he is a potential four-category contributor if he can bring down the ERA. But to do that, he will need to keep the ball in the yard, something that he has rarely demonstrated an ability to do at the big league level - 2014 happened, but it's a mystery as to how. He gave up 1.4 HR/9 last season and has topped that in 2016 with a career-high rate of 1.6 HR/9, coughing up 21 homers in his 120.1 frames.

I expect that his K-per-inning and better-than-average walk rate will inflate his hype balloon this offseason, particularly given that his 3-10 record stands out on a first-place ball club, but Chris Tillman has hoarded all of the Baltimore wins this season. Gausman has excellent stuff, including a fastball that has averaged 96.1 mph this season to go with a K-savvy splitter and a curveball that has been just hammered in 2016. Gausman has also demonstrated a substantial learning curve with the ability to make significant adjustments, altering his delivery from high school to college and then the pros. There is still a vaulted ceiling with Gausman, and he might not be as far from reaching that ceiling as some people realize.

Carlos Rodon, LHP, Age 23

IP	ERA	WHIP	K	W
116.1	4.26	1.48	114	3

Rodon was highly regarded coming into the season (at least in this corner of the room), with his exorbitant walk rate being the main strike against him. He has fixed the walk rate, slicing last season's 11.6 percent frequency of free passes to 7.6 percent this year, but his hit rate has shot up to more than make up the difference, such that Rodon's WHIP has actually gone up from last season while his ERA has inflated by more than half a run. Rodon has been punished when bringing the ball into the zone, with a higher rate of hits and particularly homers allowed - he coughed up just 11 gopher balls in 139.1 innings last season but has already given up 17 bombs in 23 fewer innings this season. He essentially skipped the minor leagues and has been doing on-the-job training at the highest level, and though three of his four relevant fantasy stats have gone backward this season, I remain in his corner as an advocate for his upside.

Fantasy gamers can be funny with prospects. Basically, if a highly-touted arm doesn't succeed right away at the the highest level, then he is often cast aside as unfit for the majors. The perceived value of these players can ride a rollercoaster but it typically follows a predictable pattern, in which early-round draft picks are overvalued as prospects before hitting the majors, only to become undervalued nine times out of 10 when they fail to burst out of the gate with instant success. Think about Julio Urias and Lucas Giolito, the brightest pitching prospects in baseball heading into this season, yet some inconsistent performances at the highest level have dimmed their respective stars. Neither of these pitchers should have been expected to make much impact before 2017, so in a sense their performance this season is just another rung on the developmental ladder (call it Quadruple-A), yet the big-league exposure with less than marvelous results will likely bring them down a peg when establishing the tiers of next season's pitchers. This should fall under the realm of expectation for young players, and if you need evidence, go check out the first few seasons of Felix Hernandez's career. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Rodon falls into a similar category, except that he is more advanced than the aforementioned pair and has already been exposed to the best bats on the planet. The southpaw has already shown the ability to make adjustments, and though the overall line for 2016 is disappointing, there is a lot to like about a young lefty who has maintained a K-per-inning over more than 250 innings of major-league work before he reaches the age of 24. I expect improvement in the other three fantasy categories next season, making Rodon a legitimate keeper option even if the peanut gallery has soured a bit on his services.

Jose Berrios, RHP, Age: 22

IP	ERA	WHIP	K	W
28	9.32	1.89	30	2

Speaking of post-hype prospects, Berrios fits the bill perfectly. Based off his performance over the past couple seasons, I felt that Berrios would have a quick impact at the highest level, and when the Twins promoted him in late April I figured that Berrios was the new frontrunner for the AL Rookie of the Year award. Instead, he was a disaster.

The stats look ugly, and in many ways this has been a lost season. He showed up to the bigs in April with mechanics that were completely out of whack, with the young right-hander closed off and directing his stride toward the right-handed batter's box, such that every pitch he threw seemingly drifted to the arm side. The problem persisted in the minors, and now that he is back up to the bigs, he has somewhat fixed his stride yet added an extra dose of imbalance that causes him to flail into release point, tarnishing his once-outstanding consistency.

To be honest, I don't expect much, if anything, from Berrios the rest of this season and merely hope that he can rediscover the outstanding delivery that propelled him up the minor-league ladder. That perspective makes the final six weeks of the season more about skills development than fantasy numbers, but the numbers that show up in the box score will have a large impact on his perceived fantasy value heading into 2017, regardless of how he gets there. I'm not willing to give him a mulligan for 2016, but young pitchers can be very volatile early in their careers and Berrios offers the upside, mechanics and stuff to roll the dice and gamble that he can iron out the wrinkles to have a standout season as soon as next year.

Michael Pineda, RHP, Age: 27

IP	ERA	WHIP	K	W
136.1	4.89	1.33	154	6

Flipping the script for a bit, Pineda is a pitcher that stat models love, he has a history of success at the highest level and his strikeout rate has launched to another tier this season. The issue is hard contact, which Pineda gives up in droves, and he always seems to be teetering on the edge of rotation anchor and the official destroyer of ratios. Time will tell if his recent two-game string of "pitching to contact" is part of an adjustment or merely revisionist history following back-to-back games of low strikeouts, low walks and low runs.

Pineda has some sparkling peripheral stats, with K and walk rates that would make him a slam-dunk keeper if those were the only pitcher categories. However, there's a difference between throwing strikes and throwing quality strikes (as Joe Musgrove found out Thursday), with Pineda exemplifying the distinction between control and true pitch command. Pineda finds the zone with regularity but too often catches wide swaths of the plate, and though his stuff has the velocity and movement to earn empty swings within the strike zone, batters have far too much success when they make contact.

We'll see if he maintains an approach that is more centered around pitch-count efficiency, and if the immense K rate survives the next six weeks then he will once again be hyped as a sleeper this offseason, but the downside is steep for a player that has been a single-category contributor this season.