Closing Time: How I learned to stop worrying and love Dallas Keuchel

Dallas Keuchel

might look like something out of ZZ Top, but he’s really a soft-rocker at heart – a lefty who’s average fastball doesn’t make it to 90. You’re not going to get gaudy strikeout numbers with Keuchel, either.

But don’t mistake him for an ordinary pitcher. Long-suffering Astros fans have their ace, and they don’t even seem to mind that he’s named Dallas.

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Keuchel had to settle for a no-decision in Monday’s turn at Texas, though his final line would make any fantasy owner happy: 8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 8 K (six in a row at one point). It was a season high in whiffs, but that’s not part of the Keuchel package. For the season he’s at 6.0 K/9, a below-average number in today’s game.

While Keuchel doesn’t make the radar gun pop or rack up a bunch of Ks, he does just about everything else you’d want a pitcher to do. His control is excellent: he walked 2.1 batters per nine innings last year, and it’s 2.6 this year. He collects ground balls by the truckload (mid-60s the last two years), and he’s a master at inducing weak contact. No one is going to hurt you off a dribbler to second base.

Keuchel is good at the little things, too. He’s coming off a Gold Glove Award (in addition to a runaway win with the Fielding Bible panel), and he’s good at stopping the running game. He’s never going to beat himself, and if you put the ball near him, you’re out.

Everyone knows that Keuchel’s current ratios are outliers: no one keeps a 0.80 ERA or 0.76 all season. And the .172 BABIP is also a stone fluke, no matter that he’s inducing all that soft contact. But I wish I had recognized before the season that it was safe to trust Keuchel’s ratios from 2014 (2.93 ERA, 1.18 WHIP). He shouldn’t have much trouble matching that season, and I think the WHIP will actually come down a fair amount. This is a perfect SP3 in most mixed leagues, and perhaps a SP2 in some deeper formats. Set it, forget it.

Dallas Keuchel 2015 Pitch Selection | PointAfter

• If you like the Three True Outcomes, Joc Pederson should be one of your favorites. He’s been racking up those three stats all year, especially since moving to the leadoff spot five games ago. Here’s the tally since the move: four homers, 10 strikeouts, three walks. The Dodgers are 4-1 during that stretch, scoring 25 runs.

You never know with Don Mattingly, but I suspect Pederson has shown enough to keep hold of a good lineup spot the remainder of the season, even when the roster is close to full-throttle. And while a strikeout rate of 32.3 percent is a little worrisome, I’m not going to lose sight of what Pederson does well. This is a guy who punishes mistakes and can also hit good pitches, someone who eventually should be a plus base-stealer (though he’s 1-for-4 thus far), and someone who regularly hits the ball awfully hard.

It’s short-sighted to note the .351 BABIP and scream “regression!” – Pederson is 11th in the league in hard-hit rate and has plus speed. Maybe he won’t stay at that lofty batted-ball number, but you should expect a plus grade in that area. This is going to be a fun ride, a six-month story. Maybe Mattingly will be on board at some point, too.

• The A’s are the masters of finding batters out of thin air (the Vogt of Confidence waves hello), and maybe they hit on another one with Mark Canha. The Florida farmhand never made it to any prospect promotion lists during his time in that organization, and he bounced from the Rockies (in the Rule V draft) to the A’s in December. The 26-year-old wasn’t on any fantasy radar into March.

A few Oakland injuries have pushed Canha into playing time and so far, so good: .284-15-4-14-2. He’s shown power to all fields, surprisingly-useful speed. He’s been all over the place in the lineup, hitting second, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth. He’s seen time at first base, left field and DH.

The bottom line is this: Oakland has the No. 2 offense in the majors, and I’d like a share where it’s gettable. Obviously guys like Stephen Vogt and Josh Reddick are long gone in any competitive league. Marcus Semien, too. But you can still add Canha in about 80 percent of Yahoo pools. Let’s see where the story goes.

• Jake Odorizzi

is another candidate for Circle of Trust privileges. We couldn't trust his road starts last year, but he’s cut his teeth nicely in the AL East this spring. The latest example came Monday at Boston (7 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 6 K), a strong statement against one of the league’s most formidable offenses.

Odorizzi was so-so in his previous turn, four runs in 6.1 innings at New York, but that’s far from a blowup. And he only allowed two hits and one run when he visited Toronto three weeks ago. Throw some strong home starts into the mix and we’re looking at this: 2.21 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 32 strikeouts against just eight walks over 40.2 innings. The K-rate is down, but he's also getting more swinging strikes this year.

Odorizzi hasn’t allowed a homer yet in 2015, something that will eventually correct of course – but he deserves some of the credit for the bagel. His career HR/FB rate is a modest 7.4 percent, and his ground-ball and soft-contact rates have both improved this year. Again, this isn’t Little League – ground balls don’t turn into home runs. Odorizzi sure looks like a Top 40 starter at the moment, no matter what the venue is.

• While we have Tampa pitchers on the mind, do you have the stones to try Alex Colome for Wednesday’s Fenway start? Colome passed the eye test in Friday’s turn against Baltimore, five scoreless innings along with no walks and six strikeouts.

Colome’s heater averages around 93 mph, and over the last two years in the minors he’s harnessed long-standing control problems. Sounds like someone who should be owned in more than nine percent of Yahoo leagues.