Johnny Cueto is an interesting case to look at in 2016. After spending his entire career in Cincinnati, Cueto moved to Kansas City over the second half of 2015 and was somewhat disappointing on the Royals, despite playing in what is considered a more pitcher-friendly environment.
In fact, if we open up MLB Trends, select Johnny Cueto under Player Filters and Kansas City under Team Filters, we can see exactly how poorly he pitched relative to his salary with Kansas City:
Ouch – he performed about -5.5 fantasy points below expectations based on salary during his 13 starts with the team and only exceeded his implied point total in two of those starts. Let’s remember though, Cueto was not all bad in 2015. As a Cincinnati Red, he was actually quite good, averaging 21.8 DraftKings points per start and exceeding his implied point total by +3.35 fantasy points per start.
There was some speculation that Cueto was nursing an injury over the second half of 2015. But looking at his PITCHf/x Game Chart on FanGraphs and comparing his first (left) and last (right) starts of the season, he really didn’t lose much, if any, velocity on his fastball, topping out around 95 miles per hour throughout the season:
So what was the problem exactly? After playing seven seasons with the same club, Johnny switched teams midseason and was greeted by the following schedule: @TOR, @DET, DET, LAA, @BOS, BAL, DET. Of course, this wasn’t the only issue and ace pitchers like Cueto are more than capable of shutting down a good offense when they’re rolling. But the schedule didn’t help.
Another issue is that he threw significantly more balls. In 19 starts with the Reds, Cueto through 40 or more balls just three times, but exceeded that number five times in 13 games with Kansas City including an end of season stretch that went 42-44-39-41-42.
Before Cueto became the dominant pitcher we’ve grown accustomed to, he had a bit of a homerun problem. In 2008, his 1.50 HR/9 ranked eighth worst among qualifiers and he followed that with a 1.26 HR/9 in 2009, which was 24th worst. In 2015, his 0.89 HR/9 comes with a good news/bad news disclaimer.
The good news is that over one-third of the total homeruns hit against Cueto in 2015 came during two games (bloodbaths), and both were against the Orioles. If Cueto avoids Baltimore in the 2015 season, his homerun-allowed numbers look pretty good. On the other hand, his Flyball% and Hard% were the highest allowed since 2010, while his HR/FB was the lowest in the past three seasons. Also, while right field at AT&T Park is the deepest in the majors, it wouldn’t have made a difference on the HRs Cueto allowed last year, which were mostly just crushed (via ESPN’S Home Run Tracker).
Although Cueto has spent the majority of his career in the NL, he doesn’t have an extensive history pitching at AT&T Park, with only two matches since 2011. How well he does in his new home park will likely play a major role in determining Cueto’s level of success in 2016, however, as he has historically been much better when pitching at home, as we can see using the Home/Away filter in Trends:
Even during his excellent 2014 campaign, Cueto averaged nearly four more fantasy points at home than on the road:
We have a lot of information that is somewhat all over the place with Cueto, so where does that leave us in 2016? Ron Shandler says in his 2016 edition of Baseball Forecaster & Encyclopedia of Fanalytics:
“For both hitters and pitchers riding positive trends over any consecutive three-year period, not only do most players not continue their positive trend into a fourth year, their Year 4 performance usually regresses significantly. This is true for every metric tested (whether related to playing time, batting skills, pitching skills, running skills, luck indicators, or valuation). Challenge any analysis that hints at a player’s demise coming off of a negative trend or that suggests and imminent breakout following a positive trend; more often than not, such predictions do not pan out.”
In other words, some negative regression is to be expected following an extend period of positive results. That is not necessarily predictive of the future, however. In Cueto’s case, we have a pitcher who is still in his prime, reportedly healthy, and moving into a pitcher-friendly environment to begin 2016.
