Luzardo proved that he can play a full season in 2023 while flashing ace potential as he showed overall improvement in some key areas.
Despite missing much of the 2022 campaign, Luzardo showed promise at the big-league level. In 18 starts, he recorded a 3.32 ERA, 10.1 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, and 3.11 xFIP across 100.1 IP. He displayed strong swing-and-miss stuff as he recorded a 13.8% swinging-strike rate and limited opposing hitters to a 70% contact rate. The walk rate was probably the biggest knock on his game as he also surrendered hard contact at a below-average 33% rate when opposing hitters did put the ball in play against him. Meanwhile, he didn’t find a ton of success in getting opposing hitters to chase pitches outside of the zone, as his o-swing% came in at 31%, just below average. Perhaps most encouragingly, he did some of his best work down the stretch of the season, recording a 2.4 BB/9, 30% hard-hit rate, and 3.09 xFIP in across 71.1 IP after returning from the IL in August.
I was therefore bullish on Luzardo going into the 2023 campaign. My main concerns were whether he would be able to make 30-plus starts and, if so, if he could sustain success over a full season of work. The results were not disappointing, as the lefty compiled a 3.63 ERA, 10.5 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, and 3.72 xFIP across 32 starts (178.2 IP) as he topped 200 strikeouts on the season, just one of 17 players to do that this season (at least at time of writing on September 29). In addition to improving his control, Luzardo increased his swinging-strike rate slightly to 14.2% as he got batters to chase more often (34%) in 2023 than he did in 2022 (31%) and they missed more often even as they offered more frequently (o-contact% down to 51% in 2023 after coming in at 54% in 2022. The opposition again posted a well below-average contact rate against him (71%), but they did log a 37.5% hard-hit rate against him, which was right around the league average.
But it’s worth noting that Luzardo did fade a bit after the All-Star break. He was still good, but just not as sharp as he was before the break. In 109.1 IP during the first half of the season, he posted a 3.29 ERA, 10.6 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, and 3.47 xFIP while, in the second half, he logged a 4.15 ERA, 10.3 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, and 4.12 xFIP across 69.1 IP. His control was a major point of regression, but it’s encouraging to note that the hard-hit rate that opposing hitters posted against him remained steady at 37.5% while their HR/FB nevertheless ticked upward from a shade under 11% to nearly 13%. Meanwhile, his HR/9 climbed from just under 1.0 before the break to 1.3 afterward. But it’s not as though Luzardo was gassed, as one of his best starts of the campaign was his last, as he notched double-digit strikeouts for the third time of the season in a no-decision against the Mets (7.1 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 10 K).
So, to circle back to my two main concerns about Luzardo entering the season: Yes, Luzardo was able to stay on the field for the entire season. But his production did slip over the course of the season. That might be attributed to it being the first professional season in which he logged more than 125 IP as a professional and an increase of 66.2 IP from 2022. The net result was a top-25 fantasy season for a starting pitcher. That puts him as a #2 SP for fantasy rotations.
Luzardo’s performance in the first half of 2023 suggests
that he has #1 fantasy SP talent so long as he can keep the walks and homers in
check. And those are things that he did in back half of the 2022 season and the
front half of the 2023 campaign. Can he do it over a full season? Given his pure
talent and overall body of work in 2022-2023, I think he could do it as he will
enter the 2024 campaign in his prime at age 26 and with a full season of work now
under his belt.
Comments
Post a Comment