For the third straight season, most of Bieber’s key statistics and advanced metrics regressed while for the second time in three years he missed considerable time because of a significant arm issue.
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Although he’s only 28, it appears that Shane Bieber has endured a decline since winning the 2020 AL Cy Young Award. He was brilliant that year, posting a 1.63 ERA, 14.2 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, and 2.04 xFIP across 77.1 innings of work that season in that pandemic-shortened campaign. That performance wasn’t entirely surprising, as he was stellar the year before (3.28 ERA, 10.9 K/9, 1.7 BB/9, and 3.23 xFIP in 214.1 IP). But Bieber did post a career-high average fastball velocity of just over 94mph as he posted a career-high 17% swinging-strike rate, career-low 63% contact rate, career-high 37% chase (o-swing%) rate, and career-low 27% hard-hit rate. He was so dominant that the Cy Young vote was unanimous.
The 2021 season didn’t go nearly as well for Bieber, who missed over three months of action with a right (throwing) shoulder strain. But he wasn’t nearly as sharp as he was in 2020 before landing on the IL, ultimately logging a 3.17 ERA, 12.5 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, and 2.91 xFIP on the season, most of which came before he was sidelined in June; he only returned for the final week of the season. Those numbers certainly aren’t bad, but the BB/9 in particular was uncharacteristic as Bieber’s 2.4 BB/9 the year was his previous career high (it was under 2 in both 2018 and 2019). Bieber’s average fastball velocity dipped to 93mph – where it was in both 2018 and 2019 – while his swinging-strike rate ticked downward to 16% (still very good), the opposition’s contact rate climbed slightly to 66% (again, still great), and opposing hitters made more hard contact (32%, which, again, is still good). At the end of the day, one could easily chalk up any regression to the likelihood that he was simply able to go harder in 2020 as he knew it would be an abbreviated campaign from the start.
Even though Bieber stayed healthy in 2022, the results were very much a mixed bag as he recorded a 2.88 ERA, 8.9 K/9, 1.6 BB/9, and 2.98 xFIP in 200 IP. The return of his plus-plus control was a great sign but the major dip in the strikeout rate was concerning, as was his average fastball velocity coming in a tic and a half lower at 91.5mph. Bieber’s swinging-strike rate was down to 14% - but still good – while the opposition’s contact rate climbed to 72% (also still good), and their hard-hit rate ticked upward to 34%, which was still below the league average. Although all of those numbers were still “good,” they represented significant regression for the second straight campaign as Bieber slipped from being a fantasy ace to more of a #2 arm. And this was in a full season unmarred by a significant injury.
And then, for the third straight season, Bieber’s number slipped in 2023. And again, he missed a significant chunk of the campaign because of a major health concern as he was sidelined for over two months in the second half of the campaign because of right (throwing) elbow inflammation. This time, he posted a 3.80 ERA, 7.5 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, and 3.96 xFIP across 128 IP. While Bieber’s average fastball velocity remained at 91.5mph and his control remained solid – if less sharp than it was in 3 out of the previous 5 seasons – his swinging-strike rate dipped to a career low 10.5% while his contact rate rose to a career-high 77% and his 30.5% chase rate was a career low. Bieber did, however, limit opposing hitters to a 33% hard-hit rate.
One does not want to make too much of a poor season, especially one in which a significant injury cost a player about 1/3 of the campaign, but the trends since 2020 are concerning. Bieber’s swinging-strike rate dropped each season, from a high of 17% in 2020 to just 10.5% in 2023. His contact rate rose each year, from a low of 63% to a high of 77%. While his ERA has been up and down, a more luck-neutral metric – xFIP – has steadily climbed upward, from just 2.04 in 2020 to 3.96 in 2023. His o-swing% steadily dipped from a high of 36% in 2020 to 30.5% in 2023. Meanwhile, opposing hitters have had less and less trouble making contact on pitches inside the zone, too, as his z-contact% sat at 84% and 83% in 2020 and 2021, respectively, before climbing to 88% in 2022 and to over 90% in 2023. They’ve also made more and more contact on pitches outside of the zone, with their o-contact% climbing from 44% in 2020 and 2021 to 48% in 2022 and then 56% in 2023. Oh, and Bieber’s average fastball velocity peaked at 94mph in 2020 before stabilizing at just 91.5mph this past season.
At this point, Bieber is offering fantasy owners something they should expect from a guy like Kyle Hendricks, not a fantasy ace. It’s wild because he’s just 28 and has undergone this slide during what should be the prime of his career, ages 26-28. With major shoulder and elbow concerns in the recent history as well as a four-year view of his metrics showing some concerning trends, fantasy owners would do well to avoid Bieber in 2024.
Photo credit: Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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