Hey all. Today for part 1 of the starting pitcher portion of my Value Locks series I’ll be looking at Tyler Mahle. I’ve long been a fan and despite his less-than-stellar 2022, Mahle presents tremendous value this year in my eyes. I’ll go through some background on Mahle before diving into his pitching style and his 2023 outlook. I hope you enjoy and I look forward to part two of the starting pitcher portion of this series, which will be posted soon.

Background

I never thought I’d be including Tyler Mahle in the value category again, but here we are. Despite all the hype Mahle had after 2019, he responded with two awesome seasons in 2020 and 2021. I figured he’d be a fixture in the top 120 range where he would spend the bulk of his prime. I even went as far as drafting Mahle in the eighth round of a *ten* team draft last year (yeah, I know).

Instead in 2022, Mahle took major steps back, turning in his worst campaign since his formative years in 2018-19. Now what we have is a player coming off a forgettable and injury-riddled season; with very little draft hype, pretty much an afterthought. A former top-120 pick now ranking, on some sites, in the 200s? That, to me, is the definition of value. But before we get into that, let’s take a step back to 2021, where Mahle had what many believed to be his breakout campaign.

Mahle had cracked 110 IP in both 2018 and 2019 before becoming a full-time member of the Reds rotation during the 2020 shortened season. Then, finally, he got his first full season as a starter in 2021. Through 180 IP, Mahle turned in a 3.75 ERA, a 1.23 WHIP, 210 strikeouts (!!), and a surprising 13 wins. His 12.5 ppg in points leagues and top-30 finish amongst starters in roto leagues were a sign of things to come for the 26-year-old.

He’d been a machine, starting 33 games with zero injury issues. More specifically, he’d established himself as a strikeout machine, with his 10.5 K/9 and 28 percent K percent. In addition to the high strikeout rate, Mahle was great at limiting hard contact (21 percent HC percent) and at keeping the ball on the ground (46 percent GB percent). Generally, a pitcher who can do all three of those things is going to find tremendous success. Even with an occasional costly mistake. Basically, Mahle was able to rack up strikeouts while forcing enough weak contact to get out of jams that came about from his high walk rate. 

Arsenal Basics

Mahle’s arsenal was perhaps one of my favorites in all of baseball in 2021 due to its uniqueness. Mahle featured a four-pitch mix of 4S-fastball, cutter, splitter, and slider. In reality, though, we can group these four pitches into two categories. The first category is the four-seamer, which Mahle threw 53 percent of the time and LOVED elevating into the upper third of the strike zone. It’s a very good fastball; 93-96mph, strong overall spin rate, fully-efficient active-spin rate, and great vertical movement profile. Mahle’s drop-and-drive mechanics also help his fastball come in at a flat angle, making it much more effective in that upper third.

The other three pitches can all essentially be grouped into the same “other” category. All three come in at precisely the same speed (86.6mph), all three feature a relatively mild-but-crisp movement pattern, and all three are used in an attempt to pound the lower outside corners. Really the only thing that distinguishes these pitches are their respective usages against right and left-handed batters. Mahle loves the splitter and cutter against lefties and prefers the slider almost exclusively against righties. 

Mahle’s combination of elite strikeout ability and hard contact mitigation gave him rising star consideration entering 2022. But then things cooled off. This past season Mahle only pitched 120 innings. He had multiple injuries, was traded at the deadline, and finished the year with a 4.40 ERA and sub-10 K/9. His points league ppg dropped and his roto value diminished. That, when combined with his multiple injury stints, made Mahle a headache for fantasy owners.

2022 Shortcomings

So what went wrong in 2022? The injuries certainly played a role, but Mahle has a historically strong bill of health. It appears that he’s fully healthy heading into 2023. Injuries are impossible to predict, and I don’t see him as high-risk. So I’d rather talk about the controllable aspects of his 2022 issues. Mahle’s four-seamer in 2022 was just as good, if not better than in 2021. But it was the other three pitches that all had heavily adjusted usages and that all performed worse.

His slider, with a slightly adjusted shape, saw its usage cut in half. The pitch was able to generate more whiffs but was also hit way harder (30 percent HC) and way more often (.304 BA/.334 wOBA). The previously-effective splitter had plenty of issues. It was used about 8 percent more than in the previous year; but had a 5 percent decrease in SwStr percent, an 8 percent decrease in GB percent, and a 70-point increase in wOBA, among other problems. Finally, the cutter had its usage almost tripled from the prior season. The pitch generated fewer whiffs and was hit hard (33 percent HC). Mahle’s cutter was thrown in the zone just 40 percent of the time, yet only registered an 18 percent O-Sw percent, 12 percent below league average. All this pitch did was get him into trouble, accumulating a .374 wOBA in the process. Yikes.

The clear-cut point is this: Mahle’s signature fastball performed very well but the three “other” pitches were all… quite bad. I think there are a couple of things worth noting here. First, this was actually only Mahle’s second season using this exact four-pitch repertoire. Personally, I believe that this current four-pitch mix will be what he ultimately settles on. But it’s quite clear that there’s still a lot of optimization to be done. That, I expect to be a priority. And while it’s hard for me to take a stab at diagnostics, I think the best bet would be to drop the cutter usage again (or altogether) while utilizing the slider as a secondary against righties and the splitter primarily against lefties.

Second, even though the rest of his arsenal needs stability, Mahle’s fastball is just as good as it’s always been. The pitch still gets Ks, and it still plays very well in the upper third of the zone. This is vital to Mahle’s success. It’s still a great pitch no matter how often he throws it. The last thing worth a mention here is that Mahle’s xERA was a full point lower than his actual ERA, and his FIP (3.87) was about the same as it’s always been. That, paired with the 3.88 SIERA gives me some hope that mayyyybe there was bad luck in 2021 on top of the known issues he had. 

2023 Fantasy Outlook

So where does this leave us in 2023 drafts? Mahle is still a strikeout machine, he’ll most likely pitch a lot of innings, and he’ll get some run support. He will not, however, fare well in the WHIP department. Betting on Mahle on the micro level is betting that he’ll figure out how to best utilize his three non-fastball pitches. However that may look. But on the macro level, we’re really just betting on the ERA improving. With a mid or high-3’s ERA, Mahle has tremendous value and could be a top-40 starting pitcher without a doubt.

We also need to consider that Mahle is no longer a Cincinnati Red! Great American is a top-three hitter-friendly park, while his new home at Target Field is somewhere in the middle. On top of that, the 2021 Twins graded out as a top-half defensive team in both defensive efficiency and DRS. The Reds were a bottom-half squad. The same goes for offensive production where the Twins were top-half and the Reds were closer to the bottom; as measured by OPS, OPS+, and total runs scored. The move to Minnesota has the potential to be of tremendous benefit.

Right now the early rankings/ADPs that I’m seeing for Mahle are all over the place. I’ve seen him as high as 140 and as low as 250. The reality though is that he isn’t that far off from being the guy he was in 2021. It’s just a matter of optimizing the rest of his arsenal, and a season’s worth of mistakes in 2022 plus a new organization could help with that. Either way, he isn’t far off. He’ll come into 2023 with (so far at least) a clean bill of health, and a much better situation in terms of defense, run support, and ballpark.

I would be more than happy to select Tyler Mahle in the top ~150 picks this year, and his highly attainable upside easily justifies this. But if you can get him beyond 200? That to me feels like a no-brainer and a total steal. Especially for those who neglect strikeouts in the earlier rounds of the draft. Expect Mahle to get back on track this season en route to becoming a top-120 fantasy pick again shortly. And oh yeah, 2023 is a contract year…

Lastly

We’re rolling out quite a bit of new fantasy baseball content as draft season approaches. I’ll have the rest of my series coming out shortly, and in the meantime, check out this piece on rule changes for 2023! Make sure to check out the rest of our fantasy sports and fantasy baseball content here. And feel free to give us a Twitter follow as well!