{"id":58345,"date":"2023-05-16T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=58345"},"modified":"2023-05-16T10:53:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T14:53:33","slug":"kyle-freeland-rockies-pitcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/05\/16\/kyle-freeland-rockies-pitcher\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Freeland\u2019s 2023 Season Is Saving the Rockies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/02\/05\/rockies-2023-mlb\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Colorado Rockies<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0are outperforming expectations to this point in the season but still sit in last place in the NL West. Despite having a 0.4% chance of making the playoffs as of May 14, per<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/teams\/COL\/2023.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0Baseball Reference<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, several potential positive developments have occurred. One of the biggest has been the seeming resurgence of Kyle Freeland.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The former top-5 Cy Young Award finisher is having what seems to be turning into his second-best career season. Through his first eight starts in 2023, he is 3-4 with a 3.57 ERA over 45.1 innings. He has racked up 30 strikeouts, 11 walks, and a WHIP of 1.147.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The Positive of Kyle Freeland\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kyle Freeland, Dirty 82mph Knuckle Curve. \ud83d\ude28<\/p>\n<p>8th K <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TznFTxX1N3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/TznFTxX1N3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PitchingNinja\/status\/1657851792674226177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 14, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Given that five of his starts have been at Coors, and having a blow-up start of giving up seven runs against the Pirates on\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/COL\/COL202304170.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">April 17<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, his season has been even better than the raw stats say.\u00a0<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The key to his success has been his ability to limit his walks better than he has in the years since 2018. His walk rate is in the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/kyle-freeland-607536?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">72nd percentile<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, and he has given up just 11 walks in his first eight starts of the season, tied for the least in that span to start a season in his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The 3.57 ERA in 2023 is also the third-lowest to start a season in that same span, behind his rookie 2017 campaign and 2018 Cy Young-caliber season.\u00a0<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">His 140 ERA+ would be the second-best of his career for an entire season, and his 1.4 WAR up to his point is tied for the highest of the team, as he has been one of the only reasons the team has won as many games as they have.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Tallying a total game score of 53.1 is the second-highest eight-game start to a season, and overall has looked much more confident on the mound, but his resurgence has not been perfect.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The Negative of Kyle Freeland\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">During his best years, Freeland limited hard-hit balls at an elite rate, ranking in the 87th percentile in average exit velocity and 91st percentile in hard-hit percentage in<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/kyle-freeland-607536?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a02018<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. However, in 2023, he ranked 37th and 52nd, respectively. <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">While they are improving over the past few seasons, they should be somewhere else to show proper improvement. Although walks are down for the lefty, strikeouts have also been down. Striking out just six batters per nine innings, he is on pace to record the second-least amount in a single season of his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The final and most significant potential negative sign is his FIP. Despite having a 3.74 ERA, Freeland has a 4.99 FIP, with the -1.42 difference being the worst of his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The Verdict on Kyle Freeland\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Freeland is a talented pitcher that suffers mainly from the inability to prevent the long ball in a hitter\u2019s friendly ballpark. He also has a 2.84 ERA away from Coors thus far in 2023, the lowest road mark of his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">If he can strike out more batters while keeping his walks low, one of the best seasons of his career is entirely plausible and possible. But for fans of the Rockies, the positive signs are welcomed, as he is under contract through 2027.\u00a0<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">With the 2023 season being an apparent wash, his signs of finding his form could be the catalyst for a playoff push sometime in the next half-decade.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n<p>Players mentioned:<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/freelky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-05-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Freeland<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Colorado Rockies\u00a0are outperforming expectations to this point in the season but still sit in last place in the NL West. Despite having a 0.4% chance of making the playoffs as of May 14, per\u00a0Baseball Reference, several potential positive developments have occurred. One of the biggest has been the seeming resurgence of Kyle Freeland. The former [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4425,"featured_media":58369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,32],"tags":[2227,94],"class_list":["post-58345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-rockies","tag-kyle-freeland","tag-nl-west"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}