Hunter Greene and the 5 most unlucky MLB starting pitchers of 2024

Remember how Hunter Greene had the sixth-best xWOBA in MLB?

Well, the White Sox’ Garrett Crochet, who had never been a starting pitcher in MLB before this season, is one spot ahead of him. By the same method of calculation, Crochet has an expected ERA of 2.41, also fifth in the game. But his actual ERA is… 5.31?

Yes, Garrett Crochet is perhaps the single unluckiest pitcher in the entire sport this season, albeit still just a quarter of the way in. He flat-out dominated in his first two starts before hitting a serious rough patch the next five, but he never surrendered more than seven hits in any of those games. And in his worst start by far, a three-inning, seven-run blow-up against the Philadelphia Phillies, he allowed three home runs, two of which had expected batting averages under .230.

So Crochet is a friendly reminder that ERA isn’t everything at this time of year. Sure, he’s a first-time starter experiencing some growing pains, but he’s also got wicked stuff, as evidenced by his 53 strikeouts in 40.2 innings. If his xERA and ERA can meet somewhere in the middle, the White Sox will be mighty pleased with their experiment of letting Crochet enter the rotation and he’ll more than likely keep his job there for years to come.

Aaron Civale, Rays

Garrett Crochet had the largest differential between ERA and xERA at the time this piece was written. Second place was Ryan Feltner of the Colorado Rockies, who easily could have been featured here too, but it’s always hard to use expected statistics when judging a pitcher at Coors Field. And third on the list was the Tampa Bay Rays’ Aaron Civale.

Civale has a 5.88 ERA and -0.4 bWAR this season, which makes the fact that the Rays traded top prospect Kyle Manzardo to Cleveland for him at the trade deadline last year look outright foolish. But Civale’s xERA of 3.99 makes him look like a perfectly serviceable mid-rotation starter. So which pitcher has Civale been closer to this season, his results-based self or his expected stats self?

While the amount of hits Civale has allowed is concerning, the good news is it simply isn’t sustainable. Civale’s .310 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) would be a single-season career high by more than 20 points.

At some point, the cheap singles will stop falling and Civale will escape troublesome innings instead of giving up multiple runs. But Civale will also need to stop putting himself in trouble to begin with if he and the Rays are going to have the 2024 end result they seek.

Brandon Pfaadt, Diamondbacks

Brandon Pfaadt went from unheralded rookie to MLB postseason hero in the blink of an eye, and it probably contributed to 2024 expectations that were a little higher than they should have been. After all, Pfaadt had a 5.72 ERA and 5.18 FIP in the 2023 regular season and frankly, his playoff success should have been talked about more as a historic surprise.

In the new season, Pfaadt’s overall numbers look pretty similar to last regular season. He’s sporting a 4.61 ERA through seven starts. But his FIP is all the way down to 3.28 and he has the ninth-largest gap between his actual ERA and xERA (3.34). If the expected stats are to be taken as true, Pfaadt is much closer to the pitcher he was in the playoffs than he was before.

It’s really been the sweeper that has victimized Pfaadt this year, much of which is due to rotten batted-ball luck. Hitters have a .263 AVG and .491 SLG against that pitch, Pfaadt’s second-most used offering, but the expected AVG and SLG are .216 and .361. So essentially, hitters are looking like Rafael Devers against the sweeper, but they should be closer to Mitch Haniger. Keep throwing the sweeper, Brandon, things will change eventually.

Nestor Cortes, Yankees

The funkiest pitcher in all of baseball, at least if we’re going by windups, is also one of the unluckiest in 2024. After an MLB All-Star campaign in 2022 and a disappointing, injury-plagued 2023, Nestor Cortes is off to a decent start, rocking a 3.72 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. But his expected ERA is much more in line with his All-Star season, all the way down at 2.63.

Cortes has a confusing Baseball Savant page, but most of the things that matter most are in his favor. He’s got a great walk rate, a decent barrel rate, and even an above-average strikeout rate. He doesn’t throw hard (anyone who watches the Yankees regularly could tell you that) and he gives up a lot of fly balls, but as long as those stay away from the foul poles at Yankee Stadium, he should be fine. There’s a lot of hope for Nasty Nestor for the rest of 2024.

And Cortes could be one of the more interesting x-factors of the Yankees’ entire season. If Gerrit Cole comes back and is his usual self, that obviously puts their rotation in a much more exciting place than it is now, but that rotation is still fraught with newcomers with no postseason experience in the pinstripes. If Cortes, the second-longest tenured member of that rotation, is excellent come October, the Yankees could be a serious threat to do what they’ve sorely hoped to since 2009.