Article: Is Julio Teheran Really This Good?

[Jake McKibbin]

In dire straits in the latter part of May, the Brewers reached out and grabbed a veteran starting pitcher. The scrap heap gave him up easy; no one expected much. Two weeks later, though, it's time to ask whether their emergency starter can blossom into a viable medium-term back-end starter.

Image courtesy of © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

Julio Teheran came through his start on Monday evening having allowed just three runs in his first three Brewers outings, combined. When Wade Miley was put on the 15-day injured list, and the team expected him to be out for eight weeks, it looked as though the Brewers had finally gotten one injury too many. Where could they go? Robert Gasser wasn’t ready yet, regularly losing command for a big inning, and no other arms were really there to get big-league outs.

Teheran was picked up after posting a 5.63 ERA with the Padres’ Triple-A affiliate–not a burgeoning indicator. He had struggled to a 10.05 ERA in 30 innings for the Los Angeles Angels in 2020, given just five innings for the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and had no recent history of anything of substance to suggest this would go well.

On the surface so far this season, he has a 90.6-mph average exit velocity, and an average launch angle of 17.8 degrees, which spells trouble. However, hitters are finding the “sweet spot” (launch angles between 8 and 32 degrees) just 32% of the time, compared to 42% in his fallow years. He is also forcing hitters to beat him, giving up just two walks in 17 1/3 innings pitched, leading to a very manageable expected ERA of 3.34. So while he’s barely striking guys out, he’s performing very respectably indeed, making a case that he should be retained (over Colin Rea) when Miley, Lauer and Woodruff all return.

Teheran’s swing-and-miss stuff is almost non-existent. He has 153% (yep, you read that right) less horizontal break on his slider than the average major-league version, and below average vertical movement too. His curveball and four-seamer are both poor pitches in terms of movement as well. However, his sinker has 4.4 inches of extra vertical drop compared to the MLB average, and his changeup is slightly on the plus side too. What this has resulted in is a very high ground ball rate with the changeup, one of his better swing-and-miss pitches.

Most interesting is the four-seamer, which (despite its poor movement profile) has been a weapon for him so far this season. He keeps it up in the zone well, using it especially against left-handers and to good effect with a .228 expected slugging percentage and 23% whiff rate, inducing a lot of pop-ups and lazy fly balls. Opponents’ average launch angle against the pitch is 31 degrees, too high to be productive. The biggest plus for him is the location; he keeps it in the zone, but most interesting is how it pairs with his sinker, staying just slightly higher, but tunneling very well off each other. He uses the above-average sinker movement to avoid barrels, and the four-seamer’s tunneling to generate whiffs and popups.

The slider, however, seems to be getting used as a backdoor breaking pitch, rather than attempting to get chases down and away, and it’s being hit fairly hard with regularity at the moment (xBA .365, xSlg .603). His best offspeed pitch is, as mentioned, the changeup, and look at the accuracy around its location:

In terms of pitch mix, during his last full season in MLB (2019) Teheran based almost everything off his four-seam fastball, rather than the sinker we see him use today. He was, however, having his offspeed pitches getting hit hard (all three of his changeup, curveball and slider), which continued into 2020 with his changeup having a .467 batting average and 1.200 slugging percentage against it. In short, when he left his offspeed offerings over the plate, they got absolutely hammered.

The curveball has been used almost exclusively out of the zone so far this season, but the most interesting usage thus far is his slider, with which he has mostly tried to slip in the front door to right handers, and the back door to left handers equally. For a pitcher that likes to pitch on the outer edges of the plate, especially with the sinker inside to right handers, it can fool the occasional hitter and allow him to get ahead early in the count. Due to its subpar movement, it potentially blends much better with his fastballs, almost as an opposite-handed changeup in some ways, making it more difficult to pick up for hitters than the slow, early-breaking, sweeping sliders that are all over the league.

Is it likely that he can sustain this indefinitely? Probably not, but the plus defense the Brewers have employed behind him and Adrian Houser has definitely helped thus far. Teheran’s unique style will likely get picked apart sooner rather than later. That being said, he’s an experienced pitcher and should have the nous for a few more solid starts before the league catches up. If he can show an ability to adapt after that, then he may even stick around.

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[MrTPlush]

Ironically, Teheran is replacing Miley...who once was a saving grace in a similar situation for us half a decade ago. Miley put up a 2.57 ERA in 2018 and even kept up that incredible run of dominance into the postseason.

Is Terheran this good? No. Is he even remotely close to this good? No. The thing is though, what he does every other year of his career is meaningless. We just care about what he does for the next 4 months or so. 

[wiguy94]

I think Teheran might survive over Rea for the sole fact that Rea has an option and Teheran does not. 

[Jake McKibbin]

Just now, wiguy94 said:

I think Teheran might survive over Rea for the sole fact that Rea has an option and Teheran does not. 

I think you're right, though again the next few starts are important for both.

Also Rea has been pitching for longer, and that seems to be a negative when hoping for out of the blue pitcher performances

Clearly the Brewers are very good at creating game plans for their pitchers to enable them to play above their ability levels, which is a serious boost the last couple of months

 

[jay87shot]

I think hitter will adjust to him here now that there is a pattern. Hopefully he is experienced enough to adjust to the adjustments. I would send Rea down before him when Miley is back. 

[MrTPlush]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

I think Teheran might survive over Rea for the sole fact that Rea has an option and Teheran does not. 

I don't think it really matters. Why would you go with the guy who has 200 innings in his sporadic career over a guy with 1400 innings and before all the injuries was a consistent piece in a MLB rotation?

Teheran was never particularly pretty, but he consistently put up a solid ERA. Of course, so far his BB/9 is 1.0....and historically that has been 4.5+...so a massive crash back to earth might be in store. I still would bet on him putting together a decent little run over Rea. You know what you are getting with Rea and it isn't good. 

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, MrTPlush said:

Ironically, Teheran is replacing Miley...who once was a saving grace in a similar situation for us half a decade ago. Miley put up a 2.57 ERA in 2018 and even kept up that incredible run of dominance into the postseason.

Is Terheran this good? No. Is he even remotely close to this good? No. The thing is though, what he does every other year of his career is meaningless. We just care about what he does for the next 4 months or so. 

Miley (122 IP | 71 ERA- | 96 FIP-) is the most recent example, but the Brewers definitely have a history of coaxing good results out of mediocre stuff guys with Chase Anderson (438 IP | 85 ERA- | 107 FIP-), Zach Davies (417 IP | 90 ERA- | 101 FIP-), and Brent Suter (373 IP | 84 ERA- | 95 FIP-) in larger samples, or even Gio Gonzalez (112 IP | 73 ERA- | 90 FIP-), Alex Claudio (81 IP | 92 ERA- | 106 FIP-) and Jordan Lyles (75 IP | 61 ERA- | 90 FIP-) in smaller samples all notably outperforming their underwhelming peripherals.

Granted, lots of those IP were pre-pandemic, but the Brewers are also tops in MLB in dIfferential between ERA (4.02) and FIP (4.65) this year so it appears they may be at it again.

There is no doubt all that really matters is what happens over the next four months, and that Julio will regress from his current 36 ERA- | 92 FIP-. 

Hopefully that ends up closer to good Julio (87 ERA- | 102 FIP- over 795 IP from 2013-16) than bad Julio (101 ERA- | 117 FIP- over 575 IP from 2017-21).

[homer]

Great article, Jake!

[JosephC]

I don't see it lasting for Teheran.  May have the 1.56 ERA, but the 4.85 xFIP and 4.80 SIERA indicate that the ERA will rise, and possibly in dramatic fashion.  I always suspect that K rate might have too much of an impact on xFIP and SIERA when it comes to heavy ground-ball pitchers, but Teheran GB% is only at 37.7, and while he throws a sinker, the numbers throughout his career show that he has never been a ground ball pitcher.  The BABIP is .235 and the HR/FB% is 7.7, both low numbers that indicate he's been pretty fortunate so far.