There's Hope For Gavin Floyd Yet

EDITOR'S NOTE: Do you not understand FIP, xFIP, or a lot about sabermetrics? I recommend you read this first before proceeding to get a better understanding of the arguments being made.

As a White Sox fan, this season has not gone so well for me. It's taken the Mariners pitching staff outside of SAFECO and three clutchiness, grindy, late inning home runs in order for the team to win a series. While I didn't expect much out of this offense (although I did expect everybody but Mark Teahen to hit above .230), this pitching staff was supposed to be the anchor and highlight of this team. In pre-season, I thought the best White Sox pitcher would be Gavin Floyd. But with a 8.38 ERA with a 2.02 WHIP, he's clearly has not been the pitcher I thought he would be.

However, there's still hope for him yet.

The first thing I'm pleased with is Floyd's K/9. From Floyd's first major year to his second year, he made huge strides in his K/9. One of the things I was banking on for Floyd was that he made another stride again in his young year- which he has done so far. For the past three years, Floyd increased his K/9 from 6.33 to 7.60 to 8.38 this year. Normally, I don't put too much stock into a guy who has only made four starts, however, I think Floyd has a similar K/9 all year and I think this strikeout rate stays consistent all year.

Another quick positive is Floyd's low .47 HR/9. For a guy who's known to give up his fair share of homers, at least when everything is going wrong, his home runs are not.

Now here comes his flaws. I actually like Floyd for the future with his current .416 BABIP along with his 55.9% LOB%. Sure, these numbers are worse than Derrick Rose's actual SAT score, but these are fairly luck based numbers. The average BABIP of pitchers sits around .300 and Floyd's average BABIP is actually .292, which means Floyd is getting EXTREMELY unlucky having batters get on base. Floyd also has a career 68.8% LOB% which means he's also getting unlucky that all of his base runners are scoring runs.

In addition to Floyd's LOB% and BABIP, another thing I like about Floyd is that he leads the league in ERA/FIP split. So while Floyd has the same ERA and his high K/9, his low 3.68 FIP (the lowest of his career) tells me his ERA will drop and drop dramatically.

Floyd also has a walking problem this year. No, not like the walking problem of your grandmother, his extremely high 5.59 BB/9- which just kills his WHIP. However, Floyd has never had a BB/9 over 3.05 in his three full seasons on the South Side. And since I believe baseball is a game of averages, that means Floyd's walk rate should also decrease like his ERA.

So if you have Floyd like me on your fantasy team, just be patient and if you want a great guy to add to your depth and one you can probably get cheap- go and try and get Gavin Floyd.