40-Man Roster Review: Lance McCullers

Lance McCullers is more than a pitcher on the Houston Astros 40-man roster. He is more than the number on his back and he is certainly a professional beyond his age. Lance McCullers is a true student of the game of baseball. 

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Ted Berg, a writer for FTW! MLB, wrote a brilliant piece discussing spin rates and the Houston Astros. Berg credits McCullers for being eager to learn, with respect to spin-rate data, "as soon as it was presented" to the young right-hander. 

Berg explains in his article that Lance has been working on replicating the change-up that Felix Hernandez deploys. This is pretty interesting. Take a look at whiffs per swing data for Hernandez, provided by Brooks-Baseball:

With McCullers tossing 125 2/3 innings last season, there is not a lot of data on his pitch usage. The data that Brooks-Baseball does have, however, is crazy. McCullers' worst month was June, where he only induced 26.92 whiffs per swing on his change-up.

Comparing Hernandez and McCullers' heat map with the change-up is pretty interesting as well:

It appears that McCullers is echoing Hernandez' pitch placement. McCullers  has a tendency to miss a little higher in the zone. With experience and more faith in his ability, I am confident that Lance will grow and locate his pitches better.

Overall, McCullers is a really good pitcher for the Houston Astros. In his rookie effort, he threw 125 2/3 innings, resulting in a 3.22 earned run average. Other numbers look quite nice. His strikeout-to-walk ratios are exceptional: 9.2 K/9; 3.1 BB/9; therefore, 3.0 strikeouts per walk issued. 

Once seen as a question mark with regards to a future in the bullpen or being a starting pitcher, this 22-year-old is silencing experts and internet bloggers. He is the real deal and should be in the mix for a Cy Young run as early as this season.