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At the start of 2020, many Twins fans had their hopes high that Berríos would continue to develop into an ace. Entering his age 26 season, he was coming off back-to-back All-Star Game appearances and had had some of his career-best numbers the year before. But things definitely didn’t go his way last season.
To call La Makina’s 2020 disastrous might be a bit too much, especially if you consider the sample size. He didn’t have enough time to improve his overall numbers after his rough start, in which he had a 5.92 ERA in the first five starts. In spite of posting a 2.79 ERA in his final seven starts of the regular season and having his best postseason outing yet, overall, several of his numbers looked well worse than usual.
Last year, Berríos had the highest walk-rate (9.6%) since his debut season and the highest hard hit-rate (39.7%) of his entire career. Also, his xBA (.249) and wOBA (.303), while not terrible, were both the highest since 2016. Talking about his traditional stats, the 4.00 ERA, 4.06 FIP, 1.317 WHIP and 109 ERA+ were all the worst in four years.
Such regression, combined with Kenta Maeda’s stellar season, compelled a lot of Twins fans to simply rule Berríos out of the conversations for number one pitcher in the rotation. While this might’ve been true for most fans even before his disappointing 2020 season, maybe it’s a good moment to ask: what to expect from Berríos’ foreseeable future with Minnesota?
Like Ted Schwerzler pointed out in his blog, Berríos is about to enter his prime and isn’t far from Cy Young contention, so extending him as soon as possible should make a lot of sense for the Twins. However, MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park believes it won’t be that easy to do so. Also, in his piece, he talks about how difficult it is to make any projections right now, so here’s an interesting way I found to speculate on what’s next on Berríos’ career. Using the Similarity Scores tool from Baseball Reference, here are three starting pitchers I found that were having similar careers to Berríos through the age 26.
Pat Hentgen
Here’s a guy who had some uncanny resemblances with Berríos, at least in the first years. He was drafted and developed by the Toronto Blue Jays and pitched for the club for nine seasons, from 1991 to 1999. He made it to the All-Star Game twice (1993 and 1994), but went on to have an abysmal 1995 season, posting a 5.11 ERA and allowing the most hits (236) and earned runs (114) in all of the majors. Entering the 1996 season, his career numbers were unimpressive, to say the least: 4.23 ERA, 4.54 FIP and 108 ERA+. But that didn’t stop him from getting right back on track and pitching his way to the AL Cy Young Award that very year. He did struggle for the remainder of his major league career, though, especially after having Tommy John Surgery in 2001.
John Lackey
The three-time World Series winner pitched four seasons until turning 26 and the start of his career in the majors wasn’t nearly as impressive as Berríos’ and Hentgen’s. In that span (from 2002 to 2005), he had a 4.15 ERA and 105 ERA+ in only 29 total starts. But things really picked up afterwards. In 2006 he had career numbers in bWAR (4.6), innings pitched (217 2/3) and ERA+ (127), only to improve each one of those even more in 2007 and finish third in the AL Cy Young voting, after leading the AL in ERA (3.01) and being named for his first All-Star Game. While he was never an ace, he had himself a very solid career from 2006 to 2017, pitching at least 160 innings in each season and having 3.84 ERA, 3.95 FIP and 111 ERA+ to show for it.
Trevor Bauer
The former Indian was first tested in the majors in 2012 and 2013, starting on only four games in each season. Taking over as one of Cleveland’s full time starters in 2014, he pitched four consecutive seasons with at least 26 starts. Unlike Berríos, he never impressed at all in his first years, having a career 4.36 ERA, 4.15 FIP and 99 ERA+ after his age 26 season (2017). But then, in 2018, he finally turned the corner and made it to his first All-Star Game and finished sixth in the AL Cy Young race, after posting a 2.21 ERA, leading the AL with 2.44 FIP and having a 196 ERA+. After a rough start to his Cincinnati Reds career, he went on to have a career year last season, with a league best 1.73 ERA, 2.88 FIP and 276 ERA+, winning the NL Cy Young Award.
Similarity Scores are just fun coincidences to look at and of course they mean nothing for a player’s future. What we do know is that Berríos is a very hard-working kid, who’s earned himself the benefit of the doubt, even after a not ideal (and hopefully atypical) season. Whether he’s going to be an elite, top of the rotation starter and win Cy Young awards or just an OK number three guy shouldn’t matter for the decision of keeping him around or not. I think the Twins definitely should. What about you?
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