We've had a fun running bit on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast over the past few weeks, where every time Andrew Abbott has a good start, we play the audio from this clip.
The point is a fairly obvious one: That Abbott's continued success just doesn't make any sense and can't be sustainable. He entered Monday's start against the Rockies with a 3.28 ERA and lowered it to 3.06 with seven shutout innings, with peripherals that really don't back it up; his FIP is 4.73, while his xFIP is 4.81, mostly because he's he gives up a lot of homers (1.4 per nine innings) without either avoiding walks (9% walk rate) or generating a bunch of strikeouts (19.3%).
And yet … he keeps getting away with it. Now, Monday's start against the Rockies wasn't exactly as impressive as the numbers might suggest, seeing as the Rockies away from Coors Field are absolutely one of the best matchups in the league for a pitcher. But it's worth noting he did have 19 swinging strikes in this one and allowed just four batted balls with an expected batting average over .500. He pitched legitimately well Monday against a very beatable matchup, and he deserves credit for that.
Of course, he also allowed just one hit on those four batted balls with an xBA over .500, which highlights what has been so tough to figure out about Abbott. FIP and xFIP paint one picture of his season, and it's not a pretty one; but if you look at xERA, which accounts for the quality of contact a pitcher allows, Abbott sits with a much more impressive 3.50 mark. Which is to say, Abbott has both earned much of his success and has been lucky to have the success he has had. Both can be true.
So, am I still skeptical? Do I still think he can't keep getting away with it? Yeah, for the most part. Abbott has at least flashed a bit more strikeout upside lately, though hardly consistently; he had 10 strikeouts four starts ago and then had just two in each of the next two starts before Monday's eight-strikeout effort, so that hardly seems definitive.
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But the biggest red flag here is in the quality of contact. His .321 expected wOBA on contact entering Monday's start was better than any pitcher in baseball managed last season and is bested by only nine pitcher seasons over the previous three seasons. Among those previous pitchers who had an xwOBACON of .321 or lower from 2021-2023, only four qualified for the ERA title the following season, and each of them saw their mark in that category rise by at least .031 points – on average, they went from .314 one year to .361 the next.
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean Abbott will regress the rest of the way. But it's a bet you should probably be making at this point. Sustaining this level of success on balls in play is incredibly difficult, even if Abbott has earned much of his success so far. He didn't show anywhere near this level of skill in this regard as a rookie, and while pitchers can always improve, it seems safe to assume, based on Abbott's history as well as the history of other pitchers in similar spots, that what he's doing right now isn't sustainable.
It's fine to keep riding him while it's happening, but you should take advantage of Monday's great start and his continued success to try to find a trade partner who doesn't subscribe to this newsletter or our podcast and might be more inclined to believe in Abbott. We still don't. He can't keep getting away with it.
I do want to highlight something I wrote for CBSSports.com Monday: My second-half sleepers list! I'll have Breakout and Bust picks later this week to go along with it, but for now, here are 10 players rostered in 50% or fewer of CBS Fantasy leagues who I think could make a surprise impact in the second half of the season.
And now, here's everything else you need to know about from Monday's action around MLB:
Tuesday's waiver targets
Gavin Williams, SP, Guardians (79%) – In his first start back from the IL, Gavin Williams totally ditched his slider in favor of a new, harder cutter. In this one … he seemed to split the difference? He averaged 91.6 mph with his cutter in his previous start and 84.9 mph with his slider last season; Monday, his cutter averaged 88.3 mph. I don't think this was a case of Statcast misidentifying the pitch because his slowest cutter of the day was just 86.1 mph, 1.2 mph up from his average last season. Williams is clearly tinkering coming back from his spring elbow injury, but at least the results were better this time, as he shut the Tigers out over 5.1 innings with five strikeouts to one walk. He's thrown just two changeups in addition to the slider-to-cutter change, which is to say, this is a very different pitcher than the one we saw last season. Is it a better one? I'm skeptical, but there's clearly upside here worth chasing coming off this solid outing.
Lars Nootbaar, OF, Cardinals (38%) – Nootbaar made his return from his oblique injury Monday, and it's worth adding him in at least category-based formats despite questions about how much he's likely to play in a crowded Cardinals outfield. Staying healthy has been a big problem for Nootbaar, but you just have to look at his production over the past two seasons to see how useful he can be for Fantasy: In 156 games since the start of 2023, Nootbaar is hitting .254 with 88 runs, 19 homers, 65 RBI, and 14 steals. He isn't a superstar, and his inability to stay healthy plus the Cardinals outfield glut means you can't just take those numbers at face value, but they do tell us he should be a pretty useful Fantasy option when he plays, and he is at least healthy right now.
Mitchell Parker, SP, Nationals (55%) – Parker bounced back nicely from a poor outing in his previous start, limiting the Cardinals to one earned run over six innings. He struck out six and walked one, and what was interesting here was how much Parker leaned on the slider. He threw it 25% of the time, after throwing just 7.7% of the time coming into this start; it was his best whiff pitch in this one, as it has been all season, and maybe there's a path to more sustainable success if he leans on that pitch more like he did here. I don't think Parker is an ace or anything, but if he can push his strikeout rate a bit closer to average, he could remain a useful Fantasy option. The slider might be the path to that.
Yilber Diaz, SP, Diamondbacks (8%) – Facing a tough Braves lineup in his MLB debut, it's hard to ask for much more than what Diaz gave us Monday. He limited the Braves to just one run over six innings on four hits and, notably, just one walk – Diaz struck out 105 batters in 76 innings in the minors this season, but he also walked 38, an untenable pace if he wants to succeed in the majors. It's way too early to say whether he will be able to sustain that success, and he wasn't so overwhelmingly dominant (just nine whiffs on 83 pitches, six with his fastball) that Diaz is a must-add player or anything. But this was good enough to be worth taking a look in 15-team leagues, just in case he can build on it.
Rece Hinds, OF, Reds (2%) – Hinds made quite an impact in his first MLB game, going 2 for 3 with a double and a 449-foot, 109.6-mph homer. He wasn't exactly thriving at Triple-A, hitting .216 with a massive 38% strikeout rate, so he still has a lot to prove. But, at least in NL-only leagues, Hinds is worth a look for now.
Keider Montero, SP, DET (3%) – That's now two quality starts in a row for Montero, who shut the Guardians out over 6.1 innings of work, one turn in the rotation after he limited the Twins to two runs in 6.1 innings of work. He's kept the walks under control, which is a big deal after Montero walked 5.6 per nine innings in Triple-A before his promotion. There haven't been many strikeouts here, and Montero isn't exactly racking up the whiffs (eight on 73 pitches Monday), so I'm not expecting anything like an ace-level outcome. But if you need pitching in an AL-only league, he could potentially be useful there.
