How good is Blue Jays Henderson Alvarez?

Toronto Blue Jays starter Henderson Alvarez is just 22 years old, but he is already making his mark in the Jays rotation. After a 1 WAR season through 63.2 innings last year, Alvarez has a 2.83 ERA in 41.1 innings this season. Although he has been extremely lucky this season, he has pitched well and, as always, has displayed excellent control to offset a lack of strikeouts.

Last night, Alvarez threw a complete game shutout to help the Jays defeat the Los Angeles Angels 4-0. It was the first complete game of his career, and he improved to 2-2 on the season after allowing just six hits and a walk. He had just three strikeouts, but that’s common place for a pitcher with a career strikeout rate of 4.65 per nine.

Albert Pujols went 0-4 and was one of two Angels hitters to strikeout in the game, as lead-off hitter and phenom center fielder Mike Trout went 0-4 with two strikeouts. Only infielders Erick Aybar and Maicer Izturis had extra base hits off of Alvarez, and those two hits were their third doubles of the season respectively.

It’s hard not to feel bad for Ervin Santana, who once again received no run support. He is 0-6 on the season, and this is the fifth time that the Angels have been shutout during one of his performances. It’s a shame too, since Santana struck out ten batters and allowed just three runs, three hits, and two walks in eight strong innings.

Henderson Alvarez notched the third win of his career, and he has taken the mound for 16 starts to this point in his career. He has a 93 mile per hour fastball with a solid changeup that is substantially slower and clocks in at around 85 miles per hour. He uses his slider and changeup about the same, and his slider is starting to develop into a legitimate pitch for the young right-hander.

Regression will take place for the Jays starter, but expect Alvarez to have an ERA closer to 4.00 than the projected 4.50 ERA. He is a lucky pitcher this season and has been lucky through just 105 career innings. It’s tough to say how good he truly is, but it’s fun to enjoy the ride and watch Henderson Alvarez pitch. He’s having a great season through six starts, but expect his numbers to significantly drop as the season goes forward.

He does a great job of limiting walks and getting grounders and oppresses batting averages by doing that, but he doesn’t get punchouts. Alvarez doesn’t get hitters to chase that much, and hitters have made contact against him 87.5% of the time in his career. He is a solid back of the rotation starter and is a good beginning-of-the-season story, but Alvarez’s career numbers (3.26 ERA in 105 innings) are largely based on luck.

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