Kelvin Herrera’s collection of oddly perplexing statistics

Kelvin Herrera is blessed with one of the most electric pitching arms in baseball. His build, listed at 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds, is intriguingly indicative of the statistics he has amassed in three full seasons with the Kansas City Royals. Both aspects are deceiving. They fail to tell the whole story. In Herrera’s case, the whole “numbers are deceiving” cliché is applicable to an unusual degree.

Herrera doesn’t physically resemble a hard-throwing bullpen horse. His four-seamer clocked in at a 99.06 mph average in 2014, though. His sinker, which is essentially a sinking fastball more so than a typical sinker, had a 98.76 mph average last year. One would think these velocities combined with a sharply dipping changeup and curveball would make Herrera a fortified bullpen animal.

He sort of is, but he sort of isn’t. Let the examination of Herrera’s odd collection of perplexing statistics begin.

Herrera logged 84 1/3 innings pitched in 2012. By today’s standard for relievers, that’s a heavy workload. Opponents hit .250 against him, a fairly strong number from an opposing perspective given Herrera’s lightning-like tossing ability. Herrera had 77 strikeouts. A solid number, but not a dominant one, especially when accounting for his devastating pitches. He allowed only four home runs all season. That’s fine. And a 2.35 ERA, which is great.

In 2012, Herrera was a strong, fairly consistent strikeout pitcher who had no business allowing nearly a hit per inning when observing his categorical talent. The Royals should’ve been thrilled with that year considering it was Herrera’s rookie season. Definitely a run of success that could be built upon in 2013.

Think again. Herrera took a few key steps forward in 2013, but also took several steps back. That heavy workload dropped to 58 1/3 innings tossed in 2013. That acceptable home run total of four skyrocketed to nine. Significantly less innings, exponentially more home runs. This is where the stats become odd. Opponents only hit .219 against him, down from 2012’s .250 figure. Herrera went from 77 strikeouts in 84 1/3 frames to 74 strikeouts in just 58 1/3 innings.

2013’s entirety can primarily be looked upon as a step back. Less work, partially due to a stint in Triple-A, with more home runs surrendered and a 3.86 ERA. The drastically improved strikeout rate and opponent batting average number were building blocks, but Herrera clearly lacked the killer instinct his stuff suggested he should possess.

What did these years indicate would happen in 2014? Well, given the national notoriety Kansas City’s trio of Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland created in the postseason, he had a special stretch. In his 70-game run, he didn’t allow a single home run. Remarkable. His ERA was 1.41. Stupendous. His WHIP was 1.14 and opponents only hit .214 against him, both good for career-bests.

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The oddities were still there, though. Only 59 strikeouts in 70 innings. That’s a soft-tossing, pitch-to-location reliever kind of number, not one for a 99 mph fireballer with two wicked off-speed pitches. Herrera’s walks also reached 26, a career-worst, and a 59 to 26 strikeout-to-walk-ratio is undeniably poor. Nevertheless, a 1.41 ERA, zero home runs surrendered and a vital role on a World Series participating team meant Herrera became a beast in 2014.

Here’s another component worth noting. In all of those past seasons, Herrera’s fastball was predominantly used and thrown extremely hard. His harsh changeup was always a solidly relied upon second offering. His curveball was infrequently used, but offered enough to count as a weapon. Three wildly different statistical seasons, but no drastically different seasons in terms of pitch selection or velocity.

What will happen in 2015? Given Herrera’s three years of oddly perplexing campaigns, each of which changed so severely in comparison to the others, it’s difficult to assess.

FanGraphs’ steamer supports my position of Kelvin Herrera being a strange relief pitching case. For 2015, FanGraphs predicts him to only log 55 innings, sport a 2.91 ERA and have his 2014 WAR of 1.4 drop to 0.7. This would be worse than 2012’s season and better than 2013’s showing. It would also be an odd letdown from what we assume was Herrera’s coming-out party of 2014.

Go figure. Here’s what we know about Herrera. His arm is a divine blessing that causes him to chuck a small round object more emphatically than most humans wandering the earth. He passes the eye test with flying colors because of this natural ability.

His statistics, though, don’t always entirely match his talent. He’s been a home run allowing machine at times, then been completely opposed to home runs in other instances. He’s been a strikeout wizard, but he’s also been a pitch-to-contact reliever struggling to find strikeouts. Simply stated, Herrera’s been all over the place. After he finally arrived with 2014’s run of excellence, advanced metrics predict him to fall off in 2015.

There’s no sure way to project what Kelvin Herrera will do this upcoming season. If you listen closely, however, you might just hear his 99 mph heater collide with Salvador Perez‘s glove. The idea of Herrera’s stuff induces fear. His numbers induce something more intriguing–that would be a collection of oddly perplexing statistics.

Next: Former Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer heads to D.C>