Tampa Bay Rays: Chris Archer being overvalued on the market?

Javier Vazquez

Vazquez was a fellow 5th round selection (Archer was a 5th round pick in 2006 by the Indians before being traded to the Cubs and then to the Tampa Bay Rays) by the Montreal Expos out of Puerto Rico. He worked his way up the minor league system quickly, and after he put up a 1.86 ERA over 25 starts and 154 2/3 innings between high-A and AA at 20 years old with a 0.99 WHIP and a 40/147 BB/K ratio. He was ranked as the #83 prospect in baseball by Baseball America after the 1997 season.

He spent the entire 1998 season in the Expos rotation, struggling to a 6.06 ERA, and he had a rough 1999 as well with the Expos, finishing with a 5.00 ERA over 154 2/3 innings before settling into the rotation in 2000, putting up excellent numbers for a number of years.

Vazquez was one of the first pitchers who received notoriety for having better numbers if you would give him a normalized defense and home run rate compared to what he actually put up.

Even with his difficult first two seasons, Vazquez had 12.2 bWAR over his first 5 seasons in the rotation compared to Archer’s 12.0. As both Vazquez and Archer benefitted from FIP numbers, figuring in fWAR puts Vazquez at 18.2 over his first five seasons while Archer is at 17.5.

Another way that the two are similar pitchers is in their offerings. Archer works with a fastball that Pitch Info rated at 95.8 MPH on average that he threw 47.5% of the time in 2017. He utilized a slider at 89.1 MPH 43.8% of the time and a change up at 86.1 MPH 8.6% of the time.

Vazquez’s pitch mix looks very similar. He didn’t have the same premium velocity, but he had an average four-seam fastball velocity via Pitch Info of 93.8 in 2007 (the first year of available data). He used his four-seamer 35.6% of the time at that time, along with using a 92.8 MPH two-seamer 17.5% of the time. Vazquez’s best pitches were his breaking pitches, and he utilized his slider and curve ~35% of the time that Pitch Info tracked his pitch mix.

While Archer has a 3.63/3.46/3.43 ERA/FIP/xFIP career line, it matches well with Vazquez’s 4.22/3.91/3.74 ERA/FIP/xFIP career line, leading some credence to those who say that while Archer could have an uber-elite season or two like Vazquez was able to put up in 2009 with the Braves, he’s most likely going to be more of a innings guy with solid results than a pure ace.