One year ago, the Oakland Athletics claimed a 26-year-old relief pitcher with 0.2 innings above Double-A off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles. At 27, Andrew Triggs finally made his major league debut, throwing 56.1 innings to a 4.31 ERA and 1.22 WHIP. After the six-start audition at the end of the 2016 season, he’s now competing for a full-time spot in Oakland’s rotation. There’s an interesting player here beneath the surface stats if he can stick around.
As a starting pitcher, Triggs struck out 22.7% of batters he faced, while walking just 1.0%. It’s a small sample size, but his K-BB% would have tied Madison Bumgarner for fifth among qualified starters. Triggs’ 2.68 FIP would have ranked third overall. But the strikeout and walk rates weren’t the only impressive facets to his profile – Triggs induced groundballs at a rate of 50.9%. With just 25.2 innings in the rotation, it’s possible Triggs just got lucky and strung together a few decent starts. He certainly wouldn’t be the first pitcher to return to mediocrity after one good month. However, an examination of his pitch arsenal reveals that he may be able to maintain his success.
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Triggs primarily throws a two-seam fastball, but it’s also been called a sinker because it moves 9.4 inches on average. This pitch had a 56.2% groundball rate and just 11.2% flyball rate. He suffered some bad luck here, as it allowed a .341 BABIP and 20% HR/FB rate. At just 90.4 MPH, Triggs has a small margin of error for mistakes, so the home run rate may remain higher than average, though 20% is unsustainably high. With some regression on luck, this is a solid pitch that should generate plenty of weak contact when located well. Oakland’s poor infield defense won’t do him any favors, though.
The fastball is paired with a slider that only moves 3.7 inches at 83.5 MPH, but hitters swung and missed 15.7% of the time. Triggs doesn’t have overpowering velocity, but deception and varied movement and velocity have kept hitters guessing. He also threw this pitch for strikes 53.4% of the time, while the fastball was at 54.5%, so he can mix both effectively in any count. Many pitchers ranked above Triggs aren’t comfortable throwing anything other than their primary pitch for strikes, if anything.
The third pitch in Triggs’ arsenal is a slow, arching curveball with 10.5 inches of movement, which serves as his strikeout pitch. It had a 42.6% strikeout rate and 15.9% swinging strike rate, with 10.5 inches of movement. At 76.7 MPH, his curveball has another dramatic shift in velocity from the other two pitches. He only threw this pitch in the strike zone 33.3% of the time, but hitters swung 47.1% of the time. With a similar release point to his fastball, it can appear like an easy pitch to drive before dropping out of the zone.
Between his advanced repertoire and brief major league success, Triggs makes for an intriguing sleeper as the 90th starting pitcher and 324th overall player being drafted on average. Striking out batters while walking few and maintaining a low launch angle on contact is a combination that has been successful for many pitchers. The most innings he’s thrown over a full season is 74.2, so it remains to be seen if he can hold up for a full year in the rotation, but if last year was an indication of what Triggs will continue to do, he’ll be a valuable pitcher.
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Alex Isherwood is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Alex, check out his archive.
