Breakout Player: Patrick Corbin

Patrick Corbin has started 2013 with a historic run.

Patrick Corbin is..oh, you never heard of him? He’s an Arizona Diamondback pitcher. Still nothing?  Well, he’s the guy who is sporting a 1.44 ERA and 0.98 WHIP with 7 WINS that was most likely picked off the waiver wire, but is helping your opponents kick your butt in all pitching categories. Yeah, I thought that would ring a bell.

Let’s take a long look at Patrick Corbin to see what he might have in store for the rest of the season. But first a little biographical information in case you and Patrick might want to be friends. First his Twitter handle is @PatrickCorbin11 if you want to send him some encouraging Tweets to keep your fantasy baseball fortunes rolling in. The lefty grew up in New York, but didn’t join the baseball team until his junior year, which perhaps is what has helped him fly under the radar.

Coming from the Angels as part of the Dan Haren trade, Corbin made his Diamondback debut in 2012. Still only 23, he made this year’s rotation and has had an historic run, reeling off 9 starts of 2 or fewer runs in 6+ innings. Yet, he’s been overshadowed by Clayton Kershaw, Matt Harvey and Shelby Miller. So does he have the stuff to step out of the shadows and continue his dominate season, considering that scouts had him as a borderline #3 starter?

His Stuff

Well, he won’t sustain a 1.44 ERA, but my 4-year-daughter knows enough about baseball to realize that. But he does have the stuff to be an excellent fantasy contributor all season long.

He’s throwing 71% of his first pitches for strikes, mixing in his 92 MPH fastball, with a much improved changeup. Getting ahead of batters, he’s coming in with his killer slider, which has been death to hitters, especially against lefties. His sliders have produced a 58% whiff rate which is the highest rate of any individual pitch (100 pitch minimum), leading to 51 Ks already.

Every pitcher has splits and Corbin is no different. He’s absolutely killing lefties, but his slider has him doing quite well against righties as well. That’s making him dangerous. It also increases the our confidence that he’ll be a fine fantasy performer all season long.

What changed?

Corbin was drafted in the second round, so it’s not like he came out of nowhere. But no scout saw this, so what happened? Perhaps Corbin’s late start with pitching meant that he didn’t shine for scouts as early as he may have. Perhaps he simply found the mix of pitches he needed to be truly effective. Perhaps he found his confidence and the edge he needed to be effective.

Whatever the case, he has showed flashes of brilliance like this before, but only in spurts in Spring Training and the like. Now he’s shown a stretch of brilliance in the Majors.

Whatever it was that changed you can count of a solid performance going forward. Again, no pitcher will sustain a 1.44 ERA for the season, but be confident that the wheels won’t fall off. And he certainly won’t be a wavier wire guy in 2014.