MLB
Fantasy Baseball: 5 Pitchers Primed to Improve Their Strikeout Rates
These five hurlers have some poor numbers at first glance, but their ability to get whiffs could have them rising up the fantasy ranks before long.

Jon Gray, Colorado Rockies

ERA: 4.85 (78th)

Swinging-Strike Rate: 12.9% (19th)

Is the curse of Coors Field going to permanently damage Jon Gray's sexy advanced metrics? For fantasy owners' sake, let's hope not.

Over 52 innings pitched, Gray has struggled with a 4.85 ERA in 2018. But a look at nearly every other metric shows that Gray has been pretty awesome this season. Including that nasty swinging-strike rate, Gray has whiffed 26.7% of batters (which would be a season-long best) while walking only 5.4% of hitters and keeping fly-balls to a 29.3% rate.

The outlier here may be Gray's HR/FB%, as he's only allowing 1.04 HR/9 despite a home run-to-fly-ball ratio of 14.0%, which is above his career average of 12.1% and the league average of 13.3%.

At home, Gray currently sports a 6.04 ERA in 28 1/3 innings pitched, which is up from his career mark of 4.74 in 178 2/3 innings pitched at Coors. If he can tame those home numbers and have a few more fly-balls stay in the yard, he could see that ERA plummet rather quickly.

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