Fantasy Baseball: 6 Players Who Have Completely Erased Their Slow Starts

Johnny Cueto, SP, San Francisco Giants

The Slow Start

Judging from talking about Samardzija earlier and Madison Bumgarner hitting the disabled list, we can get a glimpse as just how frustrating life was for the Giants in April.

Through his first 30 innings of the year, Johnny Cueto had allowed a .335 wOBA and a 39.2% hard-hit rate against. That's not exactly a recipe for success, and it produced a 1.40 WHIP, along with an ERA (5.10) that looked awfully close to his FIP (5.16).

Fresh off posting a 22.5% strikeout rate and 5.1% walk rate in 2016, the 18.2% and 7.6% marks he produced over this time didn't look like the Cueto we've come to know and love in fantasy.

The Hot Streak

Cueto not only increased his chase rate from 30.2% in April to 39.0% since, but his strikeout rate rose up to 28.5% while his walk rate shrunk down to 4.3%. His 3.91 ERA during this time seems a little high given his current level of domination, but a 2.97 FIP and 2.83 xFIP show just how much better he's been after struggling out of the gate.

What's even more impressive is he's been able to do this despite watching his BABIP allowed rise (.286 to .319) and his strand rate fall (75.1% to 68.8%). However, the one statistic that did appropriately go down was his hard-hit rate allowed, which went from 39.2% in April to 34.4% since May 1st.