Fantasy Baseball: 5 Pitchers Primed to Improve Their Strikeout Rates

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.