Every Team's Most Interesting Player: San Francisco Giants, Kevin Gausman

This is the 24th in a series of articles about the most interesting player for fantasy owners on each team heading into the 2020 season. We are going alphabetically, so today we’re going to talk about Kevin Gausman  of the San Francisco Giants.

Gausman’s prospects were touched on here, but I’m bullish enough on him to give him a spotlight all to himself. A Top 5 overall pick in 2012, Gausman’s MLB career has been underwhelming to say the least. He has varied from serviceable to downright terrible since his MLB debut in 2013, and has played for three teams since the start of 2018. But despite finishing with a career-worst 5.72 ERA last year, Gausman actually seemed to turn a corner once, especially since joining the Reds. He only threw 22.1 innings for Cincinnati, but he posted a 4.03 ERA for them, and struck out nearly 12 batters per nine. On the season, Gausman posted a 3.98 FIP, a mark well below his ugly ERA, and whiffed 10.30 per nine while walking only 7.1% of batters he faced.

Now Gausman was hit fairly hard last season – he only had a 14.3% soft contact rate – but he limited fly balls to a 35.4% rate. That rate dropped to 22.6% once he joined the Reds, and is a great number now that he’s playing in San Francisco, a notoriously pitcher-friendly park. Gausman was a victim of a 14.7% home run to fly ball rate, a .344 BABIP that was 30 points higher than his career mark, and an uncharacteristically low strand rate (61.2%). If his BABIP and strand rate normalize and combine with his increased ground ball tendency, Gausman starts to look like an above-average starter. That should not be surprising from the former No. 4 overall pick.

Gausman also changed his usage patterns once he joined the Reds, with great results. The usage of his splitter jumped six percent, and the splitter was easily his most effective pitch. He also threw his slider slightly more, decreasing the use of his fastball a bit. The slider was not a net positive pitch, but it certainly was more effective than his fastball, and definitely helped him strike out more hitters. Gausman is no longer with the Reds -- who should be credited with resuscitating Sonny Gray as well – but if he can maintain the gains he made, Gausman has the upside and pedigree to be a rock in the middle of a fantasy rotation.