Bust Warning: Dylan Bundy's 2020 Was Likely Fool's Gold

Dylan Bundy, a former Top 5 pick from the 2011 draft, finally had the type of season many believed him capable of in 2020. Free of the bandbox that is Camden Yards, Bundy went 6-3 for the Angels with a 3.29 ERA and 1.04 WHIP, both career-best marks. Fantasy owners are buying in to the tune of the No. 110 overall pick, making Bundy the 35th starting pitcher off the board. It’s a fun story, but I’ll be pumping the breaks.

Part of the reason for my hesitance on Bundy’s success is that he didn’t post meaningfully different numbers in several categories from far worse seasons. His K/9 was 9.87; his previous two campaigns were 9.65 and 9.02. Ditto for his BB/9, which was at 2.33 last season, but stood at 2.71, 2.83 and 3.23 from 2017-2019, respectively. Bundy posted an encouraging 2.95 FIP last season, but his xFIP vehemently disagreed, checking in at 3.75, higher than both his ERA and FIP. Contact against Bundy was largely unchanged, as he experienced a one-point spike in medium contact and one-point drop in hard contact. Meanwhile, his HR/FB ratio fell to 8.2% from 16.4% in 2019. Combine these facts with a .272 BABIP, the best of his career, and the fact that the season was only 60 games long, and Bundy’s resurrection seems like it might be a bit of a mirage.

It’s important not to only highlight facts on the ground that bolster my narrative. Bundy did change his approach on the mound. He 9% fewer fastballs in 2020, increasing the usage of his slider, changeup and curveball. All of those were plus pitches in 2020, the best of them being his slider which was worth 4.8 runs above average, and was also his second-most used pitch (25%). The expanded arsenal led to a lower contact percentage for Bundy, but resulted in an identical Swinging Strike % (12.9%) to 2019 though, which makes me wonder how much of a difference it would’ve made had the season gone a full 162 games.

Of course we all like to focus on players that can break out and be positives for our squads, and the narrative of Bundy as a post post post post-hype sleeper is really fun, but his track record is flat out bad. Until 2020, Bundy had never posted an ERA below 4.00 in any season with at least 100 innings pitched, and he pitched to 5.45 and 4.79 ERAs in 2018 and 2019. He posted a career-low 8.2% HR/FB ratio that was six points below his average from 2016-2019, and more than halved his rate from the previous season. All of this is attached to a career-low BABIP, which was 22 points lower than his career mark. We have a long history of Bundy being a guy with low-ish strand rates, who serves up taters, and didn’t show a dramatic increase in strikeouts or decrease in walks (his walks were fine though).

Maybe Bundy has grown into a reliable SP, but it is hard to pass on players like Charlie Morton and Patrick Corbin who have succeeded consistently over full seasons. This ADP is far too reliant on a 65.2-inning sample in a pandemic-shortened season and he has literally no track record of MLB success in four prior campaigns. I’m not saying he can’t be good, but I won’t be getting him anywhere if his ADP doesn’t drop.