Reds: Scott Feldman continues to surprise fantasy owners

Reds starting pitcher Scott Feldman continues to surprise fantasy owners. Despite a few non-quality starts under his belt, he has been valuable his season.

The Cincinnati Reds started the season on a good note but have since fallen down the standings. The offense is getting great value from a lot of their hitters. Yet, the starting rotation is a big area of opportunity. There is one pitcher putting up good enough numbers this year and that is Scott Feldman.

Being the best Reds pitcher isn’t much of an accomplishment but fantasy owners are noticing his performance. In 18 starts, Feldman has a 3.94 ERA, 1.266 WHIP and 7-6 record. He also has 7.5 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. He is currently ranked as the 43rd best starting pitcher on the Player Rater.

Feldman had a couple of big run games in May, including a seven-run and five-run start. June was a little better but he had two starts combining for 9.1 innings and eight runs. His other four starts that month the complete opposite.

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He combined for 27.0 innings with four earned runs on 19 hits and five walks while striking out 22. Feldman went 3-0 in those four starts. Unfortunately, he couldn’t carry that success over into his first July start.

Feldman allowed four runs on five hits (two home runs) and one walk on the road to the Colorado Rockies in five innings. I’m actually more surprised that he didn’t allow more runs. If you owned Feldman, hopefully, you didn’t start him for this game.

The good thing is that this was Feldman’s last start of the first half. He will have a chance to rest and come back strong. The Reds haven’t announced their rotation coming out of the All-Star break, though he will likely make his first second-half start ar home against the Washington Nationals.

The reason I say Feldman has been a surprise is for a few reasons. Throughout his 12.5 year career, he has never posted an ERA below 3.50 or a WHIP under 1.00. He got close to the latter in 2011 but he only pitched in 32.0 innings that season.

His current 7.5 K/9 is the highest of his career. He also has an 8.1 swinging strike rate, up one percent from last season. Feldman is doing all of this while his line drive rate is up seven percent and HR/FB rate is up three percent as well. But, his HR/9 is at just 1.01, good for 20th among qualified starters, according to Fangraphs.

This is likely to rise as the power continues and could catch up to Feldman in the second half.

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Feldman is an interesting pitcher, to say the least. There are a lot of stats that make him look like a star but there is a good number of stats that make you want to avoid him. He just needs to lower the number of hits per game. I think if you pick the right matchups, Feldman is a solid option for the second half.