Chase Anderson is a 32-year-old, right-handed pitcher who we picked up from the Brewers for Chad Spanberger. Spanberger came to us in the Seunghwan Oh trade (along with Forrest Wall and Bryan Baker).
Chase was a 9th round draft pick back in 2009 by the Diamondbacks. In 2016 he was traded, along with former Blue Jays second baseman Aaron Hill to the Brewers.
He’s pitched 6 seasons in the MLB, has a 3.94 ERA in 166 games, 160 starts, and a 53-40 record. Batters have hit .249/.314/.435 against him. Last year he pitched in 32 games, 25 starts, and had a 4.21 ERA and an 8-4 record.
By FanGraphs he throws a 93.4 MPH fastball, a change, cutter, curve, and slider.
FanGraphs Michael Augustine wrote that Anderson’s cutter was much improved this past season:
Last season, Anderson used his cutter more than he had in his previous five, throwing it harder than he ever had. It was his most improved pitch in 2019 and a very handy one at that. He cut his wOBA on the cutter by 100 points while drawing more swings out of the zone. Anderson also saw an increase in his cutter swinging-strike rate, and his contact in the zone went down.
And included this video:
He threw the pitch 14.8% of the time last year, more than he has in the past.
Chase has been consistently making his starts, he’s had 25 to 30 starts a season for the past 5 years and has thrown 139 to 158 innings in those seasons. We can use a guy we can trust to make his starts. I know 150 innings doesn’t sound like a lot (at least to an old guy like me), but the only guy to get to 150 innings last year was Trent Thornton and I’m not expecting him to get there again this year. In 2018 we didn’t have anyone get to 150 innings.
He’s not going to be our ace but there is a value to having someone who can make his starts and be league average. Of course, with pitchers, there is no guarantee that just because they have been injury free for years, it doesn’t mean it will continue.
He’s a fly ball pitcher and they don’t always do great in the AL East, but, as Matt pointed out, Marco Estrada did pretty well here (and Chase isn’t as extreme a fly ball pitcher as Marco). I guess Marco had a better outfield defense than it appears Chase will.
Steamer projects Anderson to make 29 starts and throw 158 innings. That’s the good news. They also project him to have a 5.49 ERA. If he has an ERA around 5 and a half, I can’t imagine he’ll be making 29 starts. We will have too many guys in Triple-A waiting for a chance.