Johnny Cueto (SP, SF) - Week 6 Waiver Wire Pickups

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ROSTERED IN: 32% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Johnny Cueto has quietly been one of the best starting pitchers in the game since his debut for the Reds in 2008, but the jury was out on how Cueto's career would proceed as a San Francisco Giant after injuries held him to making just 13 combined starts from 2018 through 2019. Fast forward to the 2020 MLB season, and Cueto has already tossed 31.0 IP through his first six starts, netting a 4.35 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 4.03 FIP, and 7.8 K/9.

The 34-year-old ex-ace has started off the year with a .238 BABIP and is currently forcing just 9.2% soft contact while producing a LOB rate of 64%. While those figures might paint a precarious picture of Cueto's outings, he has produced numerous metrics that would support his BABIP and LOB as being sustainable (especially in notoriously pitcher-friendly Oracle Park), namely his hard contact rate on batted balls of 33.3%, his grounder rate of 42.5% while allowing just 16.1% line drives, and the reduction of his barrel rate and hard hit rate from 8.9% and 33.3% to 4.6% and 29.9%.

Cueto has started throwing his slider, curveball, and changeup with greater regularity, and perhaps this was the key to bringing his outside contact rate from 77.3% to 71.4%, or perhaps the key was simply coming into a season with a clean bill of health. Either way, in reducing the opportunity and effectiveness with which the opposition can mount an attack from the plate and finally staying on the mound for an extended stretch, Johnny Cueto is once again ready to help carry your team into the postseason.