RADIO
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~320
CURRENT ADP: ~378 overall
ANALYSIS: While Spencer Turnbull seemed to struggle last year with a 3-17 record and a 4.61 ERA, he showed enough flashes of success to instill confidence that he can compete at this level. His xFIP for the season was 3.99, his WAR was 2.9 (43rd among pitchers), and his first-half ERA was only 3.31. All of this suggests that his end of season numbers, particularly the gaudy loss total, may present a level of struggle that is not indicative of Turnbull's overall performance.
For starters, he brings two plus secondary offerings to the table in his slider and curveball. They had a 31% and 37% strikeout rate, respectively, while both also registered Whiff% higher than 32.3% and PutAway% north of 21.3%.
In order to get the most of his repertoire, Turnbull needs to ditch a sinker that he threw around 20% of the time but allowed a .335 xBA and .509 xSLG. The good news is that Turnbull seemed to also pick up on that, drastically cutting down the use of his sinker in favor of his slider towards the end of the season.
As a young pitcher who has shown the ability to make adjustments, it's smart to be on Turnbull's potential, especially picking this late in the draft. With proven strikeout upside and, per The Athletic’s Eno Sarris, a command+ metric that ranks ahead of pitchers like Trevor Bauer and Yu Darvish, Turnbull is a perfect roll of the dice at the tail-end of drafts. Just know that you're not going to get many wins out of him in Detroit.
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