Tyson Ross (SP) - Week 3 Waiver Wire Pickups

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ANALYSIS: Once one of the premier strikeout pitchers in baseball, San Diego Padres starting pitcher Tyson Ross fell off the face of the earth after 2016 shoulder surgery. He is attempting to recapture success after suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome, the same injury that caused Matt Harvey’s performance to spiral out of control. There is not a good track record for recovery with this injury. A few other active pitchers that have suffered this injury are Chris Young, Jaime Garcia, Phil Hughes, and Mike Foltynewicz.

Ross initially found success by attacking hitters with his electric slider. At its peak in 2015, Ross through his slider around the slider was around 86-87 MPH, had a 23.59% whiff rate, and a 63.7% groundball rate. He paired it with a 93 MPH sinker that had a 66.8% groundball rate. He did exactly what we want pitchers to do, get strikeouts and get groundballs. We did not see that Tyson Ross in his two starts, but we did see some encouraging signs.

Ross got double digit whiffs in each of his first two starts, including ten alone with his slider against San Francisco. Ross also threw the slider over 44% of the time in each start after throwing it just 33.7% of the time in 2017. His velocity was also near his prime levels in the start against Houston. He threw the slider at 86 MPH and the sinker at 92 MPH. That was a great sign, though it dipped back down in the start against the Giants to 84 MPH on the slider and 91 MPH on the sinker.

There is still room for growth, as Ross is coming off his best swing-and-miss game and had only one walk between these two starts. He is not someone to blow a large portion of FAAB on, but Ross can be considered a viable streaming option, which is far ahead of where he was last season in Texas.