Dodgers: Dylan Floro struggled through spring but fear not

If you filled a room up with 10 people and asked them, by a show of hands, who had confidence in a baseball player that struggled his through spring, the results would almost certainly be sparing.

8.1 innings of hits, home runs and a lack of strikeouts are the story, a confidence deficiency is the result.

So, for a player that was such a fixture in 2018’s Dodger bullpen in Dylan Floro, how could the answer to that question, one that would keep our imaginary room of hands empty, have an alternative result?

The answer is by no means obvious.

The stat line referenced earlier, it’s Floro’s. This spring, he appeared in nine games and threw 8.1 innings in those appearances. Across those frames, he gave up 15 hits, seven runs (six earned) and struck out just five batters against three walks.

‘Small sample size’, ‘it’s just spring’ and ‘it’s way too early to read into those numbers’ are all fair rebuttals to the original prompt. But, in saying that, there is simply no additional confidence instilled nor is there any concrete proof that things will change between exhibition play and the regular season. It’s simply anecdotal.

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For Floro, the proof is in last year’s pudding.

It was done quietly but in 2018, Dylan Floro was not only one of the Dodgers best pitchers but he was towards the top in major league baseball.

In xwOBA, a stat used to measure the on-base average of a player based on how hard a ball was hit as well as how valuable the action was to get the player on base, Floro ranked in the top 14.8 percent of Major League baseball pitchers, both starters and reliever, in that metric.

But, his time in Los Angeles vaulted the more or less unknown reliever to the top of the charts. By seasons end, the then 27-year-old had an xwOBA of .254, the 17th best mark in baseball. That’s 17th out of 274 by the way. Floro was in the top 6 percent of all pitchers in that stat, four positions better than third place Cy Young finisher, Aaron Nola.

Floro was also a master in avoiding hard contact.

Last year, he ranked in the 83rd percentile of big league pitching in hard contact, a statistic achieved by just how well he stayed away from the barrel of the bat.

In 2018, opposing hitters had a barrel percentage of just 2.6 percent against Floro. The quality of their contact against him was in the dumpster and he knew just how to play to it.

That percentage put him in the league’s top two percent.

Conversely, though, 2018 presented some numbers that could point the needle towards Floro’s spring training blunder being legitimate. Last year, Floro’s fastball spin rate was well below the league average.

Sure, when it comes to spin rate if you are missing bats the actual rate is less important but the second that stops happening, a player’s arsenal and how well they perform becomes highly scrutinized.

Floro does not spin the ball well.

Last year, the effective righty ranked in just the 40th percentile in fastball spin rate and the 58th percentile in fastball velocity.

But, what Floro put together last season was good in an astronomical sense of the word.

He was untouchable.

Regression in 2019 could, and probably will happen. But, it would take a statistical and metaphorical jump from the top to the base of Niagra Falls in order for Floro to be a complete disaster.

Regression should bring Floro back to average and, if that happens, there is nothing to worry about.

So, let’s go back to our room of ten people. When they originally would not have raised hands based simply on confidence, the numbers from last year imply that a raise of the hand may not be so risky.