5. Jose Berrios, RHP Minnesota Twins
3-1, 33 strikeouts (T-9th), 0,93 WHIP (6th), 0.8 WAR (T-16th) and 2.97 ERA (11th).
Off the bat, some may think Jose Berrios doesn’t belong on this list. However, he has pitched gem after gem outside of his last start against the Baltimore Orioles.
Perhaps the best part about Berrios is he hasn’t really found his form yet, which means he has a whole other level to get to. So far, he hasn’t had the same strikeout stuff he usually has and he has also been walking too many batters.
Most of the damage done against Berrios has been self-inflicted due to the walks. Other than that, he has been excellent at preventing base hits and when he does pitch to contact it usually finds a glove.
Furthermore, Berrios is posting an extremely high soft-contact percentage of 29.9 percent, which is second in the entire MLB behind Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda. This means guys aren’t lacing the ball off of him, instead they are finding it hard to really get ahold of it.
Berrios has thrown his fastball a lot less often than he has in the past. He still gears it up just over 52 percent of the time, but he has raised his curveball usage from 30.5 percent last year to 37.6 percent in his five starts in 2019.
The strikeout stuff hasn’t shown up for Berrios just yet, but when it does, he will find himself in serious Cy Young contention as the season creeps along.