Washington Nationals: Expectations for Anibal Sanchez in 2019

The Washington Nationals signed pitcher Anibal Sanchez after his resurgent year. Can the Nats expect the same pitcher to show up in 2019?

As a belated Christmas present, Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo gave Anibal Sanchez a place on his Major League roster. The 34-year-old signed a two-year, $19 million deal on December 27th, 2018.

Sanchez was part of a small group of veteran pitchers, including Derek Holland and Kyle Gibson, to rebound successfully in 2018 after pitching horrendously in 2017. With Detroit in 2017, Sanchez’s ERA of 6.41 ranked third-worst among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched.

However, in 2018, he turned everything around. Last season, among pitchers with a minimum of 130 innings pitched, Sanchez’s 2.83 ERA ranked 11th best, sandwiched in-between Miles Mikolas and Kyle Freeland.

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Sanchez’s mixed results and his new contract raise a fair question. What should the Nats expect from their new right-handed starter this season?

The first issue to investigate is discovering what went wrong for Sanchez in 2017. An important thing to note here is that while Sanchez pitched 105.1 innings that year, 21 of those came as a reliever.

Believe it or not, he was worse as a reliever than as a starter. Sanchez posted a 9.00 ERA and a .701 slugging percentage allowed out of the bullpen. Over 84.1 innings as a starter, Sanchez posted a 5.76 ERA and a .506 slugging percentage against.

Obviously, both of those sets of stats are horrible. However, his numbers as a starter are slightly better and should be considered more significant than his full-season stats, which includes his time as a relief pitcher.

The next question to answer is, what changed with Anibal Sanchez from 2017 to 2018? While there are many different possible answers, this one is all-encompassing: Sanchez’s luck evened out.

Sanchez’s BABIP in 2017 was .354, way above the MLB average of approximately .293. In 2018, that number dropped to .255, far below the average. The same trends are present for Sanchez’s LOB% and HR/FB%. His massively lousy luck in 2017 morphed into massively great luck in 2018.

It’s fair to think his luck will regress a little bit from 2018, but not fall drastically back to his lows of 2017. One other critical stat to note is Sanchez’s ground ball percentage. In 2017, that number was 35.6%. In 2018, it jumped nearly ten percentage points to 45.0%.

From 2010-2014, when Sanchez was considered an above average pitcher, his ground ball rate was 45.3%. Additionally, Sanchez maintained his K% from 22.1% from those early years and boosted it to 23.1% in 2017 and 2018.

This combination of factors should leave Nats fans excited about Sanchez’s prospects for 2019. While it’s unrealistic to expect a sub-3.00 ERA again, a safe, middle-ground projection will do just fine as a No. 4 starter. This is especially true on a team where its top three starters are more likely than not to receive All-Star team bids.

The four projection systems on Fangraphs.com tab Sanchez for an ERA between 4.16 and 4.38. They project him for a healthy K/9 of approximately 8.6, and a BABIP around the league average.

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Perhaps, over the last calendar year, Anibal Sanchez found a breath of fresh air. If that’s the case, he may help extend the 2019 Washington Nationals’ lifespan into October.

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