Is Kolby Allard Good?

Is Kolby Allard Good?

Since being promoted to the rotation, Allard has made three starts, including Saturday’s 12-1 victory over the Dodgers. In his three starts, he’s pitched 14 innings with a 2.57 ERA, 14 strikeouts, and three walks. That’s fantastic!



Because of how badly he suffered in 2020, Allard’s accomplishment this year is all the more impressive.

Allard Good
Allard Good

Allard was regarded as the team’s most major league-ready young starting pitcher following a nice nine-start run to conclude the 2019 season after being acquired from the Atlanta Braves, but he only recorded 33.2 innings in 2020.



He had a 7.75 ERA after allowing 29 runs while walking 20 batters and striking out 32.

I was curious as to what the difference between 2020 Kolby Allard and 2021 Kolby Allard was, so I dug into the metrics and numbers.

The first thing to note is that the underlying data does not support the huge gap in performance that this year’s 2.91 ERA against last year’s 7.75 ERA suggests.

The K rate has increased by 25% this year, to 26.6 percent, from 21.1 percent in 2020, and the walk rate has decreased by half, from 13.2 percent last year to 6.5 percent this year.

Despite his FB percent dropping from 48 percent last year to 38 percent this year, Allard’s HR/9 is essentially similar – he’s actually giving up more HR/FB than he did last year when his 8.5 percent HR/FB rate was lower than typical.

In 2020, Allard had a 4.71 FIP and a 5.85 xFIP, which isn’t terrific, but not as horrible as the ERA suggests. This year, Allard’s FIP/xFIP is 3.30/3.58, which is roughly in line with his actual statistics.

And it’s not just because he was blasted with loud contact on balls in play last year, which drove up his ERA – Allard’s xERA in 2020 was 4.80, compared to 3.56 this year.

Allard’s BABIP is nearly equal in 2020 and 2021, at.284 and.281, respectively. The large ERA/FIP disparity in 2020 wasn’t caused by a high BABIP, as is frequently the case.

No, what he did with runners on base is the most important factor in the ERA difference between 2020 and 2021.

Allard’s LOB percent in 2021 is 83.3 percent, which is significantly higher than the national average. Allard only left 49.6 percent of runners on base in 2020.

That 49.6% figure is abysmal. In 2020, Allard ranked 158th in LOB percent out of 158 pitchers that threw at least 30 innings.

Jon Gray, with 54.4 percent, was the closest pitcher to him. Except for Allard, just nine pitchers allowed less than 60% of their batters to reach base.

The LOB percentage of 49.6% from 2020 is rather low historically. According to Fangraphs, the last time a pitcher with at least 30 innings pitched had a LOB percent below 50% was in 2015, when Mike Morin of the Angels had 44.4 percent.

Kolby Allard Stats

Career stats
Year
Team
GP
CG
ER
SO
W
L
Sv
WHIP
ERA
2022
Rangers
3
0
5
4
0
1
0
1.85
10.38
2021
Rangers
32
0
75
104
3
12
0
1.28
5.41
2020
Rangers
11
0
29
32
0
6
0
1.51
7.75
2019
Rangers
9
0
25
33
4
2
0
1.57
4.96
2018
Braves
3
0
11
3
1
1
0
2.88
12.38
Career
58
0
145
176
8
22
0
1.44
6.04