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Posted at 12:30 PM EST. 

7:10 PM EST. Nathan Karns has two quality starts in five tries this season. He also brings a 4.97 ERA into this start. By contrast, Blake Snell brings a 3.45 ERA after six starts into this one. Now, and because the market puts so much emphasis on surface starts (ERA and pitching lines), we get tremendous value on Nathan Karns and his superior under the hood stats.

Nathan Karns has been one of MLB’s unluckiest starters so far with a low 62% strand rate. That is where the ERA damage comes from. However, Karns brings a 3.42 xERA which is the result of am elite 59% groundball rate, a 13% swing and miss rate and 26 K’s in 29 innings. Karns has the highest BAA among starters with four or more starts on balls hit on the ground that find a hole through the infield for a base hit. He’s putting up elite numbers across the board and will now face a bunch of batters that he knows their weaknesses well after pitching for the Rays prior.

Blake Snell’s 3.45 ERA is a complete mirage. Snell’s luck has been all good but he hasn’t been. Snell’s luck driven ERA has been fueled by a low 21% hit rate and high 81% strand rate. His aggregate skills have been terrible, as have his command sub-indicators: 8.4% swing and miss rate, 56% first-pitch strike rate and 44% ball%. In fact, he's throwing balls at a higher rate than any other starter in MLB and it has resulted in 21 walks so far in 27 innings. Very few of those walks have come in to score, which cannot last much longer. Snell’s WHIP of 1.53 (1.80 in his last start) reveals a pitcher that has gotten in and out of jams all season so far. This is truly a case of the market perception being off and it has created a rock solid price on a rock solid pup. 

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