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If you're a believe in advanced metrics, Rick Porcello should be one of your favorite bounceback candidates in baseball. His 4.92 ERA over 172 innings a year ago looks ugly, but he had one of the biggest separations between his ERA and FIP, which sat at 4.13 in his first season with the Red Sox. Porcello was, perhaps more than any player in baseball, hurt by the Red Sox defensive issues last season, and with improvements expected -- and a 3.53 second-half ERA to point to -- could he be a sleeper coming into the season?
Porcello should be helped by the Red Sox defensive improvements, for sure, and an ERA in the 5.00 range seems unlikely. However, expecting him to hit his second-half mark seems unlikely as well, given his career. Porcello has an ERA below 3.50 just once, and has dramatically underperformed his FIP -- by more than half a run -- in five of his last six seasons. Porcello has had trouble with runners on base in his career, and that remained an issue for him a year ago, which makes it hard to buy into the metrics that suggest significantly better days ahead.
Expect improvement, but it's hard to view him as anything more than a league-average pitcher given his track record.
