Baseball Prospectus

MLB Statistics

Statistics for All Levels

Plate Discipline

Preseason Long-Term Forecast (Beyond the 2019 Projections)

Comparable Players (Similarity Index 83)

Rank	Score	Name	Year	Run Average	Trend
1	91	Jon Garland	2012	0.00	DNP
2	91	Jason Marquis	2011	5.05
3	91	Yovani Gallardo	2018	6.49
4	91	Paul Maholm	2014	5.60
5	90	Scott Feldman	2015	4.07
6	90	Jeff Suppan	2007	4.92
7	90	Joe Saunders	2013	5.75
8	89	Jason Johnson	2006	6.73
9	89	Mike Pelfrey	2016	5.75
10	88	Mark Redman	2006	5.93
11	88	Tom Koehler	2018	0.00	DNP
12	88	Rick Rhoden	1985	5.02
13	87	Brad Penny	2010	4.04
14	87	Jack Billingham	1975	4.33	DNP
15	86	Kris Benson	2007	0.00	DNP
16	86	Dave Goltz	1981	4.09
17	86	Vicente Padilla	2010	4.36
18	86	Jim Clancy	1988	4.86
19	86	Kyle Lohse	2011	3.82
20	85	Kevin Correia	2013	4.32
21	85	Mike Morgan	1992	3.00
22	85	Nate Robertson	2010	6.75
23	85	Bob Rush	1958	3.60
24	84	Mark Hendrickson	2006	4.76
25	84	John Burkett	1997	5.04
26	84	Jake Miller	1930	9.07
27	84	Bob Porterfield	1956	5.90
28	84	Kyle Kendrick	2017	12.96
29	84	John Danks	2017	0.00	DNP
30	84	Charlie Leibrandt	1989	5.48
31	84	Stan Williams	1969	4.34
32	84	Homer Bailey	2018	6.94
33	84	Dave Hillman	1960	6.57
34	84	Joaquin Andujar	1985	3.77
35	84	Jason Vargas	2015	4.19
36	84	Mark Buehrle	2011	4.03
37	84	Jarrod Washburn	2007	4.74
38	83	Brian Lawrence	2008	0.00	DNP
39	83	Roberto Hernandez	2013	5.19
40	83	Jason Hammel	2015	4.17
41	83	Chuck Smith	2002	0.00	DNP
42	83	Art Fowler	1955	4.16
43	83	Woodie Fryman	1972	3.66
44	83	Esteban Loaiza	2004	6.10
45	83	Jim Rooker	1975	3.66	DNP
46	82	Jason Jennings	2011	0.00	DNP
47	82	Matt Morris	2007	5.57
48	82	Barry Zito	2010	4.38
49	82	Aaron Cook	2011	6.22
50	82	Mark Portugal	1995	4.51
51	82	Andy Ashby	2000	5.60
52	82	Gil Meche	2011	0.00	DNP
53	82	Bob Ojeda	1990	4.04
54	82	Joel Pineiro	2011	5.50
55	82	Tom Candiotti	1990	4.10
56	82	Tomo Ohka	2008	0.00	DNP
57	82	Ray Washburn	1970	8.28
58	82	Gavin Floyd	2015	2.70
59	82	Bob Forsch	1982	3.67
60	82	Sidney Ponson	2009	7.67
61	82	Scott Schoeneweis	2006	4.88
62	81	Livan Hernandez	2007	5.11
63	81	Cory Lidle	2004	5.24
64	81	Earl Whitehill	1931	4.66
65	81	Matt Garza	2016	5.93
66	81	Aaron Sele	2002	5.18
67	81	Don Drysdale	1969	4.74
68	81	Charles Nagy	1999	5.30
69	81	Stu Miller	1960	4.25
70	81	Darryl Kile	2001	3.29
71	81	Rodrigo Lopez	2008	0.00	DNP
72	80	Frank Sullivan	1962	6.23	DNP
73	80	Rick Reuschel	1981	3.68
74	80	Art Ditmar	1961	5.48
75	80	John Thomson	2006	6.16
76	80	Larry Benton	1930	6.83
77	80	Zane Smith	1993	4.66
78	80	Glendon Rusch	2007	0.00	DNP
79	80	Edinson Volquez	2016	5.89
80	80	Bob Tewksbury	1993	4.17
81	80	Bill Harris	1932	4.83
82	80	Earl Wilson	1967	3.48
83	80	Andy Benes	2000	5.15
84	79	Bryn Smith	1988	3.59
85	79	Virgil Barnes	1929	0.00	DNP
86	79	Jesse Haines	1926	3.05
87	79	Hal Smith	1934	5.33
88	79	John Tudor	1986	3.33
89	79	Miguel Gonzalez	2016	4.07
90	79	Bob Friend	1963	2.91
91	79	Doc Medich	1981	3.20
92	79	Matt Cain	2017	6.15
93	79	Mike Boddicker	1990	3.59
94	79	Steve Rogers	1982	2.73
95	79	Bob Bruce	1965	4.19
96	79	Charlie Morton	2016	4.15
97	79	Terry Mulholland	1995	6.77
98	79	Kip Wells	2009	5.33
99	79	Howard Ehmke	1926	4.21
100	79	Lew Burdette	1959	4.47

BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2019		Due to publishing agreements, the 2019 player comments and team essays are only available in the Baseball Prospectus 2019 book (available in hardcopy, and soon e-book and Kindle).
2018		In episode 2.23 of Frasier, titular psychologist Frasier Crane and his brother, Niles, open a French restaurant, only to have it fail the very first night. Later, in season seven, they attempt to sell a Russian bear-clock they believe proves a familial link to the Romanovs, only to have it reappropriated by a Russian cultural attaché. They end up having to pay for their father’s new $25,000 Winnebago as a result (it was a busy episode). Throughout the series, Frasier and Niles overpaid for countless cases of wine, had ill-advised trysts with women too beautiful for them and threw bricks through art gallery windows, but in the end, they did it all without much in the way of real consequences; the signature view from Frasier’s apartment was never in as much jeopardy as the circumstances demanded. In many respects, Andrew Cashner’s 2017 was a classic Crane misadventure: he posted an unsustainable .171 BABIP with men in scoring position, a league-high contact percentage and the second-worst strikeout rate in the bigs. It was all a disaster in the making, but like so many of Frasier’s encounters with Lilith, Cashner managed to get away with embarrassment that didn’t last past the next morning and a 3.40 ERA. And yet, the Rangers passed on extending him a qualifying offer as a free agent.
2017		Tolstoy would be proud: pretty much everyone in the Andrew Cashner-to-Miami trade was miserable in their own special way last season, the centerpiece included. The one-time Grizzly Adams understudy was having the worst season of his career in San Diego when he was shipped to Miami with Colin Rea for Marlins' top prospects Josh Naylor and Luis Castillo. In Florida, things got worse. Pitching for a new contract, he did so on tilt, tossing a 5.98 ERA. Worse yet, the beard had to go, because while you can take Don Mattingly away from the Yankees' anachronistic and patently stupid no-facial-hair policy, the opposite isn’t true. A free agent, Cashner signed a one-year deal with the Rangers, who won't care what he does with his face as long it’s not being metaphorically beaten in by opposing hitters.
2016		We ended last year's comment by declaring that Cashner “is a frontline starter” and he proceeded to prove us wrong. The good news is that he set career highs in starts, innings, and strikeouts. The bad news is that he became very hittable, and only 22 unearned runs kept his ERA+ above 80. He turned lefties into Prince Fielder, which is a neat party trick but isn't conducive to winning. Cashner's velocity and movement didn't change much, leaving unresolved the question of what the problem was. Pitching coach Darren Balsley's response to that question in July was, “I've been thinking about that all year.” No solutions were offered or found. Although turning an injury-plagued frontline starter into a healthy back-end guy is another neat party trick, turning him back would be even neater.
2015		Cashner built on his breakout 2013 campaign, looking every bit the ace through mid-May. Then, as he will do, he got hurt. He missed three weeks with “soreness and irritation” in his right elbow, made three starts in June, then missed two months with right-shoulder inflammation. Sprinkled among his 19 starts were an April 11th one-hitter and a September 15th two-hitter. The dominance is there, as is the stuff (BP's Doug Thorburn gushed over Cashner's 96 mph sinker “with ridiculous arm-side run” after the one-hitter), but he has yet to flash the health skill with consistency. Also worth noting: At Petco Park over the last two years, batters have hit .205/.246/.279 against Cashner. On the road, they've hit .263/.321/.417. If he finds durability, despite the caveats, this is a frontline starter.
2014		The questions entering 2013 were whether Cashner could handle a starter's workload and how effective he would be in that role. A right thumb injured while hunting required December 2012 surgery and forced him to the bullpen for the first three weeks. Once in the rotation, he proved durable, finishing second on the Padres in innings. His velocity and strikeouts dropped, both by design so he could work deeper into games. He lost his hard, biting slider for a while but found it in time to log at least seven innings in each of his last seven starts and turn opponents into Brendan Ryan over the final two months. Health is never a given with Cashner, but he looks like a second or third starter.
2013		Acquired from the Cubs before the season, Cashner wowed observers with a triple-digit fastball and biting slider. He started the year in the bullpen. Having missed five months in 2011 with a right rotator-cuff strain, his command was inconsistent. In June, the Padres sent Cashner to Triple-A so he could build arm strength and move into the big-league rotation. He spent the second half on the Tucson-San Diego shuttle, alternating brief healthy stretches with shoulder strains. Cashner's stuff can make hitters look silly, but the former college closer has yet to prove he can bear up to a starter�s workload. His upside is enormous, as is his risk�which he managed to compound in the offseason by injuring himself with a knife on a hunting trip. He'll miss Opening Day.
2012		Every effort has been made to convert Cashner the TCU closer, considered to have the best stuff among college pitchers in the 2008 draft, into Cashner the Cubs front-line starter. As with Carpenter, Cashner has great fastball velocity�approaching 100 mph out of the bullpen�a nasty slider, and an injury history that makes everyone nervous. Unlike Carpenter, his changeup is good enough to continue efforts to keep him in the rotation, despite the fact that he works at a somewhat lesser velocity there. While his walk numbers suggest control issues, arm health is considered to be both more important and the underlying cause. If he can stay healthy for a full season, his control should be more than adequate to support his great stuff.
2011		Having drafted the college closer as a 2008 first-rounder, the Cubs successfully steered Cashner toward a career in the rotation, but his readiness to pitch plus the team's need for immediate relief puts them on the cusp of a tough decision about his future role. He could certainly stick around as a quality set-up man from here on out, especially as questions about his mechanics and delivery contributed to the decision to move him back to the pen, even with his quality three-pitch assortment. In a relief role, his heat reliably stays in the high 90s; if he heads back into the rotation, it will come back down below 95. Given his youth and the veteran rotation, a year in the pen would be sensible enough, but leaving him there to stay would be a waste of his upside as a starter.
2010		Graduating from college closer to professional starter is as likely a career change as moving from chartered accountancy to lion taming, but the Cubs� bet on Andrew Cashner just might pay off. With a fastball that sits in the mid-90s and occasionally touches 98, a frequently devastating slider, and an improving changeup, there�s little question Cashner has the goods to top a major-league rotation. A strained oblique and understandable caution limited him to 100 innings in High-A and Double-A, leading to a dominating AFL assignment that saw him improve his sometimes shaky command. Cashner has the highest upside of any Cubs arm since the Prior/Zambrano days, and he�ll be one of the most watched prospects of the 2010 season.
2009		After a breakout season closing for Texas Christian, Andrew Cashner was picked 19th overall by the Cubs in last June's draft. They're converting him to starting for the time being; his high-90s velocity and wipeout slider headline a full arsenal that projects well.

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PITCHf/x Pitcher Profile

A Collaboration between BrooksBaseball.net and Baseball Prospectus - Pitch classifications provided by Pitch Info LLC

Although he has not thrown an MLB pitch in 2024, Andrew Cashner threw 19,897 pitches that were tracked by the PITCHf/x system between 2010 and 2019, all of them occuring in Spring Training. In 2019, he relied primarily on his Fourseam Fastball (94mph) and Change (84mph), also mixing in a Slider (86mph) and Curve (81mph). He also rarely threw a Sinker (92mph).