Almost exactly two years ago, December 30th of 2019, the White Sox signed Dallas Keuchel to a three-year contract that guaranteed him $55.5MM. Keuchel was excellent in the shortened 2020 campaign, throwing 63 1/3 innings with an ERA of 1.99. However, there were reasons to be suspicious of those outcomes, as all of the advanced metrics thought he deserved much worse. (4.30 xERA, 3.98 xFIP, 4.57 SIERA.)

That discrepancy was largely due to his declining strikeout rate, as well as an unsustainable 4.7% HR/FB rate. Keuchel has always been a groundball guy and has never had tremendous strikeout stuff. In his Cy Young season, 2015, he hit his high point with a strikeout rate of 23.7%, just a few ticks above that year’s league average of 20.4%. Since then, the league average has trended north, landing at 23.2% in 2021. Keuchel’s, however, has been steadily dropping and was at 16.3% in 2020.

In 2021, his strikeout rate fell further, landing at 13.2%, and his batted ball luck ran out, sending his ERA soaring up to a career-high 5.28. The advanced metrics felt that was largely deserved, based on the lack of Ks, as evidenced by his 6.20 xERA, 4.74 xFIP and 5.01 SIERA.