Pedro Avila

Avila split his time between Triple-A El Paso and San Diego, but is likely hoping his days in El Paso are over. The run environment in that park is hostile to pitchers and Avila has allowed 29 homers there over the past two seasons while allowing just 5 homers in 63.2 innings of work at the big league level. Avila had whiff rates better than 40% on both his changeup and curveball last season and he mixes his pitches and spots up to get one of the best groundball rates (60.3%) in all of baseball. He worked both as a traditional starter as well as a bulk pitcher last season so it is rather silly to look at his splits in that area other than to note his numbers were more effective in bulk outings than they were when he came in as a traditional starter. That small sample size does not tell us as much as the fact Avila is a favorite to be in the rotation this year for San Diego as they realign their budgetary priorities for a post-Soto & Snell world.