Chris Archer Has Quietly Joined Select Group of MLB's Top Aces

It's been nearly a year since David Price was traded. Alex Cobb is injured. Matt Moore is still recovering from Tommy John surgery.

And yet, the Tampa Bay Rays are not ace-less. The two-word reason: Chris Archer.

The three-word reason: Chris freakin' Archer.

Granted, this is an easy claim to make these days, as the 26-year-old right-hander sure has been on a sterling run in his last three starts. In 23 innings, he's allowed only one earned run while striking out 38 and walking nobody.

Per the Elias Sports Bureau via Major League Baseball, what Archer has done in his last three starts puts him in a league of his own:

In watching all this unfold, even Archer's manager was at a loss for words.

"His stuff seems like it gets better with every outing," said first-year Rays skipper Kevin Cash after Archer struck out 11 Seattle Mariners on June 7, via Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. "I don't know if that makes much sense."

Archer has been pretty good, all right. But what shouldn't get lost in the hype is how he was doing pretty well for himself even before he caught fire.

Through his first 10 starts, Archer was working on a 2.40 ERA and a 70-20 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 60 innings. He was one of baseball's best pitchers then, so we shouldn't be surprised to see him among the cream of the crop now.

To this end, it doesn't matter which stat you consult. All the good ones agree on Archer's eliteness:

	IP	K/9	K/BB	FIP	xFIP	ERA	WAR
Archer	83.0	11.7	5.4	2.10	2.21	1.84	2.8
MLB Rank	7	2	10	1	2	T3	T2

As far as seasons go, Archer's 2015 campaign has been really, really good. And that he ranks so highly in FIP and xFIP bodes especially well for his capacity to sustain it. Those measure what a pitcher's ERA should be, and Archer being arguably baseball's best pitcher is no fluke as far as they're concerned.

As for other reasons why we can believe in him, there's the fact that Archer's brilliance isn't coming out of left field. He was a solid pitcher in 2013 and 2014, posting a 3.28 ERA in 323.1 innings. Because these were only his age-24 and age-25 seasons, he entered 2015 with room to grow.

And grow is exactly what he's done, as 2015 has seen Archer become a guy with downright absurd stuff and a clear idea for how to use it.

According to general wisdom, a pitcher needs at least three quality pitches to succeed as a starter. Exceptions are only allowed when a guy has two pitches that are both very, very good.

And even in 2013 and 2014, we knew this was the case with Archer.

He was strictly a fastball-slider pitcher, but he was able to make that work because both pitches were stupendous. Archer's fastball averaged in the mid-90s and featured some impressive rising action. His slider, meanwhile, was a hard biter that also had good velocity in the mid-to-upper 80s.

But as if these two pitches weren't dangerous enough, here's what's happened in 2015: They've both become even more dangerous.

According to FanGraphs, Archer's average fastball velocity of 94.9 miles per hour isn't a career high. But according to Brooks Baseball, he is getting a career-high 10.72 inches of vertical movement on it. That puts Archer's four-seamer among the top 20 in vertical movement among starters, according to Baseball Prospectus, and nobody else in the top 20 has his velocity.

So in the sense that it now has excellent velocity and rise, Archer's fastball has become one of a kind. It's an elite pitch. No bones about it.

And yet, Archer's fastball looks like a child's plaything next to his slider. Anyone who follows Price on Twitter will already know that:

Calling Archer's slider the best pitch in baseball is a bold statement. But in light of what he's doing with it this year, it might actually be true.

Unlike his fastball, Archer's slider has gained velocity. He's averaging a career-high 87.9 miles per hour with it. But even despite that, he hasn't sacrificed any of its movement. According to Brooks Baseball, his slider's average of 3.24 inches of horizontal run is pretty much normal.

We shall now pause from words to see it in action on video. Here's Archer racking up 11 of 15 strikeouts with sliders on June 2 against the Los Angeles Angels:

Just like Archer's fastball, his slider's combination of extreme velocity and movement puts it in its own company. Per Baseball Prospectus, no other slider thrown by any other starter can match both the velocity and the movement of Archer's slider.

So that point about Archer's stuff being downright absurd? That's the honest-to-goodness truth. He's gone from having an excellent fastball-slider combination to having a fastball-slider combination that no other starting pitcher can match.

This alone would make Archer dangerous enough. Heaven forbid he could actually do what he wanted with these pitches at any given moment.

But yeah. About that.

Whenever a pitcher goes from being good to great, it's never shocking to see that he's throwing more strikes. So it is with Archer, whose 66.4 strike percentage this year is a career high by plenty.

The secret? According to the man himself, it's that one thing that all great pitchers must have.

Brian Blanco/Getty Images

"It all stems from fastball command," Archer told Topkin. "They take bad swings at the slider because you're in the zone with the heater so much, and then when they are thinking slider you can go heater."

The data supports Archer, as the raw PITCHf/x figures say he's throwing a career-high 54.0 percent of his fastballs in the strike zone. Factor in how 45.2 percent of his sliders finding the zone is normal for him, and you get a general increase in pitches in the strike zone.

This helps explain how Archer is throwing a career-high 30.5 percent of his pitches in two-strike counts, according to Baseball Savant. And when Archer gets to two strikes, hitters might as well head back to the dugout. He's holding them to a .119 average and getting strike three 57 percent of the time.

To this end, it's not just that Archer's fastball and slider are both lethal out pitches. There's also the fact that he uses both pitches exactly the way he should be using them when he has two strikes.

As Brooks Baseball can vouch, hitters who get to two strikes against Archer are either going to see a high fastball:

Image courtesy of BrooksBaseball.net.

Or a low slider:

Image courtesy of BrooksBaseball.net.

Regardless of what a hitter sees, he's screwed. Batters are hitting .127 with 31 strikeouts against Archer's two-strike fastballs, and .097 with 75 strikeouts against his two-strike sliders.

That the slider has been the better out pitch of the two isn't surprising. But as Dave Cameron of FanGraphs noted, what's particularly interesting is how Archer has made it a legit out pitch against both right-handed batters and left-handed batters:

"

To right-handers, [Archer's] still getting some horizontal movement, starting on the outer half of the plate and then diving away from them, but against left-handers, he's figured out how to throw it like a very hard curveball. ... Archer's slider against lefties is essentially a power curveball, and it's become a dominant pitch against opposite-handed hitters. 

"

To be more accurate, it's actually become a more dominant pitch against opposite-handed batters. Regardless of the count, righties are hitting .203 against it, while lefties are only hitting it at just a .147 clip.

That makes Archer's slider one with a reverse-platoon split, a rare thing indeed. And because of that, he's keeping left-handed batters in check far better than he was able to in 2013 and 2014. They used to be his Kryptonite. Now they kneel before him.

There are many ways to become one of the game's most dominant starting pitchers. Archer, it seems, has chosen the route that involves establishing a fastball-slider combination unlike any other and putting himself in a position to make the most of it with good, old-fashioned execution.

Simple, but effective. And if his last three starts are any indication, he may only be scratching the surface of how effective he can be.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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