2020 was a necessary step forward for Zach Eflin. He reverted back to being primarily a sinkerball pitcher and with that, he found success. A 3.97 ERA in 59 innings seems rather pedestrian, but a deeper dive tells a different story.
Baseball Prospectus’ Deserved Run Average (DRA) is a stat that operates on the same scale as ERA and FIP but takes numerous external factors into account such as park adjustments, catcher framing and quality of opponent.
According to DRA, Eflin ranked among the top starting pitchers in Major League Baseball in 2020.
In his introductory press conference, new pitching coach Caleb Cotham said that there are three pitchers on the staff that could win a Cy Young and it was pretty obvious he was referring to Eflin.