Every season several rookie pitchers cause massive pickups by getting off to a great start and then burn their owners with several bad games. Fernando Nieve was a clear case of fantasy managers rushing to grad the next hot pitcher based on ERA and W, but not on expected future outcomes.
I expect many who read this site probably didn't pick him up, but if you did I hope Monday night was enough of a sign to cut bait while you still can. Lets look at his minor league numbers first and see if there is any sign of the pitcher who went 3-0 with a 1.48 ERA in his first 3 starts (not counting his first relief appearance).
He has totalled 734.1 innings in the minors with more than 200 in Triple-A, so we have a good sample size and his K/BB in all those innings is 2.44. That looks pretty good, but he has struggled to get to that level in Triple-A. His Triple-A K/BB is 2.13 and that has resulted in an ERA of 5.03 at that level. Most of his success came in Double-A where his ERA was 2.83 and he had a K/BB of 3.07.
This shows he has some skill, but not having done it in Triple-A I can't see how he could find it in the majors. So looking past the great start in his first 3 games was there anything to show he had found his strength from Double-A? Nope. Nieve only had a 5.67 K/9 in those 20.2 IP before his Monday start. At the same time he had a 3.93 BB/9 making him a sure thing to blow up soon.
Those numbers showed a K/BB of 1.44 before Monday and he now only has a K/BB of 1.40. His FIP of 4.34 seems reasonable and possibly someone you might want to own in a league as your last starter, but his xFIP-5.28 and DERA-4.55 make me think there will be rough times ahead for him.
At this point I would rather risk my luck with the groundballing Joel Pineiro than Nieve.
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