LAB REPORTS

Is Troy Melton An Ace?

Troy Melton has been one of the breakout pitchers in the first half of the season. He's sported a 1.80 ERA, .215 xBA, 3.86 SIERA, and 3.76 xFIP since debuting this season on May 24th.

Melton made his major league debut in 2025 and pitched in 16 games, four of which he started, to a stat line of a 2.76 ERA, .209 xBA, 4.30 SIERA, and 4.53 xFIP across 45.2 innings.

Doing a "quick analysis" of comparing Melton's 2025 to 2026, it's easy to see why he's performing so much better this year. Melton's 2025 (top) and 2026 (bottom) Baseball Savant pages are shown below.

The biggest difference between Melton's first year and second year is simple: more whiffs. But how is he generating more whiffs? Let's create a checklist of the typical changes pitchers make to generate more whiffs.

Arm Slot Changes

Arm slot changes have become more common as more Statcast data has become more available to MLB clubs. A recent arm slot change success story is Emerson Hancock.

Hancock lowered his arm angle from 27 degrees in 2024 to 18 degrees in 2025 to 12 degrees in 2026. His K% in those years has jumped from 14.7% in 2024 to 16.6% in 2025 to 23.4% in 2026.

When we check Melton's arm slot from 2025 to 2026, he has raised it by 3 degrees. A typical pitcher will vary from one to five degrees throughout the year, so three degrees is not a significant enough change to attribute to Melton's success.

Increased Velocity

Many pitchers will try to increase their velocity from season to season to generate more whiffs. The most recent success story of increased velocity generating more whiffs is Justin Wrobleski's fastball.

At the beginning of the season, Wrobleski's fastball velocity was sitting around 93.7 mph and has jumped to an average of 94.9 mph, and his K rate has jumped from 14.3% to 15.3%.

However, when we look at Melton's fastball velo from 2025 (96.8 mph) to 2026 (96.2), there isn't a significant enough change to attribute to Melton's success.

Pitch Mix Change and Pitch Profile Changes

We will combine pitch mix changes and pitch profile changes into the same category here. Pitch mix changes can be classified as a pitcher keeping the same pitch arsenal but altering the sequencing or tendency to throw the pitches in that arsenal. Pitch profile changes are categorized as the movement or velocity of a given pitch in a pitcher's arsenal.

Melton's pitch mix change from 2025 to 2026 is shown below per Baseball Savant.

Melton has made a conscious effort to throw his cutter more to both righties and lefties... and it's working. His whiff% on his cutter is up from 12.8% in 2025 to 26% this year. We have found a reason for Melton's success. Not only is his whiff% way up, but his cutter usage has drastically increased since his first start of the year, as shown in the figure below per Pitcherlist.

In Melton's first two starts of this year, he threw his cutter 6.3% and 7.9% of the time. However, since his third start, he has thrown it at least 17.1% of the time, and he has maxed out at 28.6% cutter usage. Simply put, Melton is throwing his best pitch more to both righties and lefties.

Can Melton be an ace?

Let's classify an ace as a top 15 pitcher in fantasy. Currently, that list starts with Jacob Misiorowski and ends with Brian Woo per FantasyPros ECR (Expert Consensus Rankings). The biggest differentiator between very good pitchers and aces is strikeouts.

Aces are the best of the best when it comes to striking out opponents. Melton has a 23.6 k% which sits in the 55th percentile in the MLB. This suggests that although Melton has been an elite fantasy option since he debuted this season, he doesn't quite have ace-level upside.

Additionally, Melton is dramatically outperforming most of his expected stats. He sports a 1.82 ERA but has an xERA of 3.03. I want to be clear that a 3.03 xERA is still in the 87th percentile; however, his 1.82 ERA is not sustainable.

I'd expect Melton to be more of a low-end SP2 or high-end SP3 the rest of the season. He will be viewed as a 2026 league winner heading into the offseason.

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