With a full 162-game season to look back on now, it’s clear that 2017 was another strange year for Chris Archer.
The definitive number one starter of the Rays certainly looked like an ace at times, but he ended the season with a very un-ace-like 4.07 ERA. It was the second straight season his ERA topped 4.00, and although one can point to his FIP (3.40) and xFIP (3.35) as signs that he deserved better results than he got, there’s no magical Time Turner that will go back and shave off eight to ten of the runs Archer actually allowed that hurt the Rays during the season.