Advanced Stats Pitching Charts - Wed 7/30
As mentioned yesterday, we’re just covering the 9 night games today because of the crazy schedule and 4 games starting before 1pm EST. If a lot of you are playing the early games and are affected by this, let me know and we’ll find a fix if the schedule works out that way again.
Most of the stats in these charts are pulled directly from the Fangraphs.com database. If a stat is used that you are not familiar with and want to learn more about, their glossary does a terrific job of explaining all of the advanced stats I use in these charts.
Starting Pitching Main Chart
We’re using Seamheads.com 3 year park factors. Home team is in bold. Team Def = UZR/150. L2Yrs is a rolling calendar. 2013+ is since the start of that season. Combo stats are explained below.
Alex Wood – has alternated good and not so useful starts over the last month and while the Dodgers are still below average vs LHP, they’ve been hitting the ball well lately and are not really a team you want to mess with at home.
Brandon Workman – with the potential trade of Jon Lester today, he earned the chance to be tortured by the hottest bats on the planet and best vs RHP in the majors. He has easily the night’s toughest matchup regardless of the park.
Brett Anderson – has pitched just 14 innings on the road this season, allowing 4 ER’s without a HR and 3 BB’s plus 12 K’s. The Cubs are the 6th best offense vs LHP, but also strike out the most often (25.5%).
Colby Lewis – has been pretty awful and hasn’t completed 7 innings in a start yet, to add to that, the Yankees have been hitting the ball better.
Corey Kluber – has been incredible lately with 8+ IP, 10K’s, and 2 ER’s or less in 3 of his last 4 starts. He combines one of the best K and BB rates today for the top K%-BB% (18.6) in tonight’s chart. The Mariners, of course, are a very favorable matchup.
Danny Duffy – the matchup, the defense, and the HR/FB are all very favorable, mostly tonight’s bests. His own peripherals have not lived up to recent results although his overall July work has been better.
Felix Hernandez – only his opponent comes close to matching his incredible numbers today. He faces the 4th best offense at home and 3rd best vs RHP, but never bet against the King. He still may be your best bet for K’s on the day.
Garrett Richards – has a tougher park to work in today, but really isn’t showing anything worrisome in his line.
Hector Noesi – the Tigers haven’t hit well lately, but that’s really the only positive in his favor. They’re still tied for the 4th best home offense in baseball.
Hiroki Kuroda – has been a bit disappointing this year. Texas is now only tied for the worst home offense after last night’s performance.
Jesse Hahn – has had some tougher matchups lately and has responded with just 10 K’s and 7 BB’s over his last 2 starts despite allowing just 1 ER in each. When you include the park though, he might have the best matchup of the night. Yes, the Cardinals are the 3rd worst road offense in baseball.
Joe Kelly – once again tied for the worst home offense, the Padres are still alone in that spot vs RHP. Kelly has a surprising amount of red in his line otherwise, indicating better options today.
Kevin Gausman – takes on the best road offense and really just the best offense overall in baseball.
Mark Buehrle – both he and the Red Sox offense have been ice cold.
Max Scherzer – has one of the worse matchups on the day, potentially the most likely to see the ball leave the yard (we’ll look below), but should still get you some strikeouts.
Phil Hughes – a lot of his trouble has been BABIP related, but he’s only struck out 5 over his last 2 starts. He walks nobody and faces the 3rd worst home offense, but also the toughest to strike out.
Travis Wood – has been pretty awful for over a month now.
Zack Greinke – pitches at home, where he’s been dominant in a Dodger uniform, for the first time in 5 starts and only the 3rd time since June 1st. Aside from one slip up in St Louis, he’s gone 7 IP with at least 8 K’s in 4 of his last 5 starts. Atlanta is a bottom third of the board offense both on the road and vs RHP.
Combo K/BB Chart
These are the Combo K & BB numbers from above fleshed out. They are weighted equally in the main chart above. They probably shouldn’t be, but were originally due to space limitations. What’s the correct weighting? Who knows, but now, you have all 6 components (Pitcher: L2Yrs, H/R, L14Days – Opposition: H/A, vL/R, L7Days) that make up the above numbers.
Colby Lewis – strikeouts are likely to be at a minimum. The highest of the 6 marks is 18.3%.
Corey Kluber- the Mariners don’t strike out more often than the average team, but Kluber has become an elite K artist. The highest BB% in his line is 7.2%.
Danny Duffy – has walked at least 3 in 4 of 7 home starts, but only a total of 2 in his last 2.
Felix Hernandez – Cleveland strikes out less often than the average offense at home and against RHP. The top K% today is all on the dominance of Felix.
Hector Noesi – the Tigers have a great K% at home and he really rarely accumulates many, with a high of 7 on the year, done only once.
Hiroki Kuroda – strikeouts are below 20% across his entire line.
Max Scherzer – aside from the last week, these are all higher than league average strikeout numbers.
Phil Hughes – we have neither a single K% above 20 nor BB% above 6.5 across his entire line today.
Combo Batted Ball Chart
Ditto for the Combo Batted Ball stats in the Main Chart above.
Brett Anderson – while the Cubs either hit the ball hard or miss entirely often vs LHP, LD rates are otherwise below 20% across the board.
Danny Duffy- the Twins don’t have a lot of power and he has allowed just 2 HR’s in 7 home starts.
Garrett Richards – the Orioles pop up a ton. That must be part of their problem at home.
Jesse Hahn – not that he needs them in that park, but he still hasn’t induced an infield fly in 4 home starts and just 2 total in all starts.
Kevin Gausman – better get ready to duck. There’s apt to be some bullets flying off the bat in this game.
Max Scherzer – there are certainly some surprises in the HR/FB column. The White Sox have the top road HR/FB in baseball and Scherzer has allowed 9 of his 14 HR’s at home in one fewer start.
K/SwStr Chart
Getting called strikeouts can be a skill, but it’s usually not a sustainable one at a large deviation from the league rate (catcher framing can make some difference here). K% correlates heavily with SwStr% though. Look for a large difference and you might find a potential adjustment before anyone else.
Brandon Workman – has just 11 major league innings over the last month.
Brett Anderson – only has 33 IP on the year, but 2 or fewer strikeouts in 4 of his 6 starts and also a SwStr% less than 7 in 4 starts. He has an 18.2 K% on a 7.2 SwStr% for his career, so that’s what I’d expect him to trend to when healthy.
Colby Lewis – has enough problems and now I’m telling you the strikeouts may be in danger too. His 19.4 career K% is predicated on an 8.4 SwStr%, so yeah, more problems potentially.
Felix Hernandez – this isn’t a big deal. He’s awesome. So what if he strikes out 28% instead of 32%?
Hiroki Kuroda – I don’t know why he always falls on the low end of K/SwStr (1.84 career), but still falls into a generally acceptable range, which means if he can maintain the double digit SwStr% of the last month going forward, then we should probably expect at least a bit of a jump in the K% over the last 2 months.
ERA Estimators Chart
How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.
Brandon Workman – again, just 11 innings over the last month.
Colby Lewis – can he sustain a .399 BABIP? Probably not. That’s .413 with a 51.1 LOB% over the last month with a 25.7 LD%, while his K% has dropped to 15.2.
Danny Duffy – beware that he’s dabbling in a bit of BABIP magic along with some LOB (80%) and a little bit of HR/FB (6.3%) foolery this year.
Felix Hernandez – maybe he’s not a true talent sub 2.00 ERA talent? So what? The .212 BABIP and 84.2 LOB% aren’t sustainable. He’s still great.
Jesse Hahn – everyone’s fallen in love with this rookie and rightfully so, but is he suddenly becoming a tad over-rated? The BABIP and 80.9 LOB% along with a 6.7 HR/FB rate might suggest so, though you can see a lower HR/FB not regressing too far in Petco.
Joe Kelly – in 14.2 July innings – .347 BABIP & 60.3 LOB% with 2 HR’s for a 16.7 HR/FB.
Mark Buehrle – his ERA is over 3 now and slowly trending back to what we always thought he was, which is neither as good as he was to start the year nor as bad as his last 2 starts (.441 BABIP – 55 LOB%).
Phil Hughes – the K and BB rates are still great, but his July BABIP is .409 with a 61.9 LOB%, derived from a 27.4 LD%, so it’s not like he’s absolved of responsibility here.
Travis Wood – has been terrible lately. While his 11 BB% in July isn’t helping, the .375 BABIP and 56 LOB% aren’t likely to carry either. He’s been hit hard though with a 30.7 LD% for the month.
BABIP Chart
Last year, both Dan Rosencheck and Steve Staude separately found that high Infield Fly Ball (IFFB) rates and low Zone Contact (Z-Contact) rates correlated well with lower BABIP for pitchers. I won’t pretend to know how much of the variation in BABIP can be explained by these factors, but since they seem to have some effect, here they are. See if you can use it to your advantage.
It’s presented as the difference between team and pitcher BABIP allowed because team defense can explain a lot of the variance from league average on its own. For example, if you have a pitcher with a much lower BABIP than his team’s allowed (red), then you look for some factors that may support it (green). If you have a pitcher with a much higher BABIP (green), but decent IFFB and Z-Contact rates you may be onto something (check batted ball profile too).
Brandon Workman – has no elite skill that I can see which would allow him to maintain this BABIP.
Brett Anderson – does not induce pop ups or miss bats in the zone, but does have a career 16.8 LD% (16.2 this year). Despite that, he still has a .305 career BABIP which matches what the Colorado defense has allowed this year.
Colby Lewis – is probably not this bad and if he is, he won’t stay in the league much longer.
Danny Duffy – has a great pop up rate and otherwise average indicators for a lower BABIP, but should still come back to the pack a bit.
Jesse Hahn – batters have struggled to make good contact consistently on pitches in the strike zone, but a 22.3 LD% and below average pop up rate means he’s probably gotten a little better than he’s deserved so far.
Joe Kelly – has a 25 LD% with few pop ups.
Kevin Gausman – with pop ups and line drives (22.7%) pretty much offsetting each other, he should come back down to what his team allows eventually.
Mark Buehrle – has at least 1 IFFB in all buy 4 of his last 19 starts, while maintaining the highest rate of his career, but also the worst LD% (23.3) of his career.
Phil Hughes – his pop up rate is offset by a 23.8 LD%. His BABIP has been over .320 for each of the last 2 years now and for 3 of the 4 months of this season. We may have to start considering that this may be an issue now.
Travis Wood – lots of pop ups, but lots of line drives (in July at least) too.
Zack Greinke – has a .306 career mark and really doesn’t have any indicators far off his career marks. This would be his highest BABIP since 2005 (.335).
Pitcher Notes & Summary
Alex Wood – has bitten me in the behind each of the last 2 times I’ve written about him, but is still maintaining some excellent rates at a reasonable price.
Brett Anderson – the Cubs hit LHP, but also strike out more than any other team against them and are bad at home. Anderson is among the cheapest pitchers tonight and has been decent in limited road innings this year.
Corey Kluber – falls behind only Felix probably tonight in expected performance and has a similar price tag to Scherzer and Greinke. As mentioned, he has 8+ IP with 10K’s (exactly) and 2 ER or less in 3 of his last 4 starts. Two of those 10 K games came against KC!
Danny Duffy – I’m not buying into the ERA yet, but he does have 6 K’s with 2 BB’s or better in 3 of his last 4 starts, so that’s a plus not really seen in any of the stats above.
Felix Hernandez – as expected, has the highest price tag of the day and is probably still the best expected performance despite the tough matchup.
Garrett Richards – is a fine alternative, priced generally just less than the top 4. He’s been a SwStr machine over the last month (13.6%). The park is the only factor really working against him.
Jesse Hahn – may be a tad over-rated currently, but he’s still been very good and the Cardinal offense is similarly over-rated in one of the toughest parks in baseball.
Joe Kelly – is nothing special, but is cheap and facing the Padres in Petco.
Max Scherzer – as mentioned today, carries some risk against a better than you probably thought White Sox road offense (or basically Abreu). The other two guys in his price range may be safer options, but he should still get you some K’s.
Zack Greinke – while Kluber is probably still my preferred option at this price, if you can’t afford Felix, he’s still a solid alternative. Just copy and paste the notes under the main chart. 4 of his last 5 starts have been fairly dominant. The Braves should strike out enough to suite owners and pose not much of a threat.
You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.