Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Friday, April 10th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2015-04-12 16:14:54

We have stats for this season! Well, we have some stats. Ok, we have one stat or group of stats. Statistics for the opposing team over the last week (L7 Days) have been added to the main chart (don’t forget to scroll right), although we’re still using lefty/right and home/road splits along with defense from last year until next week.

Friday carries the full complement of 15 games, but an uncharacteristic five-game late afternoon slate. We’re charting all the pitchers today, but will only be talking about the night games. No less than nine pitchers are making their starting debut for a new team today, so we’ll try to keep track of all the new names in new places.

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.

Staring Pitching Main Chart

We’re using Seamheads.com three-year park factors. Home team is in bold. Team Def = UZR/150. L2Yrs is a rolling calendar. Hm/Rd xFIP is since the start of the 2014 season. Opp team offensive stats are wRC+. Combo stats are explained below.

NOTE Opposing team Home/Road and vs LHP/RHP splits and team defense stats are still from 2014.

Brandon Morrow has started 16 major league games over the last two years. In the past, he’s shown an ability to miss bats, but also a disdain for the strike zone. Who knows what we’ll get this year? He obviously showed San Diego enough this spring to win a starting role, though.

Brett Anderson is great when he can stay on the mound, but has only started 19 Major League games over the last three years. What you can expect from Anderson is a lot of ground balls and then a wave to the trainer.

Chase Anderson – How many damn Andersons are there in this game? Chase had a HR issue last season (16 in 114 IP – 13.6 HR/FB), but managed to strike out 21.6% of the batters he faced. He had a good changeup, but his other pitches didn’t amount to much. A fly ball pitcher in Arizona can be a problem, especially if they don’t induce a ton of pop ups. Bringing the Dodgers into the equation makes it even more problematic.

Dan Haren – Hey, look who decided not to retire! There’s a chance that both he and the Marlins regret this before long, but his main problem the last few years has been HRs. He’s had a 12.9 HR/FB and around a 40% fly ball rate over the last two years. That’s led to 56 HRs in 356 innings. YIKES! He never hits 90 mph anymore and doesn’t strike out nearly as many batters as he used to, but he doesn’t walk anyone either. Miami plays as a tough park to hit the ball out of, so maybe if he solves that problem, things will be ok.

Drew Pomeranz split time between starting and the pen last season with overall good results. He struck out 29.8% of the batters he faced in 22.1 spring innings and that must have caught the team’s eye. Most spring stats don’t mean anything, but a change in mechanics might make his changeup play up. We don’t know what the Mariners are to be yet, but we do know they still lean left handed and Oakland is a pitchers’ park.

Eric Stults makes his Atlanta debut. He was barely useful in Petco, though Atlanta plays ok for pitchers, too.

Gio Gonzalez is the top of the board just about everywhere today. Part of that is because all the top guys have already pitched and no rotation is as deep as Washington’s. Part of it is that he’s facing the Phillies. Gio has the top strikeout rate among today’s pitchers with at least 100 innings over the last two years.

Hector Santiago probably shouldn’t be starting games at this point. He had only a 10.1 K-BB% last year and the upside is very limited against a Kansas City offense that puts the ball in play. They’ve come out of the gate with the hottest bats in the majors.

Jason Marquis couldn’t even get himself out of AAA in Philadelphia last season. He has a career 12.7 HR/FB and now he’s supposed to keep the ball in the park in Cincinnati? I haven’t laughed this hard since just before Kyle Kendrick shut out the Brewers on opening day.

Jason Vargas is a guy who, a lot of times, you think is going to get rocked, but then ends up going six or seven innings allowing only a couple of runs. He skates by with lots of fly balls and a great outfield defense in big parks. He seems to always be someone you don’t want to roster, but don’t gain as much as you expect going against.

Jeff Locke cut down on his walks last year and that allowed him to stick in the big leagues for a while, though the results weren’t great. He’s all about ground balls and few strikeouts, though there’s something interesting on that front we’ll speak about later.

Jerome Williams went at least six innings and allowed two earned runs or less in five of his nine starts for the Phillies last year. That’s way more useful than anybody ever thought he’d ever be. However, he only had more than five strikeouts in two of those starts. His only allure is that the Nationals are missing several key bats.

John Lackey had some struggles after being traded to the Cardinals, but ended the regular season strongly. He’s been about a league average pitcher with a league average strikeout rate since his comeback from injury the last two seasons. He has, occasionally, had issues with the long ball (12.5 HR/FB – 50 HRs) since the start of 2013.

Jon Niese always seems to be dealing with shoulder issues, but ended up giving the Mets nearly 200 innings of respectable pitching last year. He doesn’t miss many bats, but generally keeps the ball on the ground, throws strikes, and does what his team asks of him. There may be some value in that, especially against the new no-name Atlanta offense.

Mike Fiers reestablished himself in the Milwaukee rotation last season. A move to the third base side of the rubber allowed him to nearly double the amount of outside corner fastballs, rather than being caught in the middle third of the plate. He also cut down on his curveball usage in favor of a fastball that averaged less than 90 mph over 60% of the time. That, somehow, allowed him to strike out 27.7% of opposing batters. I’m not nearly as high on him as I’ve seen many projection systems be and we’ll talk a lot more about why below.

Nathan Eovaldi is now a Yankee and I’m having trouble figuring out why they traded for him. He throws gas, but never seems to get the accompanying expected strikeouts or results. Larry Rothschild (Yankees’ pitching coach) has done some interesting things with recent imports like Brandon McCarthy though, so maybe they have a tweak or two in mind. That’s where I read about Eovaldi’s slider, which he hopes can become a strikeout pitch under the tutelage of his new pitching coach. He had a 28.2 K% in 18 spring innings. Maybe it’s begun already.

Steve Geltz is a 27 year old non-prospect who’s already gotten into a game in relief for the Rays this year. He’s had some high strikeout rates in the minors, but also some absurd walk rates. I doubt they’re expecting him to go deep in this spot start as he wasn’t announced until late last night.

Taijuan Walker is a name prospect-followers have been hearing for years. He also had a big spring with a 27.7 K% in 27 innings. The Mariners are obviously hoping this is the year he breaks out and takes his rightful place beside Felix’s throne.

Tim Lincecum has been given another chance by the Giants. That doesn’t mean you have to.

Wade Miley increased the velocity (almost two mph to 85), movement, and usage (15.1% to 22.9%) of his slider last year and enjoyed a strikeout rate (21.1%) above the league average for the first time in his career in 2014. If he can bring his BABIP and HR rate down to league average levels, the ERA could follow. The Yankee lineup leans heavily left handed, though Miley didn’t really have a split last year.

Combo K/BB Charts

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 originally were due to size limitations. What’s the correct weighting? Who knows? But now you have all six components (Pitcher: L2Yrs, H/R, L14Days – Opposition: H/A, vL/R, L7Days) that make up the above numbers.

Combo K/BB Charts – Opponent

Combo Batted Ball Charts

See the explanation for the K/BB chart above.

Combo Batted Ball Charts – Opponent

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 and other factors may 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.

Today is the first day we see some discrepancies here. Most of it comes from guys who didn’t get in full major league seasons.

Hector Santiago has thrown 100 innings for the second time in his career last year. In the only other year, 2013, he had a 2.52 K/SwStr. That’s a little high, but within the comfort zone. A decreasing K% to go along with an already troublesome BB% could spell problems for him.

Jeff Locke had a lower K% than in 2014 when his SwStr% was one percentage point lower. If he maintains his ability to miss bats this season, there is potential for his K% to spike all the way up to around league average.

Mike Fiers – It’s impressive that he’s able to get hitters to swing and miss and at his fastball at all coming in at a below average velocity. He did so at just about a league average rate, but his strikeout rate was way beyond that. He did this in his other successful season in 2012 too, but does not have nearly enough of a track record for us to suggest this is going to be a long term thing with him yet.

ERA Estimators Chart

How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.

Drew Pomeranz is like most of the shaded pitchers in this chart in that he didn’t pitch a complete season last year with only 69 innings and some of them out of the bullpen. I don’t think we’d except him to come anything close to his ERA as a starter, but an adjustment to a .244 BABIP should see to that.

Jerome Williams had a BABIP that was a little high (.313), but how much do we expect that to improve in Philadelphia

Mike Fiers – In addition to the SwStr% issue, he had a .224 BABIP and 82.7 LOB%, which are even more likely to regress, not to mention a below average 8.4 HR/FB in a tough park.

Tim Lincecum has been flying above his peripherals for three seasons now. They think he should strand a few more runners and allow fewer HRs. The problem is that he’s stranded fewer than 70% of runner and allowed a HR/FB above 12% for three straight years and over 500 innings. This is the point at which you might begin buying into these things as not a fluke.

Wade Miley had a .313 BABIP and 13.9 HR/FB, which we talked about in the open. If he can just get back to even the slightly below average rates he established in his previous two seasons, while sustaining the strikeout rate, improvement to his ERA would be very likely.

BABIP Chart

A couple of years ago, 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 a pitcher has a much lower BABIP than his team’s allowed (red), then you look for some factors that may support it and maybe you’re onto something (check batted ball profile too).

Dan Haren didn’t fly too far below his career .290 BABIP, but his Z-Contact hasn’t hit 90% since 2006.

Drew Pomeranz – A .244 BABIP is not stable for any pitcher. Looking at the Oakland defense and with a strong IFFB% in that park, you’d think they he could still maintain a good rate. The Oakland defense has changed, but should still remain strong.

Mike Fiers has a great IFFB rate and good Z-Contact rate, but again, the BABIP was ridiculous. Expect a spike somewhere around 50 points.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Brett Anderson keeps the ball on the ground and has a league average HR/FB so the park shouldn’t be a problem. You really don’t tend to hold injury history against a pitcher in daily fantasy as long as you think he’s healthy now, because you only need him for one game, but this guy tends to see the trainer come out way too often.

Drew Pomeranz is more stretched out to be a starter this year and should be able to average more than five innings. Let’s look at a low price tag and accept for a minute that the changes are real and there’s something to his spring strikeout numbers. This shouldn’t be a bad spot for him. He’s not safe, but nobody really is today.

Gio Gonazlez is your highest priced pitcher of the day and I expect everybody to own him. Even with his flaws, there’s no reason not to against Philadelphia (unless the weather doesn’t cooperate).

Jeff Locke – Even with a potential spike in his K rate, you probably don’t want to immediately test that theory against a predominantly RH lineup in Milwaukee, despite the attractive price tag.

Jon Niese should probably be on your radar on Friday for the simple fact that he’s an established veteran with a decent floor, facing a weak offense, on a day where you can’t trust too many guys.

Mike Fiers will probably make me look foolish several times this year after everything I’ve said about him today, but I’d struggle to pull the trigger at his current price tag against a solid offense in a pitcher’s park. He may not be bad after all adjustments are said and done, but he’s currently over-valued in my estimation.

Nathan Eovaldi carries some intrigue at a reasonable price tag, but do you really want to bet against past performance right away in his first Yankee Stadium start against the Red Sox?

Taijuan Walker is higher on the board than I’d imagine today, but some of that has to do with prices being down in general today, so he’s not really expensive. He checks several columns today in terms of potential because you like the pedigree and the spring performance plus the ball park. Lacking a current major league track record is the only real knock on him and he’s not cheap enough where a bad performance doesn’t hurt, but you have to take some chances today and he looks like one of the better ones.

Wade Miley could have the same things said about him as Eovaldi with his first start for his new team in the Bronx against the Yankees at a similar price. I have a little more confidence in Miley though because he, at least, showed the ability to miss bats last year and the things that were wrong with him are often more easily corrected or even not entirely under his control.

You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.

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