Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Friday, May 22nd

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2015-05-25 14:48:40

The first thing I saw when I opened up the Friday probables page on MLB.com on Thursday night was Syndergaard vs Cole. The second thing I saw was Scherzer vs O’Sullivan and immediately knew where everybody’s money was going Friday night, but let’s get back to that first thing. Winning a Cy Young is hard (so I’d never assume one and guys like Kershaw, Bumgarner, and Harvey have barely reached their mid-20’s), but if things break right, you might be looking at two of the top 10 pitchers in baseball for a long time to come and perennial Cy Young contenders. That’s if things break right and in pitchers, a lot of things can break bad and derail young careers, so maybe we should just enjoy this one tonight.

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. Hm/Rd xFIP is since the start of the 2014 season. Opp team offensive stats are wRC+. Combo stats are explained below.

Editor’s Note: Alex Wood has been scratched from tonight’s start due to illness. Left-hander Eric Stults will start in his place.

Alex Wood hasn’t been nearly as good as last season, which you can simply tell from an ERA that’s a run higher in addition to a 7.9 K-BB% that matches his BB% and has been cut in half from last year. He has a 2.79 xFIP and 28.0 K% at home since last season, including a 25.3 K% this season with 19 of his 32 Ks in just three of his eight starts. More on his K% later. In addition to being the worst road offense in baseball after the Phillies’ trip to Colorado, they are also the 2nd worst vs LHP with a 21.3 K-BB% despite a 14.1 HR/FB against southpaws. They represent one of the top park adjusted matchups of the day.

Andrew Cashner has allowed half of his eight HRs to the Dodgers in two starts, but returns to LA to face a much colder version of the team after getting shut out in three straight games in San Francisco. Like the other San Diego pitchers, he was told not to let the opposition hit the ball or reap what your defense sows. As such, his SwStr% is in double digits for the first time in three years and he has a very healthy 17.8 K-BB%. The ERA has somehow remained around his non-FIP estimators, despite a 17.0 HR/FB. The long ball is really the issue here as he has a 13.9 HR/FB on the road over the last couple of seasons. Even though they’ve cooled off, the Dodgers have mauled RHP at home with some otherworldly home run rates that have dropped to a 2.4 HR/FB over the last week, so maybe the friendly confines will wake them up again.

Carlos Carrasco has reverted to the guy with tons of talent, but none of the results. His walks, strikeouts, and swinging strikes are all virtually the same. It’s when contact has been made that’s the problem and more specifically with men on base, which we’ll tease for a later note below. The K rate bumps up to 28.3% at home since last year. The Reds are a below average offense that represents a strong park adjusted matchup for Carrasco.

Chris Archer is as good as his control will let him be. After walking four in back to back starts and allowing a total of nine runs in 9.1 innings, he’s followed up with a total of two walks and three runs over his last two starts. In fact, he’s only allowed more than one walk and two runs one other time each this year. With an elite 21.4 K-BB% and an ERA below three that is supported by estimators, you could call this a breakout year for him. He’s struck out 29.9% over his last three starts. Oakland is the 2nd best offense vs RHP with a strong walk rate and low K%.

Chris Young has looked like the old Chris Young in his last few starts. Maybe we jumped the gun on that strikeout thing, but he’s still a guy that’s always beat his peripherals. Beating them is one thing, but this year, he’s knocked them unconscious and is rubbing his butt in their faces. He’s making a mockery of BABIP this year, but that’s for later. St Louis was struggling, but has gotten healthy in New York. They’ve been striking out a surprising 22.7% on the road though.

Colby Lewis is not a pitcher I thought I’d ever have to write seriously about again, but he really just had his first bad start of the season last time out. For him, it’s been all about the BABIP (last year) and the HR rate (this year). The Yankee offense has been just average this year and cold recently after a series in an NL park without A-Rod, but have struck out just 15.9% over the last week.

Colin McHugh has by no means been bad this season, but has been very inconsistent. Or maybe he has been consistently alternating good and bad starts since the start of the season. Consider that in every other start, he’s struck out three and walked two, except for the four strikeouts in his first start. In the alternate four starts, he’s struck out 32 with just two walks. It’s hard to figure, but the good news is that while the overall K% is down, his SwStr% hasn’t budged from last season and been at least 8.5% in every start, so there’s your consistency. Detroit can run hot or cold in any given game, but is overall a strong offense at home vs RHP.

Felix Hernandez is somebody you just look for the odd things in his line because you expect gobs of goodness. The defense he can’t do anything about, but we see a lower K% in the main chart and a ginormous HR/FB, along with a 3.83 SIERA over his last few starts. Let’s start with the last one: he walked four Bostonians while only striking out five with two HR’s in a rough outing last start. In fact, he’s allowed five HRs over his last three starts. His 17.1 HR/FB on the year seems to have been canceled out by his .248 BABIP in his estimators. If I can find anything different, he’s thrown about 50% changeups over his last two starts when he normally throws it about a quarter of the time. He’s Felix, he knows what he’s doing, he has a 60% ground ball rate, and none of his batted ball or contact authority rates look off, so we’ll not make a big deal of this yet. It’s essentially one weird start we probably won’t remember at the end of the season, right? Toronto is the 2nd best home offense in baseball with a 6.8 K-BB% and 13.7 HR/FB.

Garrett Richards was sort of an authority on contact authority last year with a -1.2 Hard-Soft%. That’s pretty awesome, right? Well, forget it because this year he has a -18.8 Hard-Soft%. Go ahead, check FanGraphs and make sure that’s not a typo. If one were to maintain a 2.8 HR/FB, I guess that’s how you do it? He’s had some issues with control, but is missing bats and hasn’t allowed more than two ERs since a rusty first start back. Boston adds into that as though they don’t strike out often, they are the 4th weakest impactors of the baseball as a team with a 6.4 Hard-Soft%.

Gerrit Cole hasn’t allowed more than three ERs in a start this season and only that twice. He hasn’t walked more than two in a start and struck out at least six in all but one with only two balls leaving the yard. I guess what I’m calling him is both very good and consistent. Let’s toss in a 20.1 K-BB% as a topper. The Mets are the 2nd worst road offense and 3rd worst vs RHP, with just a 6.2 HR/FB.

Jeff Samardzija has not been what the White Sox had hoped for with an ERA and estimators all above four and a 12.2 K-BB% down over six points from last season. His strikeouts and SwStr% are way down and specifically, the whiff rate has gone from 16% to 10% on his slider according to Brooks Baseball and his splitter has gone from 22% to 11%. Minnesota is a bottom offense on the road and vs RHP with worse than league average strikeout and HR rates in both spots.

Jon Lester has settled into what he’s supposed to be according to his peripherals and what the Cubs were hoping he’d be with his results over the last month. He’s gone exactly seven innings with no more than one ER in three of his last four starts, striking out at least six in four of his last five. Arizona has just a 4.5 HR/FB over the last week, but go from one of the toughest HR parks (Miami) back home where they turn into a league average offense that has some RH thump.

Lance Lynn has allowed one ER or less in six of his eight starts and has struck out six in seven. He has a better chance to sustain his 4.4 HR/FB in Kansas City, but they’re likely to sap a lot of his fantasy value. Add up their K rates at home (13.2%), vs RHP (15.1%), and over the last week (12.3%) and you get basically Steven Souza’s rate (38.3%) for the season.

Marco Estrada has allowed four HRs in three starts, has a 12.2 HR/FB for his career, and is pitching in a hitter’s park against the hardest impactors of the baseball (16.0 Hard-Soft%) this year. I’m still talking about him though because he has a 24.3 K% and the Mariners have been below average on the road and vs RHP with a 24.7 K% over the last week.

Max Scherzer has had double digit strikeouts in three of his last four starts, has already dominated the Phillies this year, and on a day where there’s ice cream and cookies everywhere you look, he’s really just like smothering everything in extra chocolate sauce. They’re all good today, but this is the best it gets with your early top Cy Young contender against the weakest impactors of baseball in the majors (2.7 Hard-Soft%) whose offense might even look better after a trip to Coors. The one positive they do have going for them is a K% under league average this year and just 14.9% over the last week.

Michael Pineda has the lowest combined estimators in the main chart, which is quite impressive considering his counterparts today. Some of that has to do with a 16 K performance in the queue from the last two weeks, but he followed that up with just one strikeout against the aggravating Royals, though he still generated a 9.6 SwStr%. He has a 21.9 K-BB% at home as a Yankee and the Rangers neatly strike out 21% on the road, vs RHP, and over the last week. They’ve struggled on the road vs RHP.

Noah Syndergaard struggled a bit with four walks in his first start, but was much better in his home debut vs Milwaukee, striking out five of 23 batters with just one walk. He hasn’t generated an above average swinging strike rate in either start though, but the stuff is definitely there. Though the Pirates have been hitting the ball well, he could match up well against a team that doesn’t frequently walk and has been below average offensively at home and vs RHP in a tough park for RH power.

Phil Hughes has struck out four or fewer in six of his eight starts and pitches in a scary park for someone so vulnerable to the HR ball with 10 already allowed this year, but the White Sox just haven’t been able to sustain any offense this season and have struck out 25.1% over the last week. They have the 3rd worst home offense in baseball, which is a surprise.

Rick Porcello gets a mention because he’s been a league average pitcher by his non-FIP estimators with a league average strikeout rate, facing an awful road offense vs RHP. He allowed two HRs in his last start and has a 14.0 HR/FB for the year, but hadn’t allowed one in his previous three starts and has allowed a total of six ERs over his last four starts. Porcello has exactly six strikeouts in five of his eight starts this year. The Angels have the 2nd worst wRC+ vs RHP.

Scott Kazmir allowed just a total of three ERs in his four April starts, but has allowed at least that in three of his four May starts with a sharp decrease in his peripherals as well. Velocity has remained steady and that’s good because fatigue got to him last year, but Brooks Baseball says he’s thrown a few more four seam fastballs and sliders in place of his sinker and cutter and batters have slugged .448 off the four-seam fastball and .571 off the changeup (his two most frequent pitches) in May, not to mention two HRs off his 61 cutters this month, which is maybe why he’s using it less.

Ubaldo Jimenez is not even someone I can drop in a list below and be done with today because of the great matchup. He has at least six Ks in five of his seven starts, but look at the K/SwStr chart below. Perhaps the more glaring thing is that he hasn’t walked more than three in a start and only that twice. A heavy groundball rate allows him to keep the ball in the park despite an 11.5 HR/FB. He has a 0.9 Hard-Soft% this year and 7.7% over the last two calendar years. Even if we don’t expect him to sustain a lot of the things we’ll talk about below, the Marlins are awful and clueless and awful and why Mike Stanton would want to stay there for another 10 years is beyond anybody. It’s not like he couldn’t have gotten paid anywhere. They are the worst home offense in baseball, pretty bad vs RHP too, and terrible recently.

Wily Peralta had a rough outing last time out, snapping a string of four strong ones of at least six innings with two ERs or less. Unfortunately, his 15.4 K% is in the no longer useful category this year and the Braves basically strike out the same amount vs RHP. They have no power though, so he should be able to keep them pounding the ball into the ground and off the scoreboard despite a 17.0 HR/FB and 31.4 Hard%. They grade out as an above average matchup for him when adjusting for park effects.

Zack Greinke has a 20.2 K-BB% and 2.85 xFIP at home since the start of last season. His K% is down, but his SwStr% is still in double digits and he hasn’t allowed more than a single ER in six of eight starts. Not only have the Padres under-performed offensively, but they are the coldest unit in the majors with a 30.0 K% over the last week.

NOT AS GOOD AS THEY LOOK

This list is reserved for pitchers who may look attractive because their ERAs are much lower than their estimators. The reason for this is almost always extreme BABIP, LOB, and/or HR/FB deviation from the norm, so we’ll just quote those stats and be done with them.

League AVG (.294 BABIP – 72.3 LOB% – 10.8 HR/FB)
Extreme deviations from league averages are italicized.

Alfredo Simon (.288 BABIP – 80.8 LOB% – 7.7 HR/FB)

Mike Leake (.226 BABIP – 80.2 LOB% – 18.8 HR/FB) – The last mostly cancels out the first in his estimators.

Sean O’Sullivan (.235 BABIP – 85.5 LOB% – 16.7 HR/FB)

NO THANK YOU

Henderson Alvarez – Roughed up in his first start back, has little upside, and is surrounded by better pitchers today.

Josh Collmenter

Kyle Kendrick

Ryan Vogelsong

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 6 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 (2015 LG AVG – 20.1 K% – 9.3 SwStr% – 2.16 K/SwStr)

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.

Alex Wood did not have a SwStr rate above 6.1% in any of his first four starts, but has been between 7.8% and 8.0% in each of his last three starts. That’s still much lower than his 9.7 SwStr% last season, but at least it would fit his current K%, which is still very weak.

Chris Young – After popping some vicious SwStr rates out of the bullpen and a 19.8% mark in his first start, he’s been in single digits with an 11.1 K% over his last two starts. He’s still popping numbers better than we’ve seen from him in the bat missing department for a long time.

Ubaldo Jimenez has impressively held steady with both his SwStr and K rates over the past month. He’s had a SwStr below 6% in five of his seven starts with two double-digit efforts, so it’s really even worse than it looks. He has a 2.53 K/SwStr for his career with a SwStr two points higher, though he did move towards a higher K/SwStr (3.04) last year. Even then, though, his SwStr% was 0.6 points higher and his K% 2.9 points lower.

ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 3.89 ERA – 3.80 SIERA – 3.89 xFIP – 3.89 FIP)

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

Carlos Carrasco – His 22.4 K-BB% is just a bit higher than last year and 7th best in the majors. Blaming his .359 BABIP on the defense would be justified, but he pitched with most of this crew behind him last year and did 80 points better. His ground ball rate is down 5 points, split between a few more fly balls and line drives and to make matters worse, his 31.4 Hard% is up nearly a third from last year’s 24.6% mark. The real culprit seems to be a .396 BABIP with men on base and a slightly higher LD% and HR/FB in those spots too, leading to a 64.2 LOB%. The good news is that the stuff is still there, so this would seem correctable. The other side of the coin is that he’s been a long time frustration with this “big potential” tag for a long time aside from that breakout last year.

Chris Young benefits from a defense and ballpark that may seem custom made for him this year. You give that to a guy with a .248 career BABIP and wonder what he can do with it. Potentially something in the .230s or even 220s was possible? Well, what do you think of .132? This is a guy with a 62.7 FB% with a 12.8 IFFB% that’s actually the lowest number he’s posted in a decade. The 13.3 LD% certainly helps too, along with the strong Z-Contact%. He won’t maintain that though, nor is the 84.3 LOB% likely. He also has a just a 2.1 HR/FB and that’s not a sustainable number either, despite the park. The really odd thing is he’s doing all this with a 33.8 Hard% that’s the 2nd worst of his career.

Colby Lewis – Now that the BABIP has dropped 58 points from .339 last year, his ERA has followed. That’s what usually happens with .339 BABIPs, but the Texas defense allowed the highest BABIP in the majors last year, so you can’t say that it was even mostly his fault. A little bit about the ballpark in Texas: they fixed the jet stream and balls no longer fly out of there, but that doesn’t make it a pitcher’s park. He has a career 10.9 HR/FB. This year he has a 4.4 HR/FB. He’s pitching in Yankee Stadium tonight and they didn’t fix anything about balls flying out of that park.

Garrett Richards – So that -18.8 Hard-Soft% again…..that’s how you get a 10.0 LD%, 2.8 HR/FB, and .220 BABIP. I mean I’m supposed to poo poo these things and tell you everything is going to course correct and be alright and sure, regression and all, but I’m pretty much speechless here. Sure, he’s walking a few people, which leads to a pedestrian 12.2 K-BB% even with a strong strikeout rate, but he’s combining the best of all worlds right now.

Jon Lester still has a .333 BABIP predicated on a 26.7 LD% and just two pop ups when he’s been a strong generator of such throughout his career, but it’s dropped to .256 in May with a 91.2 LOB%.

Ubaldo Jimenez – We have a lot to talk about here and more of it is actually in the estimators than the ERA. Sure, expect regression and all that, but the estimators are still pretty good, right? You might have to knock them down a little bit for a K% that I don’t expect to stay above league average all season. You might not want to regress his ERA all the way up a full run to meet the new estimators though for two reasons. The first is that the Baltimore defense has been good at suppressing BABIP and the second is that he’s been great at generating weak ground balls with a 24.1 Soft% tied for 7th best in the majors.

Zack Greinke has a .217 BABIP and 89.6 LOB% when his career BABIP is a tough over .300. His 23.1 Soft% is by far a career high with a 7.4 HR/FB and 18.5 LD% well below career rates. Good for him, it seems he deserves some of this improvement. That said, his IFFB% is well below his career rate too and his BABIP is freakin’ .217! If you give his estimators a little more credit for a high SwStr rate and allow him to keep some of the returns from improved contact authority rates, you’re essentially looking at the same guy he’s been the last few years, which is still pretty awesome, but not last year’s Kershaw.

BABIP Chart (2015 LG AVG – .291 BABIP – 9.9 IFFB% – 86.9 Z-Contact%)

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).

Alex Wood doesn’t appear in the ERA chart notes because his 4.9 HR/FB washes out his BABIP with a league average LOB%. A lot about his profile doesn’t make sense when compared to last season. His Z-Contact% is up 5 points to well worse than league average, so that’s a marker against his BABIP, but his IFFB is more than twice last year’s mark and he’s already more than halfway to last year’s total with six. His 20.8 LD% is just 1.3 points higher than last year and still around league average. He’s actually increased his ground ball rate by close to 6 points, which may hurt his BABIP, especially when his hard hit rate is now over 30% after being just below it last year. Considering he’s only allowed two HRs, that must mean lots of hard ground balls, right? I guess hard on the ground is better than hard in the air, but authoritative contact is never really good for a pitcher. Never the less, look for some regression, though maybe not all the way back to the .295 mark he set last year.

Lance Lynn has hidden a high BABIP with a low HR/FB rate in his estimators, but his contact authority rates lean slightly towards the higher side with a 29.5 Hard% and 23.8 LD%. The Zone Contact% is strongly in his favor and he pitches a lot of games in a tough park to hit the ball out of, but with a .308 career BABIP and frequent hard contact, we might not expect regression to hit very hard in this area.

Marco Estrada generates a ton of fly balls and frequent pop ups as well as HRs. His Z-Contact% would lead the majors with enough innings. Adding in a 17.6 LD% and -4.3 Hard-Soft% gives him all the makings of a low BABIP, where we see a .275 career mark. With the right defense, which Toronto may be, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him generate something in the .250 area over the long term.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

How about this: use everyone outside of Colorado or Arizona today. Will that fly? No? We’re not going to talk about all of the usable pitchers here today because there are just so many, so we’ll mostly keep it to the most useable or maybe not so obvious ones.

Alex Wood – There really aren’t too many cheapies today and he hasn’t been able to repeat last year’s performance, but he keeps the ball on the ground and has been better at home. He has the day’s top park adjusted matchup against a terrible team vs LHP.

Andrew Cashner – It’s rare you’d consider a RHP in LA (NL) this year, but both the timing and the pitcher might be right tonight. He’s less expensive than other top options, but has increased his strikeouts and is catching the Dodgers at the right time. It’s not like we expect them to continue to get shut out, but we don’t expect them to keep up their pace against RHP at home either.

Carlos Carrasco – I’m staying on this bandwagon. Even when he’s not that great, the strikeouts continue to give him a solid base. He has a top five park adjusted matchup today and I’d think that more than few people will be scared off him today with all the other options to choose from, making him potentially a great contrarian option for GPPs. Nobody would blame you for wanting a little more stability in your double ups though.

Chris Archer may be in the midst of a breakout season and could represent one of the better values of the day against an Oakland team who may still be perceived as better than they are offensively. It’s true they don’t strike out much, but Archer should be able to generate at least a few on his own talent and it seems he’s gotten his command back under control and even though they’ve been good vs RHP the park should make the Oakland offense play down even more.

Collin McHugh – Maybe this is also more of a GPP play, but he’s reasonably priced and the overall SwStr% are to his benefit today. Both he and the Tigers have been very hit or miss this season, which means there’s a decent chance of it all coming together for him, just as there’s a chance it all falls apart. The range of outcomes in this one is one of the wider ones of the day.

Felix Hernandez is one of the top two price tags coming off his worst start of the year and is in one of the tougher spots tonight. He’ll probably be fine and I’d never try to talk anyone else off him, but will probably be looking at either cheaper options or the other top price with maybe more upside and a better matchup tonight.

Garrett Richards is maybe a borderline option tonight in Boston against an offense that has been much worse than some people realize this year, but the insane batted ball stuff we talked about today gives him a bump.

Gerrit Cole has been amazingly, consistently good this season and has one of the top park adjusted matchups of the day. He’s another top choice.

Jon Lester – When I said to maybe avoid pitchers in Colorado and Arizona, he was the one of the four I wasn’t talking about, although I’m probably looking at other options tonight personally with so many.

Marco Estrada would likely be my dumpster diving special today should you choose to use one in your GPPs. The HRs scare the crap out of you, but even then, he’s generating enough upside in his K rate to give you value and the Mariners haven’t been at the top of their offensive game recently. His -4.3 Hard-Soft% starkly contrasts Seattle’s 16.0% rate.

Max Scherzer may not be the top value tonight, but stands a good chance of putting up the top point total. In case I wasn’t clear, he is the other top priced option I was talking about in Felix’s paragraph.

Michael Pineda may have done us a favor by busting out in Kansas City. It keeps his price tag more reasonable following the 16 K performance two weeks ago. He’s excelled in Yankee Stadium by not walking anyone and doubling his GB/FB this year along with the increase in strikeouts that his 11.4 SwStr% last season may have foretold was coming. I expect continued good things from him and don’t fear the Texas offense, even in this band box.

Noah Syndergaard has all the upside in the world and a solid matchup in a great park. The price is still reasonable too, but there is risk here as the young pitcher learns the league and has yet to show the dominance he has in the minors this year.

Phil Hughes – What he has going for him today is a reasonable price tag and impeccable control against a team that has failed to utilize a favorable home park to their offensive advantage. What he has going against him today is a scary HR tendency in a park that plays small.

Rick Porcello is an average pitcher at an average price in a very good spot.

Ubaldo Jimenez is a slightly overrated pitcher at an average price, but in a great spot. If he’s not walking the ballpark, like he’s not this year, and generating weak contact, which he is this year, he has a decent chance of holding it together here and generating some value even if you shouldn’t count on the strikeouts.

Zack Greinke at home against the coldest offense in baseball at only the 3rd highest price tag of the day probably equates to a decent chunk of excess value.

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