Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Friday, October 2nd

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2015-10-03 23:37:59

Before we embark on the final article of the 2015 baseball season, I’d like to thank everyone who has read, commented, or followed me on Twitter for all the support this little project has received. A thank you for the kind words throughout and an appreciation for the understanding on the nights I stunk up the joint. I’d also like to thank Cam and the RG crew for giving me the opportunity and this platform every day as well as the Scott, Leo, and all of the hard-working editors, and also to Brian for formatting the stats into sortable columns this year. Give me a month away and I’ll already be pining to be back for the 2016 season. It’s been a pleasure to serve you all and hopefully you’ve benefited in some way from something you’ve found here.

Now we get to the rough part. The next paragraph, as always, tells you to pay attention to the things outside the scope of this article which should factor into your daily fantasy pitching decisions well after you read this. Today, those things are as important or even more so than anything you’ll read here today due to some crazy weather this week and also many teams shutting down some of their better players already. There’s no guarantee the pitchers listed today will go very deep in their games or even start by the time we get to tonight. I’ll give you the numbers and the relevant news that I have knowledge of along with a potential opinion if it seems to fit the situation and organizational tendencies, but I can’t possibly follow what’s on the mind of every organization in terms of pitcher usage at this point. Some guys are tuning up for post-season, some guys are giving up, and for some, it’s business as usual.

Don’t forget to watch for lineups, umpire assignments, line movement, and Kevin’s weather report as they are released later in the day, all of which may change the equation and help you decide between two pitchers of otherwise equal value in a pinch.

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.

Alex Wood was torpedoed for eight runs, striking out only a single batter in his last start. The caveat being that game was pitched in Colorado, not that a beating of that magnitude is ever acceptable. Aside from that and another beating in Arizona, he hadn’t allowed more than two runs in five other starts dating back to mid-August. He’s been very mediocre overall and even worse over the last month, but the Padres are not only a great matchup, but seem to be without their entire starting outfield (Kemp, Upton, and Myers). The Dodgers are still playing for home field in the first round so it should seem business as usual, but we don’t know how much Mattingly and Co. really want that and can’t be sure he’ll treat this as more than a post-season tune-up. My instinct says that if he pitches well, they’ll be careful if he gets in trouble after the fifth and look to get him out on a good note. Even with a full lineup, the Padres have a 23.2 K% vs LHP, are a terrible road team, and are one of tonight’s top park adjusted matchups.

Casey Kelly was smoked for six runs in five innings, striking out just one in his first start after a successful two-inning relief stint (three Ks) in Colorado in his season debut. We do know there’s some talent there as a former (late) 1st round draft pick in 2008 and the Dodgers have been putting some……interesting lineups out there recently. He’s likely to end up in the “No” pile, but let’s see what kind of lineup Mattingly employs before tossing this min-priced pitcher casually away. At normal strength they are a strong home team but adjust down to a favorable matchup due to a negative run environment.

Chris Heston has completed six innings in just one of 10 starts since the start of August. Whether that is due to performance or an innings cap is unknown by me. A slight bit of good news is a return to a double-digit K-BB% in September after a negative mark in August. A great bit of news is that he faces the Rockies in San Francisco tonight. Despite a decent offensive series in Arizona, another extreme offensive park, they are still easily the worst road offense in baseball (18.2 K-BB%) and travel to one of the toughest offensive environments in baseball, where they are a top matchup tonight after adjustment.

Chris Sale is finally someone we can put all of our faith in tonight. He must be going for some kind of personal goal. He’s already over 200 innings and has 267 strikeouts. Oh, if he strikes out 20 of 27 batters, he’ll overtake Kershaw by 0.1 points for the K% lead. He has to be going for that, right? So we’re safe until he gets to seven non-Ks. Damn, he’s facing the Tigers too? How many guys they got out? A full strength Detroit team is the 2nd best offense vs LHP (13.2 HR/FB) and tonight’s toughest park adjusted matchup.

Dallas Keuchel is pitching for both a playoff berth and a Cy Young. If there’s anybody you can trust to treat this as a meaningful baseball game today, it’s him and the Astros. His strikeout rate has climbed steadily throughout the season to nearly a quarter of the batters he faces and he has the 2nd highest GB rate in baseball (62.3%) among qualified starters. Of course, not only are they ground balls, but weak ground balls (-4.8 Hard-Soft%). He has generated the least amount of hard contact (20.6%) and 2nd most weak contact (25.4%) among qualified pitchers. There’s nothing better than a pitcher who generates tons of weak ground balls and has a high strikeout rate. He’s bounced back from a three HR outing in Texas to allow a total of two ERs over his next two starts, striking out 16 of 54 batters with a 71.4 GB%. The bad news is that he has to pitch in Arizona tonight. He faces a slightly below average offense that bumps up to above average in a very offensive environment.

Erasmo Ramirez has gone at least seven innings with fewer than three ERs in each of his last three starts, with 16 strikeouts (77 batters). In fact, he’s only allowed more than two ERs in two of 12 home starts this season. He has a very average 13.1 K-BB% in his first real full season. Toronto is the best offense on the road (14.2 HR/FB), vs RHP (15.2 HR/FB), and over the last week (17.8 HR/FB). The negative run environment will pull them down a little bit, but in no way makes them a favorable matchup.
Ervin Santana has gone six straights starts with at least seven innings and less than two runs. While his season stats (10.7 K-BB%) are not up to par and he’s outpitched his estimators over the last month, there is still vast improvement in the underlying numbers, with a significant rise in both his K% and SwStr%. The Royals have just a 16.4 K% vs RHP, but are below average on the road and have not hit much since clinching, although they’ve been mostly running the normal lineup out there over the last week.

Francisco Liriano has struck out at least nine in three of his last four after a long stretch where he failed to generate more than five strikeouts in a start. Although he’s not among the elite ground ballers, his 51.3 GB% is a top 15 mark and he’s generated the most soft contact in the majors (25.7%) and a great -1.7 Hard-Soft%. Control has been his issue if he has one as he’s struck out over a quarter of the batters he’s faced and has a 17.3 K-BB% with a 14.3 K-BB% at home since last season. Despite a park that greatly suppresses RH power, he has 15.7 HR/FB at home since last season as well. The Reds are a below average road offense and the worst in the majors over the last week (25.0 K-BB%, 3.6 HR/FB, -0.6 Hard-Soft%). Todd Frazier has missed some games this week with an injury and they are one of the top park adjusted matchups either way.

Gio Gonzalez has somehow found a way to generate both ground balls (58.6%) and strikeouts (29.7%), with better contact overall (3.8 Hard-Soft%) in September and it’s obviously greatly benefited his ERA and estimators. The Mets are still playing for home field in the first round and gave their core guys a day off on Thursday, so we should see most of their lineup in there today, however, some of their top RH bats have suffered injuries (Cespedes, Uribe, Flores) and are likely to be out tonight. With a 23.3 K%, but 13.6 HR/FB the park adjustment would make them more favorable, but this is one game I can already give a negative weather forecast for as it’s been ugly in the tri-state area all week and expected to be even uglier tonight. I’d be surprised if this game plays, but the conditions should be favorable for pitchers if it does.

Hisashi Iwakuma came off 19 strikeouts over his two previous outings to generate just one last time out, but both his overall and underlying numbers have greatly improved after a rough start and then sitting out most of the first half with an injury. His 16.8 K-BB% is right around his career mark, though a bit lower than last year and if he’s striking out batters at an average rate, you’re happy because he rarely walks anyone, which is important because he’s always had a HR problem, even it a great park (16.8 HR/FB at Safeco since last season). The park does give him some benefit, though, and it should against a weak hitting Oakland offense (5.7 Hard-Soft% vs RHP). It’s a great overall matchup after the negative park adjustment.

Jaime Garcia is another elite ground ball generator with a 62.2 GB% just below Keuchel, but with a still strong 5.8 Hard-Soft%, though not one of the true elite marks and not even close to best for the day. His K% for the season is a bit below average, but up over the last month. In his last two starts, he’s allowed just two ERs over 15 innings with 13 Ks. The Braves are almost Rockies bad vs LHP with a league average strikeout rate and 7.6 HR/FB at home. They have a 4.8 Hard-Soft% overall and are a great park adjusted matchup.

Jake Arrieta has had a truly amazing season and gives me hope for Kevin Gausman once traded out of Baltimore. He absolutely deserves his runner-up status to Kershaw in the Cy Young vote (see what I did there?). He actually snapped a streak of five straight starts with eight innings and one ER or less when he went just seven innings in his last start, with one hit and nine strikeouts, which makes me think it was more a pitch count thing. The only concerning thing is that this may just be a tune up for him as the Cubs can’t really improve their situation much without a sweep and some Pittsburgh losses. His 21.3 K-BB% is 9th best in the majors among qualifiers with a similar mark on the road since last season and he has a perfectly even 0.0 Hard-Soft% this year. Milwaukee is a downgrade in park, but Milwaukee is a below average offense that remains a slightly favorable one even after adjustment and probably even better than that with the lineup they’ve been recently running out there. They have struck out 30.1% of the time over the last week.

Josh Tomlin has an incredible 20.4 K-BB%, but finally has gotten his run prevention issues in order, though he still has an enormous 15.0 HR/FB and terrible 19.2 Hard-Soft%, so what gives? We’ll get into it later, but the strikeout rate (and even better control) is what drives his price up and still makes him a considerable option. Boston has just a 17.6 K% vs RHP, but is a poor road offense in a tough park, where they are a favorable matchup.

Martin Perez does not generate a lot of strikeouts, but is something in the poor man’s Brett Anderson mold with a 60.6 GB% and 4.9 Hard-Soft%. That can be useful at the lowest price ranges in which we often find him at because it’s less likely that teams can go off on them when they don’t hit the ball hard and can’t elevate. He has just a 6.7 K-BB% and the problem is that there’s a very limited ceiling there as well. The Angels have been a below average offense on the road and vs LHP, but are one of the hottest offenses in baseball and adjust to an unfavorable matchup here.

Noah Syndergaard dominated the Reds in his last outing, striking out 11 and the Mets announced that he is still about seven or eight innings below his 180 regular season cap, but there are still a couple of other things to be considered. One is the weather and even if this game is played, you wonder if they might be careful with their young star in such an inclement atmosphere. The second is that even while they’re still playing for home field in the first round, they don’t seem too concerned about it and may treat this as a tune up. If not, he takes a 21.8 K-BB% (23.0% at home) and 4.1 Hard-Soft% into a great park adjusted spot against an offense that seems more interested in choking each other than generating offense.

Wei-Yin Chen is generally not a pitcher we would consider at home in a tough matchup against the Yankees due to fly ball tendency and 12.7 HR/FB. He does have a respectable 14.6 K-BB% though and then there’s this quote from backup catcher JR Murphy after the Yankees clinched a postseason berth last night: “This team is on the same page and that page is drinking.” Check the Yankees lineup tonight.

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

Luis Severino (.275 BABIP – 86.6 LOB% – 14.6 HR/FB) – The HR rate might actually be on par for Yankee Stadium, but the strand rate, unfortunately, is not.

Henry Owens (.265 BABIP – 72.1 LOB% – 8.2 HR/FB) – His SwStr% has been very impressive and forecasts more strikeouts in the future and he does have some indicators that the BABIP suppression might be for real, though the sample is too small to accept so far and he faces a very disciplined team tonight while occasionally having control issues. He’s one to watch closely next season, though.

Chris Young (.209 BABIP – 80.5 LOB% – 7.9 HR/FB) – He’s a career outlier with a .247 lifetime BABIP and over a run difference between his ERA and xFIP, but he’s never had a .209 BABIP before and has an ERA two runs below his xFIP this year.

NO THANK YOU (In order from least to most offensive)

Julio Teheran is really going to be my cut-off today. He’s pitched well at home, but is only in a mediocre at best spot today and his ERA is not indicative of how he’s mostly pitched over the last month, in which he hasn’t allowed more than two ERs in five starts. He’s walked four three times in that span and failed to strike out more than four in four of his last six starts. He’s faced the Phillies twice and Miami over his last four starts. There are some sites (DraftKings) where I don’t exactly hate his price, but still probably wouldn’t use him unless I filled out my entire lineup and could only fit him.

Ariel Pena has pitched exactly five innings in each of his four starts with a 9.3 K-BB% and I’d expect him to end up in the bullpen next year. The fact that he’s allowed just one HR has kept his ERA below four, though he’s allowed a ton of hard contact (26.1 Hard-Soft%).

Aaron Brooks – A lot of his issues have come from allowing HRs in hitter’s parks on the road, but he allowed a HR in almost every road park he pitched in. Half of his eight starts have actually been decent, but the other half have been a disaster.

Rubby de la Rosa – While the top of the Houston order and most of their best hitters lean RH, they do have some LH power and the Rubby man at home or vs LHBs is just not a solution to any of your problems. I look at his SwStr% and dream of better things next season if he ever figures out a way to deal with his LH HR problem.

Mark Buerhle does not miss enough bats to be useful.

Alfredo Simon – Good for Cincinnati in realizing that he probably wasn’t going to sustain a .265 BABIP or 77.5 LOB% and that a K-BB under 10% (6.2% this year) was going to get him in trouble. The Tigers, well, they picked up some nice young pitching talent at the trade deadline.

Aaron Harang has an ERA that exactly matches his SIERA. That’s not good news.

Jered Weaver has at least seen his K% rise to meet his SwStr%, so we can see what his ERA would look like with that in line. Oh, not much better, considering he’s stranded 80% of his runners in September. Texas is a tough spot for him.

Kyle Kendrick isn’t at the very bottom of this list pitching in San Francisco, but is still nowhere near usable.

Justin Nicolino – Maybe he should be striking out 10% of his batters instead of 7.7%. So what?

Keyvius Sampson is what happens to a rotation when it trades away all of its pitching.

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 – 20.2 K% – 9.8 SwStr% – 2.06 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.

It seems that most of this year’s outliers are underperformers and it also seems they are all pitching today. There’s probably only one worth even considering tonight.

Erasmo Ramirez has a top 20 SwStr%, but a below average K%. He would be perhaps the most interesting and frustrating outlier. However, look at the last month. The SwStr% is almost the same, yet he’s struck out a quarter of the batters he’s faced. Maybe this is more of what we can expect next season.

ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 3.85 ERA – 3.78 SIERA – 3.85 xFIP – 3.85 FIP)

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

Chris Sale is going to stick his .326 BABIP up his defense’s butts! He generates a lot of weak contact and the 2nd best Z-Contact% in baseball. There’s no reason his BABIP should be this high. It’s not often I say this, but his 72.2 LOB% is too low. His previous career low is 77% and someone striking out nearly a third of the batters he faces should be able to strand an elite amount of runners. His 12.2 HR/FB? Well, he plays in a tough park and has always had that issue (11.0 HR/FB career).

Dallas Keuchel had two different starts where he allowed three HRs in September, 37.5% of his total for the season, which drove his ERA and FIP up for the month of course.

Ervin Santana has a 16.4 K-BB% over the last month that doubles his previous rate for the season, but has also stranded 85.1% of his runners. A 3.3 HR/FB for a guy who’s had HR issues for much of his career, while pitching in friendly ballparks is difficult to buy into, although his season rate (10.4 HR/FB) is more normal.

Jaime Garcia – The .263 BABIP is a bit low as he doesn’t have the underlying stats to support it and a .300 career rate. He does have a 16.6 LD%, but that’s never been a very stable or reliable stat, though he does have an 18.2 LD%, but, as mentioned, a high career BABIP. Lastly, while he pitches in a great park for suppressing power, his 6.5 HR/FB is a bit too low and not in line with his 9.5 career HR/FB.

Josh Tomlin – If he’s getting hit harder than ever and allowing a 15% of his 48.2% fly ball rate to leave the yard, how the hell does he have such a low ERA? How about a .195 BABIP helping him to strand a ridiculous 90.2% of his runners? An above average K% and elite BB% is something to build on, but something must be done about the hard contact because he can’t sustain that BABIP and LOB%.

BABIP Chart (2015 LG AVG – .295 BABIP – 9.4 IFFB% – 86.9 Z-Contact%)

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 may be onto something (check batted ball profile too).

Gio Gonzalez – All season long, I’ve berated his defense’s ability to turn his ground balls into outs. That would seem even truer now that he’s generating weaker contact as well over the last month. His BABIP is down closer to his team’s mark over the last month (.319), but this is a pitcher who would have greatly benefited from a strong infield defense.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Here we rank pitchers by value tiers with their overall rank in parenthesis next to the name for the top five to ten. These are not hard and rigid rankings. Everything is fluid and can change depending on ever-evolving situations throughout the day. This is the more opinionated part. If there are questions, it’ll help show you where my imaginary boundaries are drawn.

Here goes a lot of guessing about how teams are going to utilize their rosters tonight. These rankings are much more arbitrary than usual and depend on a number of factors we don’t yet know today, some of which may not even be known before the game starts. In other cases, you may even already have usage knowledge that I do not.

Value Tier One

Noah Syndergaard (2) – The weather is the biggest issue here because in a perfect situation, even in a tune up start, I think we get six to seven quality innings out of him at a high, but reasonable cost. Weather concerns make me more cautious, but I still can’t figure out who belongs up here in his place.

Value Tier Two

Alex Wood (8) – This is less an endorsement of his current performance or skills as it is an indictment of a looted Padres lineup that is a favorable matchup even at full strength. If Kemp, Upton, and Myers are out, how could you not pay an average price for an average pitcher?

Value Tier Three

Jake Arrieta (1) is clearly tonight’s top mound option and even in a shortened start should shine enough to give you a solid score against the Brewers, even in Milwaukee. The issue is that he has a very high price tag and may only go five or six innings, but is still gunning for a Cy Young, so maybe they’ll let him go 100 pitches?

Francisco Liriano (3t) is getting hot at the right time for the Pirates and is in a very favorable spot tonight, but they too have little left to play for this weekend and I can’t tell you what their plan for him is tonight.

Hisashi Iwakuma (3t) – His team has been out of it for a while, so I’d expect business as usual here because that’s how it’s been for a while, but who knows? It’s a good matchup. The A’s don’t strike out a ton, but don’t have a lot of power either and that may be more important for him.

Jaime Garcia (7) – Again, the worry is that the Cardinals will just use this as a tuneup start and he’s gone after five innings or so, but he’s peaked over his last two starts and faces a terrible offense vs LHP, so maybe even just five or six innings can return value for you here.

Value Tier Four

Dallas Keuchel (3t) – This is the pitcher I most trust to be used a normally or even pushed the hardest because the Astros still need to win this game. A very difficult run environment at a high price is the biggest reason for caution, especially as he’s had a couple of HR blow up games recently.

Ervin Santana – The Twins are still playing for a post-season spot too so he may be ridden hard too, but is also more likely than a guy like Keuchel to find himself in trouble early and get pulled. If he’s on though, and he has been lately, he should go deep into this game at an average or better price against his former team, who haven’t done much at all offensively since clinching.

Chris Sale (6) could get a bump up depending on the lineup Detroit puts out there, but at full strength, they mash LHP and he’s allowed seven HRs over his last four starts.

Value Tier Four – These guys seem basically in line with their price tag. They are either usable and shouldn’t hurt you too much, but might not help you much either or have such a wide range of outcomes that you can’t see much benefit beyond the risk.

Gio Gonzalez should do well if this game is played and he lasts six innings or so with a couple of RH bats likely out for the Mets.

Wei-Yin Chen – The Yankees wouldn’t make Murphy drink alone. Check the lineup and any televised close ups of their eyes.

Martin Perez has very limited upside, but is a ground ball machine at an extremely low price (on DraftKings).

Josh Tomlin – Love the K-BB%, question the high price (especially on DraftKings), hate the enormous amount of hard contact.

Chris Heston faces the worst road offense in the best park.

Erasmo Ramirez faces the toughest offense in a good park and has been great at home this year with a strikeout rate finally in line with his SwStr% over the last month.

Casey Kelly – I don’t plan on using him, but he could be a Dumpster Diving Special, though not one our favorite ones this year, if they Dodgers put out a garbage lineup.

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