Advanced Stats Pitching Charts - Mon 9/1
We’ve got a lot to cover today and very little time on this Labor Day Monday full of afternoon games. It’s good to finally be back and running with a new laptop after a hard drive crash forced an involuntary vacation for the last 2 weeks. There are worse things in life I guess, but a lot has happened in that time as DFS has crowned another millionaire (congratulations CSU!) and prepares for the onset of the NFL season this week. There’s still a month of baseball left to play though, so away we go.
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.
Chris Young – remember that he usually performs better than his estimators. As we expect, he has some of the worst K & BB rates and the best batted ball rates in the chart. He faces the top home hitting team and their ability to put the bat on the ball matches his lack of ability to miss bats with an 11.7 road K% since the start of last season. Oakland should only enhance his pop up ability though, along with helping him keep the ball in the yard.
Colby Lewis – may not be as bad as his ERA this season and is at least out of that banbox in Texas today, facing the 2nd worst home offense, but is unlikely to miss enough bats to generate much daily fantasy interest against the Royals. There’s not a single K% above 19% in his line below.
Cole Hamels – faces the 4th best offense vs LHP and has some ugly batted ball rates today. He’s allowed a HR in each of his last 3 starts and the Braves have the 5th best HR/FB vs LHP.
Corey Kluber- has the day’s top expected K-rate (tie), which he often needs with that defense behind him. This is mostly his own doing, as the Tigers strike out less than league average vs RHP. He’s been great for the better part of 2 years now and is certainly a Cy Young candidate this year.
David Price – I’m willing to throw the last start out the window at this point and though Cleveland is a tough offense at home, it’s less true vs LHP. His K and BB rates are impeccable, though the Tribe may challenge the K portion of that a little with better than league average rates at home and vs LHP. They come in at just a 6.4 HR/FB vs LHP though. He has the day’s overall best ERA estimators in the main chart.
Drew Smyly – has been on fire since before the trade really and it’s only gotten better. A matchup against the 5th worst road offense suits him as they will likely lift his K-rate a bit. The day’s top IFFB% above is propped by a 35.3% in his last 2 starts.
Franklin Morales – faces the week’s hottest offense in the worst park in the world.
Gerrit Cole – seems to finally have his broken season on track, but the Cardinals might provide some some problems in their home park, though power is not one of their strong suits this season. Cole has not allowed a HR in his last 6 starts himself.
Henderson Alvarez – will not miss many bats, but usually gets the job done and has a solid matchup today at home. He has strangely struggled with the HR ball since returning from the DL, which we’ll talk about more below.
Jason Hammel – has been a strong matchup and his last few starts have looked better. More on his August luck metrics later.
Jimmy Nelson – has been solid for the Brewers. A shot against one of the worst home and vs RHP offenses in the league helps prop his K% to a tie for greenest of the day. The Cubs strike out a ton and even more with recent call ups.
*Julio Teheran *- the Phillies, usually a pushover, are suddenly hitting the ball and he has a total of just 8 K’s over his last 3 starts (18 IP).
Kevin Gausman – hasn’t walked a batter in 2 starts and could be interesting against the Twins, but I’d like to see him go a little deeper than the 5 innings or less he’s gone in 3 of his last 4 starts.
Lance Lynn – has a total of 8 K’s in his last 2 starts against 5 BB’s, though the results have been decent. The Pirates are have the 2nd best offense vs RHP in baseball.
Phil Hughes – continues to churn out excellent peripherals, but the matchup may be too dangerous today.
Roberto Hernandez – has the day’s reddest HR/FB by far despite the fact that he’s stopped allowing HR’s. Well discuss it more below, but low HR/FB rates have not been his history though and the Nats have been showing off their power recently, while having above average HR/FB rates on the road all season.
Tim Hudson – I know it’s Colorado and you’re probably not going to touch him because the upside is limited, but what….would you just look at…..what is that……-6???
Trevor Cahill – has returned a bit to his early season ways in recent starts (11 K’s – 10 BB’s last 3), propelling him to the day’s reddest BB%, but the Padres are such a favorable matchup, including the 2nd worst mark against RHP.
Tyson Ross – as usual, has a lot of dark green in his line. Arizona is one of the worst road offenses in the league and Petco will only push the situation further in the pitcher’s favor. A low August K% has already rebounded in his last 2 starts, though the D’Backs strike out at slightly less than league average rates.
Yordano Ventura – faces the worst offense vs RHP in baseball and we can look for him to keep the ball in the park, even if the Rangers strike out less than the average team.
Zack Wheeler – has combined raw talent with some positive results in the luck metrics (BABIP – LOB) over the last few months. His K-rate remains solid and the Marlins will only add to that with the worst mark in baseball vs RHP (23.9%).
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.
Combo Batted Ball Chart
Ditto for the Combo Batted Ball stats in the Main Chart above.
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.
Strangely, or maybe not so considering how far we are into the season, there is not a single season outlier in today’s chart, but several over the last month.
Cole Hamels – has maintained his SwStr% more or less and been consistently between 4 and 6 K’s in each of his last 5 starts with only 1 of the lower variety. Velocity has been stable, but interestingly, he’s had his lowest SwStr%’s (8.1, 8.3) in his last 2 starts. It’s not concerning though.
David Price – that one horrific last start (1.5 SwStr%) is going to stay with him for the rest of the season. Other than that, his previous 4 August starts ranged between 8.2% and 12%. His track record is long enough that I’m not worried about him either.
Franklin Morales – his month of August is certainly curious, especially when you consider he’s had a 9+ SwStr% each of the 3 seasons prior to this one with a K% of at least 18.8 in each. Also consider that the 3 seasons prior to this one consist of a total of just under 150 major league innings.
Gio Gonzalez – has been very inconsistent over the last month with a SwStr% at or below 6.5 in 3 of his 6 starts and 9.8 or better in the other 3. Then again, inconsistent from game to game is mostly what he’s been for the entire season. His SwStr% for the season is by far a career high and only his 2nd time in double digits.
Lance Lynn – this is a bit concerning as he’s had some of his lowest SwStr rates over his the last month and over his past 7 starts as a matter of fact, surpassing 5.7% only twice and double digits only once. He struck out only 3 of 28 Pirates in his last start.
Phil Hughes – I feel comfortable calling his last month a bit of a stretch, considering his SwStr% for the season almost exactly matches his career mark with a career 20.0 K%. In more baffling is that he’s faced some tough to K teams over the last month including KC twice and Oakland.
Tim Hudson – you know who he is, just a little older and little less than he used to be. You don’t expect him to strike batters out. Imagine what his month would have looked like without the 17.2 SwStr% and 8 punchouts of 28 Rockies in his last start.
Tyson Ross – like Hamels above, he has mostly maintained his SwStr% over the last month, giving us little to worry about. In fact, he hasn’t dipped below 8% in any starts and only been in single digits twice in his last 9 starts.
ERA Estimators Chart
How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.
Chris Young – Wookies and sabermetrics don’t match. He’s done what he’s doing before, but never to his extent. His last month at least matches up with his FIP, making it really about his HR rate. He’s long suppressed it, at 7.0% (HR/FB) this year and 7.7% career, but after allowing 18 HR’s in his first 18 starts, has allowed just 1 over his last 6.
Colby Lewis – not that he’s been good and has even allowed between 4 and 5 runs in each of his last 3 starts, but you allow 11 ER’s in one start in a shortened season and you wonder how much it sticks out for an entire year. That’s why you have to consider metrics that believe he’s just below average instead of horrendous. Consider that his BABIP (.357 this year) has been below .300 in 6 of his last 7 starts, yet still is sky high.
Cole Hamels – has maintained his ERA despite the drop in K% over the last month. If we’re not concerned about that, we’re not concerned about this gap either. You can note that his .320 August BABIP was his highest by far since April, but he was able to maintain an 80+ LOB% for the 3rd consecutive month.
David Price- he did have one other mediocre start in Toronto (4 ER – 6 IP) earlier in the month, but again, that last disaster is going to have to be mentioned for the rest of the season. It really does make a mess of things.
Drew Smyly – has been awesome in Tampa Bay and some of that can be credited to defense and adjustments, but some of it is also a .245 BABIP and 4.4 HR/FB over his last 6 starts.
Henderson Alvarez – allowed 8 HR’s over his first 22 starts. Then he missed a couple weeks and came back without a HR in his next start, but has allowed 4 in 2 starts since. It’s important to note that one of those starts was in Colorado and other against the Angels.
Jacob Turner – his season has been a mess shuffled between bullpen and rotation and even teams. None of it’s really good, although there’s a slight glimmer of hope in his FIP. His season BABIP is .364, but do you even care? You’re not using him today.
Jason Hammel – for those hoping for a rejuvenation here, over 4 August starts, he had a .231 BABIP and perfect 100 LOB%.
Lance Lynn- there’s the whole HR suppression thing that he’s done for 2 years now in a great park, matching his ERA to his FIP, which may or may not be sustainable at his current rate (4.8 HR/FB this year), but the 2.6 HR/FB in August and 82 LOB% is a little too optimistic.
Roberto Hernandez – you would expect going from Philly to LA would help a HR rate, but he has allowed only 1 over his last 11 starts after 10 in 13 to start the season. The BB’s and K’s still suck, but I’m almost curious if there’s a specific adjustment he’s made and would look into it with more time to spare.
Trevor Cahill – the estimators and ERA match for the last month, which matches his estimators for the year, which is nice to see sometimes. We’re still looking at a troubling BABIP for the season though along with a 62.5 LOB%.
Tyson Ross- it probably gets a little better if we expect his K% to rebound somewhat, but the .256 BABIP in August was his low month for the season, not by too much tough as he’s mostly maintained in the .270’s.
Yordano Ventura – the ERA matches the FIP for the last month, which, with just 1 HR allowed, is much less than his fairly normal 9.6 seasonal HR/FB rate. The August BABIP was .247.
Zack Wheeler – had a .318 BABIP in the 1st half, down to .254 in the 2nd half. It was .241 in August.
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).
Chris Young – this is his thing, it’s what he does. In fact, that defense has been so great at limiting hits and his pop up rate so elite, I’m not sure it has far to go to be legit.
Colby Lewis – the defense is criminal and we noted above that it’s been below .300 in 6 of his last 7 starts.
David Price – it just needs to be mentioned after his last start that his BABIP maxed at .273 in his first 4 Tiger starts, but now sits at .296 after his last one. So yeah, his BABIP, even with his last start, has actually decreased since the trade.
Drew Smyly – has had a .178 BABIP since the trade. He only had 1 month below .314 with the Tigers this year. His IFFB is 25% with the Rays.
Jimmy Nelson – allowing LD’s at only an 18.4% clip, I don’t really know why his BABIP is this high and would expect some positive (for him) regression.
Julio Teheran – now has a .275 BABIP in 400 career innings. His Zone Contact is pretty impressive, so maybe he can sustain something below .300, but this far away from his team’s allowed rate draws some skepticism.
Phil Hughes – stabilized his BABIP somewhat with a .298 August performance.
Roberto Hernandez – his BABIP has gone up to .282 since the trade. Both defenses that have played behind him have similar season marks allowed this year.
Trevor Cahill – his post AS break .326 BABIP in 8 starts is a bit better and closer to his team’s allowed mark, which is pretty bad. We’re probably going to have to live with it. Or rather he has to. You don’t because you don’t pitch for the D’Backs. Unless there is an Arizona pitcher reading this, in which case, I apologize….for a lot of things.
Pitcher Notes & Summary
Corey Kluber – has allowed 6 ER’s in his last 13.1 IP, including 6 BB’s, which ties for his worst 2 game total this season, but has struck out at least 8 in 7 of his last 8 starts and has to be considered even against a top offense at an elite price tag.
David Price – is at the top of the price ladder today despite his most recent disaster. I’d disregard that at his point and still consider him as potentially one of the day’s best performers against a nice matchup for a LHP.
Drew Smyly – has become David Price since the trade. He’s allowed just 3 ER’s over his last 4 starts total and has pitched at least 7 inning in each. Previously, he’d gone 7 innings just twice this year and never more than that. Add in the matchup against the road woes of the Boston offense and a price tag that still really doesn’t believe in him yet and you have a contender for the top value play of the day.
Gerrit Cole – has allowed 4 ER’s over his last 18 IP, spanning 3 starts. We know he has a ton of talent and it would be great if the Pirates had him back to form for the stretch run. He struck out 9 (2nd highest total of the season) in his last start against these Cardinals and hasn’t allowed more than 2 ER’s in 3 starts against them this year. It may not be the best matchup against them in St Louis, but you can expect him to keep the ball in the park.
Gio Gonzalez – while I’m not in love with him today, he should offer you some upside in the K department at a reasonable rate. If you look at his line in the K/BB chart (#2), all 6 markers are at least 20%.
Henderson Alvarez – doesn’t offer much upside in his K-rate and has allowed 4 of his 12 HR’s in his last 2 starts, but the Mets are a bad and cold offense. While you don’t expect a high ceiling, you should expect a high floor at a reasonable price.
Jason Hammel – has a really good price and matchup today. Although the August BABIP and ridiculous perfect strand rate won’t stick, at least his skills were sharp (6 K – 1 BB) in his last start at Houston.
Jimmy Nelson – the K upside alone vs the Cubs makes him worth a look at a reasonable price.
Kevin Gausman – hasn’t been mentioned much today, but is another low price tag with some upside. You have to remember that defense counts here and he has one of the best in the league behind him, which should help keep the damage down. I’d like to have confidence that he’ll go more than 5 innings though.
Trevor Cahill – it’s a bottom price tag vs the Padres in Petco. His K & BB rates are rough lately, but it’s a situation that has to merit some consideration if you want one of the top guys today.
Tyson Ross – has a great matchup at home at a lower price tag than the top 2 in that big matchup in Cleveland today. He’s actually 4th in price in most places in a spot where I think he has a realistic shot at the day’s top performance. He hasn’t allowed more than 2 ER’s in a home start since the beginning of June (7 starts).
Yordano Ventura – the K’s might not be what you’re hoping for as he hasn’t surpassed 6 in his last 3 starts and the Rangers, as mentioned earlier, don’t strike out a ton, but it’s a more than reasonable price tag facing the worst offense vs RHP.
You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.