Advanced Stats Pitching Charts - Mon 9/15
After yesterday, a Sunday, which I’m guessing most players are glad is over and happy to jump back into baseball. I promise you that no HR’s will be called back by phantom time outs and while some players may go down to injury, you probably won’t lose your entire lineup in the first inning. There’s just 2 weeks left to the season so let’s get to it.
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 Colome – is happening today because the Rays want to lessen the load on some of their young arms. You’ll likely be seeing this sort of stuff a lot over the last couple of weeks as teams will either shut down guys or go to 6 man rotations. He’s a top prospect in the TB system, but has been often injured and was underwhelming in AAA this season with league average numbers at best. He’s compiled 9.2 MLB innings this year in 2 different appearances, walking 7 and striking out 3.
Alfredo Simon – the curtain has nearly fallen on his act. He’s been more tolerable than All Star since the break, but can still toss a useful one in there in the right spot, as long as you don’t expect too much. The Cubs, a team tied for the 3rd worst offense at home and 2nd worst vs RHP plus 5th coldest over the last week, might be such a situation. Look at their K rates in the chart below….astronomical. They have a pop up rate (13.3%) almost as high as they’re LD rate (14.7%) over the last week. (Remember IFFB is a % of just fly balls, not overall batted balls like LD’s though.)
Andrew Cashner – has had strong results without impressive process recently, but has generally been good at home and now gets a bottom offense and 2nd worst of the last week in Petco. Neither side takes many walks, but his 5% rate at home since the start of last season is telling because he’ll keep the ball in the park (5.7 HR/FB at home over the same time span) and limit the LD’s.
Anthony Swarzak – is not a starting pitcher. They’ve tried this experiment numerous times in the past with failure. Running up against the Tigers is not going to help matters any.
Chris Capuano – lasted just 7 batters in his last start, but at least he didn’t allow a HR. He had allowed 6 in previous 3 starts and has a 60 HR/FB over the last 14 days (just 27 batters faced). The Rays are an above average offense at home, but with only a 6.9 HR/FB. One side has to give.
Christian Bergman – he hasn’t walked a batter in his last 2 starts and therefore owns the greenest BB% today, but this otherwise has the potential for a severe beating, facing the hottest offense in baseball in the worst park. The 7.0 HR/FB at home is a surprise, as he allowed 3 in a single start and none in his other 3 in Colorado.
Collin McHugh – looks to put the finishing touches on a breakout season that has now seen him allowed 2 ER or less in 8 straight starts. It’s a little tougher today as Cleveland is tied for 3rd toughest offense vs RHP.
Ervin Santana – is not making a strong push for his next contract down the stretch run. He’s allowed 9 ER’s over his last 11 IP with 5 BB’s and 9 K’s. The most recent of those beatings came against these Nats.
Hisashi Iwakuma – has now allowed at least 3 ER’s in 4 consecutive starts, but has had a 2.67 GB/FB over that span. The underlying skills remain strong, but maybe over-stated (we’ll explore below). Today he gets a red hot LAA offense (2nd best over L7 days) that is 5th best at home and vs RHP. They do have the 2nd highest IFFB% (12.1) at home this year.
Jacob deGrom – has a couple of starts left to try and “steal” the Rookie of the Year from Billy Hamilton (pun intended). He hasn’t allowed an ER in 3 straight starts, one vs Miami, and now faces them without Stanton. This may be your best bet for K’s today with a 24.4% rate at home combined with the Marlins 25.1% rate on the road and 23.7% against RHP.
James Shields – has been on fire (15.1 IP – 0 ER – 1 BB – 14 K) and now gets a high K, low walk team at home. His last 2 starts have been great from a batted ball standpoint as well (22 GB – 11 FB – 3 LD).
Jarred Cosart – excels at keeping the ball in the park, which is also a weakness of the NYM offense. He’s allowed just 3 in his last 21 starts and even struck out 13 over his last 2 starts (13.2 IP – 53 BF).
Jerome Williams – hasn’t been terrible for the Phils, even with his last 2 starts, as he struck out 8 Pirates around 2 HR’s last time. Tonight, he gets the tied for 2nd worst offense vs RHP. This may be the first and only time you might actually consider rostering him.
John Danks – gets the 2nd worst home offense in baseball. His last 2 starts, and really his season, have been kind of rough and he generally won’t offer enough K’s against a low K team to really be in play. It’s really a fantasy matchup made in hell if you look at the chart directly below.
Marcus Stroman – really try to grasp this: last 3 starts = 47 GB’s and 6 FB’s! Oh, plus 18 K’s and 3 BB’s. Can he continue this output against a tough Baltimore offense?
Matt Shoemaker – has his first hiccup in a while 2 starts back and followed it up with a strong start, but only 2 K’s. He has been very good at home and has a nice matchup today against one of the coldest offenses in the league.
Max Scherzer – is always a top option for K’s with a 29.3 K% on the road over the last 2 years, but the Twins take walks and he has doled out 7 of them over his last 2 starts with just 12 K’s.
Roberto Hernandez – uncharacteristically went 11 starts with just 1 HR allowed, but has now allowed 5 HR’s over his last 2 and now goes to Colorado to face an offense with a 16.2 HR/FB at home while 71.4% of his have left the yard in those 2 starts.
Ryan Vogelsong – faces another offense tied for 2nd worst vs RHP, but can be a tough start in hitter’s parks. He doesn’t offer enough K potential and has some unsightly line drive rates in the batted ball chart. He did shut out these D’Backs at home through 6.2 IP on 2 hits in his last start, but walked 5 with just 3 K’s.
Stephen Strasburg – has been mixing in some strong road starts recently and hasn’t walked a batter in 3 outings. He has a history against this Atlanta club and some of it not good, but has struck out at least 8 in each of his last 3 starts against them. They are tied for the 5th worst offense vs RHP. Every K% in his line below is about 21.5%.
Travis Wood – has a great matchup vs against the 4 worst road offense and 3rd worst vs LHP, but has had an absolutely dreadful season.
Wade Miley – has been walking WAY too many batters lately (16 over his last 4 starts) and faces the 4th best offense vs LHP.
Wei-Yin Chen – the Blue Jays aren’t nearly as potent vs LHP, which is surprising given their lineup, and Chen boasts the top defense and IFFB rate. Much of the latter is due to the Blue Jays with IFFB marks of 12.8% at home, 16.5% vs LHP, and 21.6% over the last week.
Zach McAllister – has had 2 unsuccessful bullpen outings since being recalled (4 ER – 5.1 IP), but struck out 5 of 26 batters. Houston has some pop, but only a 1.9 HR/FB over the last week and keeping the ball in the park is one of his few strong points.
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.
Hisashi Iwakuma – although he’s had his issues in recent starts, I don’t want to add to it here, but it’s hard to accept a nearly 5 point and 25% spike in K% without a budge in SwStr%. He did run up a 13.9 SwStr% in his last start though and has been over 9% in 3 of 5 over the last month.
John Danks – has a total of 15 K’s over his last 5 starts, but just had a string of 3 straight starts with a 9+ SwStr% by putting up just a 3.7% in his last start. He does run a career 1.92 K/SwStr% though (17.3/9), which is a little low on the scale, so I don’t know if we should expect much better overall.
Ryan Vogelsong – there’s not much to say, but that he has been trending downward with his SwStr% fairly consistently over the last month without much of a hurt to his K%. He has only struck out 15.1% of batters over his last 2 starts.
Travis Wood – it is a little validating to see that he’s the only outlier on today’s board and barely out of normal range too. I’ll only note that his K% is almost exactly at his career rate this year, but the SwStr% is a career low, just barely and that he’s struck out just 3 of his last 36 batters.
ERA Estimators Chart
How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.
Andrew Cashner – has turned into more of a contact pitcher and that’s fine with his heavy sinker where he posts acceptable BABIP and LOB rates. Where the estimators have a problem is his 4.4 HR/FB, which may be a little unsustainable even in Petco.
Chris Capuano – just keeps giving up bombs and the BABIP is up to .329 as well. He’s allowed 6 HR in his last 17 IP, a 33.3 HR/FB with a seasonal rate that stands at 13%.
Hisashi Iwakuma – we’ve already mentioned the skepticism in the K% which affects the ERA estimators. Additionally, over the last month (26 IP – 111 BF), he’s allowed a .342 BABIP, 63.8 LOB%, and 18.8 HR/FB, even though all 3 of his HR’s allowed came in the same start. The low LOB% is particularly fascinating because his career rate is at 80.4%, higher than any other starting pitcher with 500+ IP in the history of baseball.
James Shields – is getting ready to make some money this offseason. While many have noted a drop in skills, with his lowest K% in 5 years, he’s compensated by not walking anyone. Over the last month both skills have improved very slightly, but the ERA looks a little better with a .260 BABIP and 85.4 LOB%.
Jarred Cosart – is good at keeping the ball in the park and is in a better park for it now, but his 2.9 HR/FB, helping him to an 83.8 LOB% over the last month, just is not sustainable.
Jerome Williams – his recent nice run has come to an end, but with a .400+ BABIP in his last 2 starts, his season mark now stands at .329, over 40 points above his career average.
John Danks – has had a weird month. His 3.3 HR/FB isn’t sustainable one way, but on the other end he has a .337 BABIP and 59.6 LOB%.
Marcus Stroman – his last 3 starts have been stellar, but he still has 2 ugly ones hanging around the back end of his last month driving the BABIP up to .349 and LOB% down to 61.8%.
Matt Shoemaker – I can still greatly appreciate the run he’s been on despite the .255 BABIP and 90.1 LOB% with a 4.7 HR/FB over the last month that says he’s going to come back to earth a little bit eventually (and in fact we saw that 2 starts back).
Wade Miley – this is just odd. He’s allowed a .361 BABIP over the last month with a 13.5 BB%, but only a 5.3 HR/FB, leading to a magical 83.7 LOB%.
Wei-Yin Chen – his excellent work over the last month has come with marginal peripherals, a .246 BABIP and 84.3 LOB%.
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 may be onto something (check batted ball profile too).
Chris Capuano – this is now the 3rd time in the last 4 years (since leaving the Brewers) that he’s put up a BABIP of at least .311.
Collin McHugh – has a strong IFFB% and elite Z-Contact%, but combines those with a 24.4 LD% and bad defense which make his .260 BABIP an unlikely result.
Jerome Williams – as mentioned earlier, this mark is over 40 points above his career rate and he’s been at .400+ in each of his last 2 starts. His indicators, including a 23.9 LD% and career low IFFB% though, lean towards a higher BABIP this year.
Roberto Hernandez – has a career rate much closer to his team’s allowed BABIP and even has a LD% (20.0) much higher than his career rate (16.9%) this year.
Stephen Strasburg – has done some great work bringing the BABIP nearly back in line after being around .350 at the All Star break. His last 3 months: .317, .239, .313 with a .287 BABIP in the 2nd half.
Zach McAllister – his career mark through just 350 innings is .313, but all in front of this atrocious defense, so there is some precedent, despite better than league average IFFB and LD rates. The question is whether we should accept it or expect better. Give him a better defense and I think he puts up league average or better marks.
Pitcher Notes & Summary
Andrew Cashner – is no longer a big strikeout pitcher, but is still effective and faces the Phillies in Petco at a reasonable price tag. He has 5 straight starts with 2 ER or less.
Hisashi Iwakuma – has somewhat of a reduced price, still near the top, but behind a few pitchers on most boards today due to facing the Angels and the fact that he’s allowed at least 3 ER in 4 straight starts. He’s a higher caliber of pitcher than they’ve faced lately and I’m less worried about his recent struggles do to a strong ground ball rate and uncharacteristically low LOB% during this span. The HR’s are really the only scary thing in his profile and his price tag may reflect some added value today.
Jacob deGrom – this is my homer pick of the day, but I believe deGrom is a strong candidate for top performer today. He hasn’t allowed an ER in 3 straight starts and pitched well against these Marlins with Stanton 2 starts back. He’s struck out at least 7 in 7 of his last 11 starts and has the highest K% of all of today’s starters over the last month (backed up by a 12.9 SwStr%) facing a high K team without their MVP candidate. He has value even at one of the higher price tags today.
James Shields – has been on fire and faces another high K team in a favorable park. He’s another pitcher you’ll have to pay for, but less than deGrom in most places.
Jerome Williams – because you have to consider almost anyone at a low price tag in Petco vs the Padres. I mean, he did strike out 8 in his last start, and hasn’t been terrible in most of his Philly starts.
Marcus Stroman – a lot of players probably want no part of him vs the O’s, but I think the price tag compensates for that, smack in the middle of most boards. The massive ground ball profile lately with a solid K rate makes it very hard to hurt him. After all, you can’t hit a ground ball out of the park and the O’s will likely have to elevate to be dangerous here.
Matt Shoemaker – recent hiccup non-withstanding, he’s been excellent all year and now faces a weak offense in a great home park where he’s pitched very well. He’s on the more expensive end of the spectrum today, but cheaper most of the higher priced pitchers mentioned here.
Max Scherzer – I have to mention him due to name value, but think he might be over-priced today, as the clear top man on the board, due to recent control issues and facing a potentially under-rated offense.
Stephen Strasburg – is another contender for top performance and although he’s had problems with the Braves in the past, he’s been pitching well both at home and the road recently and always gets his K’s vs them. The #2 price in most spots might scare people off, but the K potential against a bad offense vs RHP more than justifies it.
Zach McAllister – is a bottom of the board pitcher, who may only go about 5 innings and faces an offense with power, but it’s not a good offense vs RHP and he keeps the ball in the park. The most important part is the potential to rack up a few K’s with a very low price tag.
You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.