Advanced Stats Pitching Charts - Mon 9/22
As we embark on the end of journey together this week, there are a few things to keep in mind about the last few days of the baseball season. Some teams are still jockeying for playoff position and will be going all out. Others are just looking to play the string out and may already be on vacation mentally. Those who will continue on and are secure in their position may just be looking to set up their rotations for next week and keep everybody healthy. Figuring out how each team is handling their roster this week and potentially avoiding questionable situations could lead to a considerable advantage. I’ll try to help out where I can.
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.
Aaron Harang – struck out 17 of 55 Nationals in 14 innings over his last 2 starts. Tonight, he faces the 2nd best offense vs RHP with a 16.3 HR/FB over the last week and 12.3 on the road.
Adam Wainwright – appears to be pitching his best baseball headed towards the post-season. He’s struck out 15 over his last 17 innings and gone at least 8 innings with a total of 2 ER’s over his last 3 starts. He faces the team tied for 4th worst offense at home and 3rd worst vs RHP. The Cubs tend to strike out much more often than the average bears as well.
C.J. Wilson – the A’s have now dropped to 4th best home offense through this slump, but they will still take walks (11.3% over the last week) and this has been a problem for C.J. Wilson recently and historically. Wilson has walked at least 3 in 6 of his last 7 starts. The HR/FB above is more a product of recent work.
Carlos Carrasco – showed how you bounce back from a rough start with a 2 hit shutout (12 K’s) vs Houston. He’s struck out at least 7 in 5 of his last 6, but might be challenged vs a KC team that doesn’t strike out much.
Chris Bassitt – all the dark red should be pretty self-explanatory. The positives are 5 IFFB’s and no HR’s through 3 starts. That’s countered by a 25.9 LD% and almost as many BB’s as K’s. The Tigers are the 2nd best home offense and tied for 4th vs RHP.
Dan Haren – faces the suddenly cold Giants. He’s walked a total of 4 over his last 5 starts and they’ve taken free passes at a 4.7% pace over the last week.
Danny Duffy – throws his first competitive pitch in over 3 weeks against a patient team that does not strike out often. If all is right, he should be able to keep the ball in the park, but you might want to pass this time around and observe the state of his health.
Derek Holland – faces the 3rd best offense vs LHP with a 12.1 HR/FB against them in one of the tougher parks in baseball. He had his worst start of the year with 6.1 innings of 1 run ball and his first 3 BB’s of the season (5 K’s) last time out. Houston will still strike out a ton against LHP (23.6%) despite the success and have a 31.1% rate overall this last week. Holland’s own rates below are right around league average and I think they may even improve with the 11.6 SwStr% since his return.
Eric Stults – faces the hottest offense in baseball, but the 2nd worst road one. The numbers always look lopsided when the Rockies go from home to road or vice versa. Stults will neither walk nor strike out many and the Rockies will comply with most of that, though they do K at a 24.6% rate on the road. The HR/FB in the chart today is spiked by the Colorado rates vs LHP (15.4%) and over the last week (17.7%).
Francisco Liriano – after a month long reign of dominance, he was lucky to walk out of a dud last time out (5 BB – 2 K – 5.1 SwStr%) with just 1 ER allowed. Today, he faces an ice cold team in turmoil, though they’re above average vs LHP. He has some incredible K rates, which the Braves nearly match below, including a 23.3% rate vs LHP. The walks will occasionally be a problem for him and Atlanta can take a walk.
J.A. Happ – faces the 2nd worst offense vs LHP.
Jake Peavy – has stopped allowing runs, but will be challenged vs a scorching hot offense that hits RHP better than any team in baseball.
James Paxton – we’ll examine his K rate and ERA below, but he goes to a tough park to face a tough offense, though less tough vs LHP, tonight.
Jeff Samardzija – has gone at least 7 innings and struck out at least 9 in 4 of his last 5 and hasn’t allowed a run in his last 2 starts. He’s certainly not the reason the A’s have tanked. The Angels will strike out at about a league average pace, but are the best road offense and tied for 4th vs RHP.
Josh Collmenter- it might not look terrible, but his line is fairly red straight across with no green outside his team’s average defense.
Kyle Lobstein – has completed 5 innings in all of his 5 starts, but has only struck out more than 3 once (10 K performance vs Cle… go figure) and has just 5 total K’s in 3 home starts. The high LD% is spiked by recent performance over his last 2 starts (31.4%) and Chicago’s last week (30.7%).
Michael Pineda – has more red than expected today, going against the 4th best road offense in the game. Neither side seems to be interested in walks and the power comes mostly from the O’s side with a 12.7 HR/FB vs RHP and 18% mark over the last week.
Nicholas Tropeano – has been ok through 2 starts and has the worst home and RHP hitting offense in the majors, but in a bad park with the worst defense behind him. The Rangers have just a 7.3 HR/FB at home and he hasn’t allowed one yet with just a 10.7 LD%.
Ricky Nolasco – faces the 3rd worst road offense and tied for 4th worst vs RHP. His control has been impeccable and the D’Backs like to swing the bats.
Travis Wood – is a disaster. He’s allowed 5 HR’s over his last 12.1 IP.
Tyler Matzek – hasn’t allowed more than 2 ER’s in any of his last 5 starts and faces the worst offense vs LHP. Walks can be an issue with every mark in the chart directly below at or higher than league average.
Wei-Yin Chen – has a strong defense behind him and has only walked more than 2 on 3 occasions this season and never more than 3. That’s part of the guide to surviving as a fly ball pitcher in tough parks.
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.
C.J. Wilson – has had a K rate between 20-20.6% in 4 of the last 5 years. His K/SwStr has been around 2.5 aside from the first year (2010), which was at 2.98. So this is his range, which is not exactly in our comfort zone, but really borderline and not that far outside of it either. I’m more confident in a slightly below average K rate and one closer to what he’s posted over the last month though, but it’s not a big difference.
Dan Haren – has had a K% around 21% in years past, but he’s also had SwStr rates of at least 9% in each of those seasons. I don’t think he’s found anything new recently.
J.A. Happ – has had worse K%’s with better SwStr%’s throughout his young career so far, so there’s little reason to believe this season is anything but a fluke. The SwStr% is his lowest since his rookie year. He’s maxed out at 7.2% over his last 4 starts, with that K rate being just as fluky.
James Paxton – in his last 2 starts, he struck out 8 A’s and then 8 Angels with a 7.8 SwStr% each time. It was the first time he’d struck out more than 5 in 8 starts and the highest SwStr% he’s had in 5 starts. He’s still throwing gas, but the drop in missed bats is a little concerning and makes me not believe in the very recent spike yet.
Josh Collmenter – has had a very inconsistent SwStr% over the last month and for even longer, which makes it really difficult to decipher game to game. In his last 5 starts, he’s had 3 marks above 12% and 2 below 7.5%. He’s struck out exactly 3 in 2 of those 12+% outings, which needless to say, is an anomaly.
Michael Pineda – we’ve been tracking this for a while and in his last start, he struck out 5 of 25, which is about a league average rate (20%), but an 11.0 SwStr%. He has faced 5 straight teams (KC 2x, TB 2x, Tor) that strike out less than league average. Better things look to be in store for his K rate and it could start with a better matchup, for K’s at least, tonight.
Travis Wood – so this is pretty disgusting. He’s been so bad overall that you probably don’t even care, but things could be looking even worse. He hasn’t had a SwStr above 5.2% in any of his last 4 starts. Nobody’s swinging and missing right now.
ERA Estimators Chart
How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.
Aaron Harang – has been 2 different pitchers over the last month. He was the guy who allowed 13 ER’s over 14.2 IP in his first 3 starts with 13 K’s and 6 BB’s. Then he was the guy who struck out 17 Nationals, allowing just 2 ER’s over 14 innings with 2 BB’s over his last 2 outings. Altogether he’s seen a big spike in his K rate, but paired that with a .386 BABIP to get the results he has.
Danny Duffy – has done an excellent job generating pop ups which have helped keep his BABIP low and some HR suppression isn’t out of the ordinary in Kansas City. However, the depths to which he’s done both (.232 BABIP – 5.4 HR/FB) are a bit more out of the ordinary and probably are due for at least a small step back. As long as he continues to do these things and pitch in front of a strong defense, he may be able to stay ahead of his ERA, but probably closer to a half a run or so.
Derek Holland – is a different pitcher since returning and aside from the drop in velocity, most of it (the approach and pitch mix) seems to be good, or at least has led to great results. However, he’s not going to maintain an 88.9 LOB% and eventually he’s going to give up some HR’s in that park.
Francisco Liriano – has been missing more bats, as you’ve seen in the SwStr chart, but has paired that with a completely unsustainable BABIP (.231), LOB (95.1%), and HR/FB (5.3%).
Jake Peavy – the resurgence tour continues, but has now gotten a little absurd. We all knew a bigger park would be better for him and he’s made some real improvement since the trade, but has allowed just 3 ER’s over his last 34 innings without a HR and a .258 BABIP. With a good defense and pop up rate (as seen below), the BABIP might not be far off though.
James Paxton – the Mariners allow a team BABIP fairly close to his .254 BABIP, but he has none of the other indicators for it, so I’d expect some rise in it, but his 7.5 HR/FB could be ok in this park and the 77.2 LOB% is one of the higher marks in the league, but not out of acceptable range.
Josh Collmenter – the K rate could have been higher, but on the other end he’s been doing some really ridiculous things with a .200 BABIP and 85.9 LOB%. He’s also allowed just 1 HR over his last 5 starts. He pitched 2 of them in extreme pitcher’s park, but 3 of them also at home in Arizona.
Michael Pineda – maybe there’s something to guys who have high SwStr%’s, but not matching K%’s having it show up in their BABIP. Someone should look into that, but he’s not going to hold onto the .245 mark he’s allowed this year and the 6.0 HR/FB in Yankee Stadium may be a pipe dream too.
Ricky Nolasco- this is who he is mostly. Pay no attention to this man. The BABIP is probably high even for him though.
Tyler Matzek – has been stranding runners at an 88.1% clip over the last month. He also hasn’t allowed a HR in 4 starts, which won’t fly (pun intended) in Colorado for long.
Wei-Yin Chen – his 4.5 HR/FB over the last month is less than half his season and career rate and not even close to what we’d expect from a Baltimore pitcher.
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).
Carlos Carrasco – the part of his dominance that seems least sustainable is the low BABIP, especially in front of an atrocious defense with a low IFFB%.
Danny Duffy – the 6th best IFFB% among those with at least 120 innings pitched gives him some leeway, while the 18.2 LD% has helped this season, but those still don’t project his current BABIP.
Josh Collmenter – there’s nothing I can see in his profile that would reinforce a BABIP this far below his team’s allowed rate.
Kyle Lobstein – as his sample size grows, should see a regression in BABIP and then probably ERA as a result. That’s how these things work.
Michael Pineda – the IFFB and 18.7 LD% are favorable. He has positive indicators across the board, but not enough for a BABIP below .250.
Ricky Nolasco – the lone veteran on this list, we can finally look to a track record that backs up a high BABIP, where his team allows a ton of hits as well. This is a problem, but more likely a .320 – .330 one rather than a .350 one.
Pitcher Notes & Summary
Aaron Harang – if you’re looking to go contrarian tonight, nobody is going to touch Harang against this offense. However, he’s coming off 2 good starts and really a surprising year that everyone has been waiting for him to blow up throughout. The price tag is fairly enviable in most places.
Adam Wainwright – I still don’t like the price tag (highest on the board in most spots), but he has been inspiring more confidence with the increase in K’s over his last 2 starts. He’s going deep into games and has a great matchup for more K’s tonight.
Carlos Carrasco – has had one bad start against a beast of an offense and even that was just 4 runs, while he bounced right back with his best start of the season. His price is increasing, but he should be able to limit the damage and rack up enough K’s to give you value beyond it today. Even against the Royals.
Dan Haren – allowed more than 1 ER for the first time in 5 starts his last time out, but it was in Colorado and it wasn’t even his old friend BABIP that betrayed him. It was the fact that he failed to strand any of the 5 batters who reached (although 1 was a HR). He’s a middle of the board price, facing a cold offense in a good home park.
Francisco Liriano- is either your #3 or #4 on today’s board and yeah, he does have his blowups where he walks the park out of nowhere like last time out, but the Braves are a disaster right now and strike out a ton. He maintains a ridiculous 13.6 SwStr% that is 2nd in the league only to Godshaw. Nobody else is within .9 percentage points.
James Paxton – it may seem like I dumped on his success a bit today and he’s not cheap he has been pitching well and he does have the right conditions to sustain a good chunk of his success. He is entering a tougher environment tonight, but the Blue Jays have struggled with LHP (I have no idea why) and aren’t hitting well currently.
Jeff Samardzija – he’s facing possibly the top offense in baseball, but they’ve merely been average recently. Though he’s just behind Wainwright on most boards and with a much tougher matchup, I’d consider him a strong contender to come away with the top performance of the night. He’s been generating a lot of K’s and hasn’t allowed a run in either of his last 2 starts with just 2 BB’s and 16 K’s in 15 IP.
Ricky Nolasco – I’m not looking for him to live up to his estimators, but he’s the lowest price on the board, cheaper than Wood in most places and he’s allowed 1 ER over his last 15 IP with 10 K’s and just 1 BB vs 2 of the top offenses vs RHP in the majors (CLE, DET) over his last 2 starts. Oh, and now he’s facing a terrible offense at home. This is a shot I might be willing to take in GPP’s.
Tyler Matzek – hasn’t been bad IN Colorado, so of course I’m going to consider him against the worst hitting team against LHP in Petco. Walks might be an issue, but he’s gone 5 straight with 2 ER’s or less and 4 straight without a HR.
You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.