Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Monday, April 11th
The first week of the season is always tough to write due to the lack of information. In some ways, this week can be even more difficult. Now, we have numbers, but they don’t really mean anything yet and we have to prevent ourselves from becoming a slave to such small and unstable samples just because they’re the only numbers we see. We’ll still be using 2015 full season numbers for pitchers in most places even though most have started a game and we’ll have those numbers along with opposing team offensive stats this week (though some teams still have yet to play either at home or on the road). You’ll see them and they’ll be mentioned, but won’t be leaned on too much for another few weeks.
New season changes to the article were outlined on Opening Day, which you can find here so we won’t repeat those again. Park factors were supposed to be updated over the weekend, but Seamheads.com still seems to be behind, so we’ll give it a few more days before searching for another avenue.
Don’t forget to check 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 stats 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 used here.
Starting Pitching Main Chart
We’re using Seamheads.com three-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 2015 season. Opp team offensive stats are wRC+.
| Pitcher | Team | Team Def | SIERA L2Yrs | IP/GS L2Yrs | GB/FB L2Yrs | Park Run | Hm/Rd xFIP | SIERA L14 | Opp | Opp Hm/Rd | Opp L/R wRC+ | Opp L7 wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Finnegan | CIN | 3.23 | 5.4 | 2 | 1.05 | 4.07 | 1.67 | CHC | 93 | 96 | ||
| Bud Norris | ATL | 4 | 5.72 | 1.18 | 1.03 | 4.71 | 5.1 | WAS | 113 | 75 | 52 | |
| Chris Young | KAN | 5.24 | 5.56 | 0.4 | 1.01 | 5.18 | 6.08 | HOU | 117 | 163 | ||
| Colby Lewis | TEX | 4.35 | 6.05 | 0.76 | 0.85 | 4.61 | 5.49 | SEA | 55 | 154 | 84 | |
| Collin McHugh | HOU | 3.61 | 6.18 | 1.29 | 1.01 | 3.75 | 10.32 | KAN | 78 | 82 | ||
| Hisashi Iwakuma | SEA | 3.16 | 6.39 | 1.67 | 0.85 | 3.22 | 5.05 | TEX | 96 | 74 | 113 | |
| Jarred Cosart | MIA | 4.49 | 5.73 | 2.02 | 0.88 | 4.6 | NYM | 46 | 45 | 53 | ||
| Jon Lester | CHC | 3.17 | 6.62 | 1.38 | 1.05 | 3.14 | 3.73 | CIN | 150 | 35 | ||
| Max Scherzer | WAS | 2.81 | 6.78 | 0.82 | 1.03 | 3.25 | 3.74 | ATL | 74 | 89 | ||
| Nick Tropeano | LAA | 4.06 | 5.28 | 0.92 | 0.93 | 4.51 | OAK | 62 | 64 | 88 | ||
| Sonny Gray | OAK | 3.69 | 6.7 | 1.95 | 0.93 | 3.99 | 4.72 | ANA | 50 | 129 | ||
| Steven Matz | NYM | 3.63 | 5.87 | 1.35 | 0.88 | 4.28 | FLA | 101 | 35 | 80 |
Brandon Finnegan showed all the upside in his first start, striking out nine of 22 batters with only one walk and nine of his 12 batted balls on the ground without a line drive. Unfortunately, it gets a little tougher than the Phillies today. His velocity dropped as the season went on last year, but it was back up around 94 last week, close to where he started last season. He induced 13 SwStrs in 86 pitches with eight of those coming on fastballs according to Brooks Baseball. The Cubs struck out an astounding 26.2% of the time against LHP last season, over 2.5 percentage points more than the 2nd worst team, but haven’t shown such an extreme tendency through the first week. They haven’t done well in limited opportunities (62 PAs) vs LHP either.
Jon Lester only struck out four of 25 Angels, but otherwise tossed a gem in his initial outing. Ten of 21 batted were on the ground with only two balls classified as hard hit. The Reds have started off hot vs more inferior LHP, but that shouldn’t concern us today.
Max Scherzer pitched well against these same Braves last time out, but perhaps the biggest surprise is that Atlanta muscled up for two HRs. He otherwise struck out seven (16 swinging strikes), walked two, and allowed just one other batted ball safety. Of the seven fly balls that didn’t leave the yard, four were of the infield fly variety. The Braves have struck out in a quarter of their attempts vs RHP so far, while making hard contact with just a fifth of their batted balls.
Nicholas Tropeano is an interesting arm tonight. The stuff is modest at best, but he’s been able to generate some strikeouts in the minors along with an average rate in the majors in just under 60 innings. He’s a fly ball pitcher who has occasionally had HR problems in the minors that haven’t yet reared their face in the majors. Perhaps the spacious home park helps. The main reason he might be interesting though is a pedestrian Oakland lineup in an even more spacious park. When Danny Valencia is your cleanup hitter, opposing pitchers must be looked at more often than not.
Sonny Gray did what he normally does in his first start against the White Sox. He missed bats at an average pace (9 swings and misses) and generated a low BABIP. Having watches this start, one thing I can offer is that it was impressive to see him hit his spots at the bottom of the zone with such consistency, rarely leaving pitches in spots to get hit hard as this heat map can attest. He’s in a solid spot at home against an Angels offense that hasn’t hit the ball poorly vs RHP so far, but have yet to homer in 100 attempts against one (the only team in the majors that can still claim so).
Steven Matz is a talented young arm that would be all the rage of most teams, but is just another guy on this one. Mets fans have been somewhat spoiled with learning curves barely existing with most of their young pitchers (Wheeler was the only one who’s struggled to adapt to a noticeable degree). While the young lefty has find overall numbers so far, he’s been a bit hit or miss in any particular outing, though dealt with some injuries last year. The arsenal is there and if he continues to improve his control, he’ll take his seat with the rest of the big boys this year. The Marlins have only had 11 PAs against LHP so far, but don’t figure to be particularly strong aside from the super obvious name.
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 (.295 BABIP – 72.3 LOB% – 10.8 HR/FB)
Chris Young (.209 BABIP – 80.7 LOB% – 7.7 HR/FB) – I’m sure we all know by now that being a giant exempts you from some of the laws of common men and baseball, just like Gods (Kershaw, Syndergaard) and knuckleballers, but even he can’t hope to replicate last year’s numbers and you’re sure as hell not going to bet on it in a smaller park like Houston. One interesting thing I just noticed is that he did have a league average SwStr% last year, his highest rate since 2008, despite the low K%. It could be interesting to watch as he picked right up there against the Mets in his 2016 debut.
NO THANK YOU (In order from least to most offensive)
Bud Norris failed to surrender a HR to Bryce Harper in his first start of the season last week against these same Nationals. I know, you should have seen the look of shock on my face too. In fact, he didn’t allow much of anything, though I can’t see anything just from the numbers that would essentially favor him. He generated just five swings and misses. We’ll try again?
Colby Lewis should benefit from the thick air in Seattle holding up some of those well hit balls (19.7 Hard-Soft% last year, 15.1% career), but he already struggles to miss bats and was down well over a mph in his first start. And he’s not even that cheap tonight for some unknown reason.
Collin McHugh faces the Royals today and there’s generally not going to be much upside in rostering pitchers against such a contact prone offense. He was gone after just seven batters in his first start. There was some BABIP, but also a couple of hard hit balls and two walks. It’s beyond the scope of this article to examine the size and shape of his pitches (it’s already long enough), but 26 of the 43 pitches he threw to the Yankees were cutters that must not have been cutting. I’m sure somebody else will write that article and see if it’s an area of concern as he’s barely topping out at 90 mph with a fastball he threw less than 20% of the time last week.
Hisashi Iwakuma is probably no longer a $10K daily fantasy pitcher. Remember that there was some noise about his medicals when the Dodgers backed out of a contract offer, paving the way for his return to Seattle, who didn’t seem worried. Maybe they should have been. He missed just six bats against the same offense in Texas and more concerning averaged just 86.4 mph on his fastball (down 2.5 mph).
Jarred Cosart utilizes some version of a fastball, which will vary depending on site you look him up on, but whatever it is, he’ll throw it about 70% of the time and when it works, it will generate a lot of ground balls (2.08 career GB/FB) and a good amount of weak contact (4.5 Hard-Soft% career). Unfortunately, his K-BB% is still lower than his Hard-Soft%. At his worst, he’ll walk too many batters and take an early shower. He didn’t make it out of the sixth inning in nine of 13 starts last year and struck out four or less 10 times with a high of six against the Phillies. It’s what we’d call high risk, low upside, which is the worst kind of pitcher to roster.
K/BB Chart
Pitcher and Opponent K% & BB% for titled splits, similar to the Main Chart.
| Pitcher | Team | Split | K% | BB% | Split | K% | BB% | Split | K% | BB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Finnegan | Reds | L2 Years | 25.9% | 9.3% | Road | 20.9% | 8.5% | L14 Days | 40.9% | 4.6% |
| Bud Norris | Braves | L2 Years | 19.8% | 8.0% | Road | 18.1% | 10.1% | L14 Days | 14.3% | 7.1% |
| Chris Young | Royals | L2 Years | 16.0% | 8.8% | Road | 17.1% | 9.3% | L14 Days | 19.1% | 14.3% |
| Colby Lewis | Rangers | L2 Years | 16.9% | 5.7% | Road | 16.5% | 4.5% | L14 Days | 16.7% | 12.5% |
| Collin McHugh | Astros | L2 Years | 22.1% | 6.5% | Home | 20.8% | 5.8% | L14 Days | 0.0% | 28.6% |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | Mariners | L2 Years | 21.6% | 3.6% | Home | 21.3% | 2.8% | L14 Days | 20.8% | 12.5% |
| Jarred Cosart | Marlins | L2 Years | 15.3% | 10.0% | Road | 17.1% | 11.6% | L14 Days | ||
| Jon Lester | Cubs | L2 Years | 24.8% | 5.5% | Home | 24.5% | 6.3% | L14 Days | 16.0% | 0.0% |
| Max Scherzer | Nationals | L2 Years | 29.3% | 5.5% | Home | 28.5% | 4.1% | L14 Days | 28.0% | 8.0% |
| Nick Tropeano | Angels | L2 Years | 20.2% | 7.5% | Road | 22.2% | 11.1% | L14 Days | ||
| Sonny Gray | Athletics | L2 Years | 20.3% | 7.7% | Home | 17.5% | 6.7% | L14 Days | 18.5% | 14.8% |
| Steven Matz | Mets | L2 Years | 22.8% | 6.7% | Home | 18.2% | 7.3% | L14 Days |
K/BB Chart – Opponent
| Opponent | Split | K% | BB% | Split | K% | BB% | Split | K% | BB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cubs | Home | LH | 21.0% | 8.1% | L7Days | 26.9% | 10.0% | ||
| Nationals | Home | 20.0% | 17.5% | RH | 21.3% | 12.1% | L7Days | 30.3% | 5.9% |
| Astros | Home | RH | 27.5% | 7.5% | L7Days | 23.9% | 7.8% | ||
| Mariners | Home | 22.7% | 8.2% | RH | 19.0% | 9.5% | L7Days | 21.5% | 7.0% |
| Royals | Road | RH | 23.1% | 7.7% | L7Days | 17.4% | 8.9% | ||
| Rangers | Road | 20.7% | 7.3% | RH | 22.1% | 10.6% | L7Days | 17.3% | 10.9% |
| Mets | Home | 24.8% | 8.6% | RH | 25.9% | 10.2% | L7Days | 29.5% | 7.7% |
| Reds | Road | LH | 12.5% | 13.8% | L7Days | 27.2% | 5.5% | ||
| Braves | Road | RH | 25.0% | 14.3% | L7Days | 21.5% | 4.5% | ||
| Athletics | Home | 23.6% | 6.3% | RH | 24.5% | 6.7% | L7Days | 23.5% | 8.6% |
| Angels | Road | RH | 15.0% | 7.0% | L7Days | 16.2% | 9.4% | ||
| Marlins | Road | 18.4% | 7.9% | LH | 45.5% | 9.1% | L7Days | 20.9% | 6.2% |
Batted Ball Chart
Pitcher and Opponent Batted Ball stats.
| Pitcher | Team | Split | Hard% | HR/FB% | Hd-St% | Split | Hard% | HR/FB% | Hd-St% | Split | Hard% | HR/FB% | Hd-St% | Split | Hard% | HR/FB% | Hd-St% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Finnegan | Reds | L2 Years | 29.6% | 20.5% | 7.0% | 2016 | 30.8% | 20.5% | 10.0% | Road | 32.2% | 21.9% | 13.3% | L14 Days | 33.3% | 33.3% | 8.3% |
| Bud Norris | Braves | L2 Years | 33.2% | 12.5% | 17.7% | 2016 | 36.9% | 12.5% | 22.1% | Road | 35.7% | 14.6% | 17.8% | L14 Days | 31.8% | 0.0% | 18.2% |
| Chris Young | Royals | L2 Years | 31.5% | 8.4% | 13.6% | 2016 | 33.4% | 8.4% | 14.9% | Road | 32.1% | 8.0% | 13.1% | L14 Days | 42.9% | 11.1% | 21.5% |
| Colby Lewis | Rangers | L2 Years | 35.1% | 9.7% | 21.4% | 2016 | 33.3% | 9.7% | 19.7% | Road | 34.9% | 9.3% | 18.8% | L14 Days | 41.2% | 28.6% | 35.3% |
| Collin McHugh | Astros | L2 Years | 26.0% | 9.1% | 4.0% | 2016 | 25.1% | 9.1% | 3.4% | Home | 23.3% | 7.5% | -0.3% | L14 Days | 50.0% | 0.0% | 50.0% |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | Mariners | L2 Years | 27.2% | 13.8% | 8.9% | 2016 | 26.9% | 13.8% | 10.7% | Home | 27.2% | 16.4% | 9.8% | L14 Days | 40.0% | 0.0% | 13.3% |
| Jarred Cosart | Marlins | L2 Years | 26.8% | 9.0% | 5.9% | 2016 | 26.1% | 9.0% | 6.1% | Road | 28.9% | 28.1% | 7.7% | L14 Days | |||
| Jon Lester | Cubs | L2 Years | 27.8% | 8.3% | 6.1% | 2016 | 29.0% | 8.3% | 7.6% | Home | 28.9% | 11.3% | 8.3% | L14 Days | 19.1% | 0.0% | -9.5% |
| Max Scherzer | Nationals | L2 Years | 29.0% | 9.3% | 10.0% | 2016 | 28.1% | 9.3% | 7.2% | Home | 28.0% | 11.1% | 8.9% | L14 Days | 18.8% | 22.2% | -37.5% |
| Nick Tropeano | Angels | L2 Years | 24.3% | 2.7% | 9.9% | 2016 | 24.8% | 2.7% | 13.3% | Road | 20.0% | 7.7% | 10.0% | L14 Days | |||
| Sonny Gray | Athletics | L2 Years | 25.0% | 9.5% | 5.9% | 2016 | 25.1% | 9.5% | 6.8% | Home | 24.1% | 11.3% | 7.6% | L14 Days | 33.3% | 0.0% | 22.2% |
| Steven Matz | Mets | L2 Years | 21.2% | 11.8% | 3.9% | 2016 | 21.2% | 11.8% | 3.9% | Home | 22.0% | 12.5% | 0.0% | L14 Days |
Batted Ball Charts – Opponent
| Opponent | Split | Hard% | HR/FB% | Hd-St% | Split | Hard% | HR/FB% | Hd-St% | Split | Hard% | HR/FB% | Hd-St% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cubs | Home | LH | 20.9% | 11.8% | 13.9% | L7Days | 26.9% | 6.6% | 5.8% | |||
| Nationals | Home | 22.0% | 4.5% | 4.0% | RH | 25.5% | 7.9% | 7.4% | L7Days | 27.3% | 13.2% | 12.0% |
| Astros | Home | RH | 34.4% | 25.6% | 14.1% | L7Days | 33.9% | 22.4% | 16.0% | |||
| Mariners | Home | 27.4% | 9.5% | 11.0% | RH | 35.1% | 22.7% | 22.9% | L7Days | 24.2% | 10.8% | -1.3% |
| Royals | Road | RH | 24.2% | 7.1% | -2.1% | L7Days | 24.2% | 8.6% | 4.9% | |||
| Rangers | Road | 27.6% | 8.3% | 9.5% | RH | 25.0% | 5.5% | 0.8% | L7Days | 34.0% | 13.5% | 13.1% |
| Mets | Home | 20.3% | 2.9% | -7.2% | RH | 25.7% | 4.3% | -1.0% | L7Days | 24.4% | 10.9% | -8.7% |
| Reds | Road | LH | 27.6% | 31.3% | 12.1% | L7Days | 24.1% | 4.1% | 1.2% | |||
| Braves | Road | RH | 20.0% | 9.4% | -2.4% | L7Days | 27.1% | 15.8% | 5.6% | |||
| Athletics | Home | 27.3% | 3.6% | 7.1% | RH | 30.0% | 11.9% | 7.3% | L7Days | 26.1% | 10.3% | 5.6% |
| Angels | Road | RH | 32.1% | 0.0% | 9.0% | L7Days | 27.2% | 14.7% | 3.6% | |||
| Marlins | Road | 19.6% | 5.6% | -5.4% | LH | 20.0% | 0.0% | 20.0% | L7Days | 18.4% | 4.3% | -8.0% |
K/SwStr Chart (2015 LG AVG – 19.5 K% – 9.3 SwStr% – 2.1 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.
| Pitcher | Team | K% Season | SwStr% Season | K%/SwStr% | K% L30 Days | SwStr% L30 Days | K%/SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Finnegan | CIN | 22.8% | 9.7% | 2.35 | 40.9% | 15.1% | 2.71 |
| Bud Norris | ATL | 18.8% | 9.6% | 1.96 | 14.3% | 5.1% | 2.80 |
| Chris Young | KAN | 16.6% | 9.4% | 1.77 | 19.1% | 9.7% | 1.97 |
| Colby Lewis | TEX | 16.5% | 8.2% | 2.01 | 16.7% | 7.3% | 2.29 |
| Collin McHugh | HOU | 19.9% | 10.3% | 1.93 | 0.0% | 4.7% | 0.00 |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | SEA | 21.5% | 10.6% | 2.03 | 20.8% | 6.7% | 3.10 |
| Jarred Cosart | MIA | 15.9% | 7.4% | 2.15 | |||
| Jon Lester | CHC | 25.0% | 10.4% | 2.40 | 16.0% | 7.5% | 2.13 |
| Max Scherzer | WAS | 30.7% | 15.3% | 2.01 | 28.0% | 15.4% | 1.82 |
| Nick Tropeano | LAA | 23.6% | 11.5% | 2.05 | |||
| Sonny Gray | OAK | 20.3% | 9.7% | 2.09 | 18.5% | 9.3% | 1.99 |
| Steven Matz | NYM | 22.8% | 8.3% | 2.75 |
We’re still using 2015 numbers a bit long until just about every pitcher has made a couple of starts, but also using this year’s stats in the “L30 Days” column. As mentioned, we’re showing just starting pitcher league averages in the header information now, which drops K% and SwStr% just slightly from the overall average that includes relievers.
Steven Matz was perhaps a bit overstated in his K% in 35 innings last season, but it’s fairly borderline and with his talent, it’s more likely we see the SwStr% improve than the K% decrease.
ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 4.10 ERA – 4.07 SIERA – 4.00 xFIP – 4.03 FIP)
How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.
| Pitcher | Team | Season ERA | Season SIERA | DIFF | Season xFIP | DIFF | Season FIP | DIFF | ERA L30 | SIERA L30 | DIFF | xFIP L30 | DIFF | FIP L30 | DIFF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Finnegan | CIN | 3.56 | 3.77 | 0.21 | 3.77 | 0.21 | 4.8 | 1.24 | 3 | 1.67 | -1.33 | 1.69 | -1.31 | 3.02 | 0.02 |
| Bud Norris | ATL | 6.72 | 4.17 | -2.55 | 4.29 | -2.43 | 5.04 | -1.68 | 3.86 | 5.1 | 1.24 | 5.23 | 1.37 | 3.06 | -0.8 |
| Chris Young | KAN | 3.06 | 5.15 | 2.09 | 5.33 | 2.27 | 4.52 | 1.46 | 3.6 | 6.08 | 2.48 | 6.58 | 2.98 | 6.15 | 2.55 |
| Colby Lewis | TEX | 4.66 | 4.43 | -0.23 | 4.62 | -0.04 | 4.17 | -0.49 | 4.5 | 5.49 | 0.99 | 5.48 | 0.98 | 7.85 | 3.35 |
| Collin McHugh | HOU | 3.89 | 3.91 | 0.02 | 3.91 | 0.02 | 3.58 | -0.31 | 135 | 10.32 | -124.68 | 21.35 | -113.65 | 21.35 | -113.65 |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | SEA | 3.54 | 3.36 | -0.18 | 3.27 | -0.27 | 3.74 | 0.2 | 3.6 | 5.05 | 1.45 | 5.77 | 2.17 | 3.75 | 0.15 |
| Jarred Cosart | MIA | 4.52 | 4.71 | 0.19 | 4.46 | -0.06 | 5.12 | 0.6 | |||||||
| Jon Lester | CHC | 3.34 | 3.19 | -0.15 | 3.06 | -0.28 | 2.92 | -0.42 | 1.29 | 3.73 | 2.44 | 3.41 | 2.12 | 2.21 | 0.92 |
| Max Scherzer | WAS | 2.79 | 2.63 | -0.16 | 2.88 | 0.09 | 2.77 | -0.02 | 2.57 | 3.74 | 1.17 | 4.37 | 1.8 | 5.92 | 3.35 |
| Nicholas Tropeano | LAA | 3.82 | 3.58 | -0.24 | 3.64 | -0.18 | 2.6 | -1.22 | |||||||
| Sonny Gray | OAK | 2.73 | 3.8 | 1.07 | 3.69 | 0.96 | 3.45 | 0.72 | 1.29 | 4.72 | 3.43 | 4.12 | 2.83 | 3.64 | 2.35 |
| Steven Matz | NYM | 2.27 | 3.63 | 1.36 | 3.56 | 1.29 | 3.61 | 1.34 |
Brandon Finnegan allowed 37 fly balls last season and eight of them left the yard. That balanced out with an unsustainably low BABIP and high LOB% (83.7) to generate an ERA near his SIERA and xFIP, but a much higher FIP. He does generate a lot of ground balls, but slightly more hard contact than average last season and had no real indicators of BABIP suppression talent.
Sonny Gray – We’ve recalled plenty of times that his ability to generate weak contact in a great park has enable him to generate weak contact and keep his HR total reasonable. He’s established a low enough LD rate for three seasons now that there may be something to it, though last year was his lowest number. I still see his ERA climbing into the low threes with the same skill set, but there may be something to him at this point.
Steven Matz is not going to strand 91.4% of his runners going forward.
BABIP Chart (2015 LG AVG – .295 BABIP – 21.1 LD% – 9.5 IFFB% – 87.7 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).”
| Pitcher | Team | Team BABIP | Pitcher BABIP | Diff | Pitcher LD% | Pitcher IFFB% | Pitcher Zcontact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Finnegan | CIN | 0.276 | 0.238 | -0.038 | 0.165 | 8.1% | 85.9% |
| Bud Norris | ATL | 0.316 | 0.332 | 0.016 | 0.228 | 8.9% | 86.4% |
| Chris Young | KAN | 0.301 | 0.209 | -0.092 | 0.166 | 14.8% | 87.2% |
| Colby Lewis | TEX | 0.272 | 0.289 | 0.017 | 0.22 | 7.9% | 90.3% |
| Collin McHugh | HOU | 0.316 | 0.310 | -0.006 | 0.2 | 11.3% | 85.9% |
| Hisashi Iwakuma | SEA | 0.256 | 0.271 | 0.015 | 0.185 | 6.8% | 90.0% |
| Jarred Cosart | MIA | 0.343 | 0.259 | -0.084 | 0.175 | 3.5% | 92.7% |
| Jon Lester | CHC | 0.220 | 0.303 | 0.083 | 0.218 | 8.7% | 87.1% |
| Max Scherzer | WAS | 0.299 | 0.268 | -0.031 | 0.188 | 12.9% | 78.9% |
| Nicholas Tropeano | LAA | 0.289 | 0.342 | 0.053 | 0.211 | 6.8% | 82.4% |
| Sonny Gray | OAK | 0.243 | 0.255 | 0.012 | 0.166 | 8.2% | 88.4% |
| Steven Matz | NYM | 0.297 | 0.300 | 0.003 | 0.208 | 8.8% | 87.6% |
Don’t pay much attention to this year’s Team BABIP yet. The sample is way too small. Pitcher numbers are still from 2015.
The 10th best line drive rate among qualified starters last year was 18.4%. League average was 20.9%. Not all of these guys qualify of course, but I just point that out to state the very conspicuous above. Half of today’s pitchers had extremely low line drive rates last year. Being a descriptive stat (not a predictive one), that really doesn’t mean all that much, but it was interesting to see.
Nicholas Tropeano had a very small sample of 37.2 innings, but I can find no reason that his BABIP was so high. He didn’t even allow a lot of hard contact.
Pitcher Notes & Summary
We’re still just talking a bit more about the pitchers you might be considering today in relation to their price tags in no particular order until we get a bit more information about 2016. More opinionated tier rankings will likely come at some point a little further into the season.
Brandon Finnegan is a high risk, high upside arm I’ve got some interest in today because you have to look at someone on his end of the board and most other options aside from the top few make you queasy today. The difference between him and a guy like Cosart is that while the latter might give you a tolerable point total more often here, that’s the best you can hope for while still assuming a decent amount of risk. The young lefty will bottom out perhaps more frequently, but occasionally triple his price tag here. Make sure to keep an eye on Kevin’s forecast here. So far it looks to be in the low 40s with a light wind blowing in from left, which could favor him.
Jon Lester doesn’t need much help, but costs considerably more than his opponent. You shouldn’t need much convincing on a day like today. He might not have the highest ceiling today, but it’s high enough with perhaps the most consistent floor.
Max Scherzer is your costliest pitcher today, perhaps not even affordable at the top end unless being paired with one of the higher risk low price tags on DraftKings. Last week’s solid, but not spectacular performance is probably among the least we can expect from him here.
Nicholas Tropeano is the bottom price on the board and worth a look. There’s nothing spectacular here, but for his cost there doesn’t have to be. He’ll be facing a maybe one real left handed threat in a great ballpark. If utilizing Scherzer in cash games, I might consider pairing him, while potentially seeing more exposure to someone like Finnegan in GPPs?
Sonny Gray isn’t too costly, especially on DraftKings, and even with more limited upside, is still probably safer than someone like Iwakuma in his price range.
Steven Matz has one of the higher upsides on today’s board and is in a good spot at home, but does carry some risk in a higher price tag than we’d like. It might be difficult to pair him with a $10K+ pitcher.
You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.
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