Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Monday, July 27th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2015-07-29 15:36:55

National Dugout Hugging Week continues tonight and while I believe all of tonight’s pitchers are safe, the hitters they’re expected to face in the opposing lineup are another thing. Teams like Milwaukee and Cincinnati could theoretically unload players before game time tonight, upgrading pitchers like Chris Heston and Lance Lynn tonight. That happened Friday when Atlanta traded away two of the few productive offensive players on the team just before game time. It’s going to be a crazy week, so make sure to pay even more attention than usual to the day’s transactions.

Don’t forget to watch for lineups, umpire assignments, 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 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 2014 season. Opp team offensive stats are wRC+. Combo stats are explained below.

Alex Wood is in a dangerous spot tonight. After allowing just two HRs through his first 11 starts, he’s allowed six now over his last seven (I’m not counting the game he technically started in Colorado, but didn’t face a single batter). He’s also allowed at least three ERs in six of his last eight starts, including each of his last three. His GB% has gone from over 50% in the first two months of the season to under 40% over the last two and the only month he actually struck out more than 17% of his batters was in June. Furthermore, his now 15.4 Hard-Soft% is concerning, particularly concerning when he’s traveling to Baltimore to face a team with a 15.9 HR/FB at home. The bright spots are that they struggle against LHP with a 16.3 K-BB% and have been ice cold with an 18.6 K-BB% over the last week.

Anibal Sanchez has allowed exactly three or four ERs in five of his last six starts and has now allowed 21 HRs in 20 starts. We’ve previously talked about the fact that he now seems to be a fly ball pitcher, which makes his 14.2 HR/FB especially troubling. The problem is that there don’t aren’t many high strikeout pitchers on today’s slate and he represents one of the few that strikes out more than a league average rate of hitters and faces a team that strikes out more than average (23.2 K% at home, 21.9% vs RHP). Tampa Bay is an average home team in a tough park that struggles against RHP, making them a great park adjusted matchup.

Chris Heston hasn’t been the most consistent pitcher in the league, but his overall numbers are above average (13.1 K-BB%) with a strong ground ball rate and 5.5 Hard-Soft%. Of course, it also helps that he pitches in a great park and hasn’t allowed a HR in any of his last eight home starts. He’s allowed one run over his last two starts, striking out 13 of 47 batters. When you sap Milwaukee’s ability to hit the ball out of the park, you really take the air out of their offense as they park adjust down to possibly the top matchup tonight. They have a 25.1 K% over the last week.

Edinson Volquez continues to take advantage of his spacious park and great outfield defense to put up strong results with mediocre underlying numbers and a 17.7 Hard-Soft%. He has a 12.9 HR/FB on the road since last season, but Cleveland is another spacious park that favors pitching and should neutralize a solid home team offense. They have a 7.6 HR/FB at home. Although Volquez has the best BB% of his career this year (8.3%), it’s still not a good mark and the Tribe has the highest walk rate in the majors. This is where his problems could lie.

Joe Kelly has not had a good season, but has an ERA much higher than his estimators with just a 9.5 K-BB% that’s actually the highest of his career. The obvious reason we’re even talking about him today is the White Sox. They have a 14.0 K-BB% vs RHP and 28.6 K% over the last week. They are the 3rd worst road offense in baseball and the 4th worst vs RHP with a 4.7 Hard-Soft% overall, park adjusting down to a favorable matchup even in an offensive environment like Fenway. The White Sox do have league high 22.5 HR/FB over the last week and Kelly allowed three bombs to Houston in his last start.

Jorge de la Rosa has allowed two ERs or less in each of his five road starts since his first this season. He has his highest strikeout rate since 2009 (22.6%) and faces a Cubs team with a 24.6 K% at home and 23.3% vs LHP. He does have an 11.1 BB% and 16.9 HR/FB, but a 12.9 HR/FB on the road since last season and the Cubs have just a 6.7 HR/FB vs LHP. In fact, the Cubs are now the 2nd worst home offense in baseball behind only their cross town counterparts. Be sure to watch for wind speed and direction here, but this looks to be a favorable park adjusted matchup right now.

Kevin Gausman overcame a rough start with a couple of Yankee Stadium HRs to end up with a respectable four runs through six innings in his last start. Respectable for that park at least. His overall work in four starts hasn’t been that good, but he’s been in some tough spots and has potential with just a 5.0 HR/FB at home that’s probably unsustainable, but interesting none the less. He does allow a lot of hard contact (31.4%), but generates a ton of weak contact (27.5%) as well with less in between than most pitchers. That works out to a 3.9 Hard-Soft% this season. The matchup is certainly in his favor with an Atlanta team that has a 5.3 Hard-Soft% overall, 7.8 HR/FB on the road and 7.4 HR/FB vs RHP. Despite the hitter friendly environment, it doesn’t seem like power is going to be much of an issue here, though the Braves do have just a 17.6 K% vs RHP.

Kyle Hendricks had allowed a total of 1 ER through four starts before allowing five to Cincinnati last time out despite a season high nine strikeouts. He’s been a credit to the rotation overall, even if there’s some skepticism to his league average K rate. He’s turned that into nearly an elite 16.3 K-BB% due to excellent control and combined that with great contact authority skills (4.3 Hard-Soft% this year, 2.6% for his career). Colorado has a 15.3 Hard-Soft% vs RHP with a 14.5 HR/FB this year, but we know they lose a lot away from home (18.2 K-BB% on the road).

Kyle Lohse has had a terrible season due in large part to his 16.1 HR/FB in a tough park. This is not a tough park. This is a great park that mutes a great offense and now the #1 offense vs RHP. The Giants have just a 7.6 HR/FB at home. Lohse has allowed either four or five runs in half of his 20 starts this year, but a total of four in the last three pitcher’s parks he’s pitched in (LAD, PIT, NYM).

Lance Lynn is the likely no brainer of this group tonight at home where he has a 21.3 K% and 3.8 HR/FB since last season. He’s allowed just three HRs at home this year and has a 4.6 Hard-Soft% overall. In addition, he’s allowed two ERs or less in 14 of 18 starts this season. Cincinnati is not a good road offense and a lot of that stems from when they play in stadiums, like tonight, that their middle of the order power can’t take advantage of. They have a slightly below average strikeout rate.

Nate Karns has been a league average pitcher, likely enhanced by his park and defense, like Volquez, but not to the point where we’d expect significant regression anywhere. His 21.5 K% at home since last season is actually the top Home/Road mark on today’s board. Control can be an issue, but the Tigers have just a 6.9 BB% vs RHP. His other issue has been HRs (14.9 HR/FB at home since last year), but he’s allowed just a single ball to leave the yard over his last six home starts. Detroit is a tough matchup today, but the favorable park brings it down to league average.

Raisel Iglesias has gone a total of 18.2 innings over his last four major league starts and has experienced varying results this year, but has shown a consistent ability to miss bats with a 9.5+ SwStr% in all but one of his six starts. He’s had some control issues, but his 13.9 K-BB% is above league average. The Cardinals are simply a league average matchup at home, though they own a 9.9 K-BB% there, but also just a 7.5 HR/FB.

Robbie Ray is similar to Montgomery below in that he’s seen some regression late, but more is expected. His thing isn’t really the BABIP though, but a 2.7 HR/FB that is completely unsustainable in Arizona. We’re not in Arizona tonight though and that’s why he gets the full write-up. Seattle has been the hottest team in the league over the last week, but have a 22.5 K% at home and are still a park adjusted matchup in favor of the pitcher. Ray has a 27.2 Hard-Soft% that should send you running when facing the team with a 14.9 Hard-Soft% that tops the majors, but it drops to 12.3% vs LHP, which is still actually quite good, but again, the park stops them from being as prolific as they could be. I expect Nelson Cruz to wallop one tonight, but I’ve expected a lot of hitters to wallop him who haven’t.

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

Michael Montgomery (.259 BABIP – 76.5 LOB% – 9.1 HR/FB) – The HR and LOB rates have regressed quickly over his last two starts, but he likely still has a little bit to go. That’s not to say he’s going to be bad with one of the top park adjusted matchups tonight, but he’s likely over-priced.

Ivan Nova (.253 BABIP – 80.1 LOB% – 12.1 HR/FB) – Unfortunately, pitching mostly in Yankee Stadium, the 12.1 HR/FB looks like the most sustainable of the three with a 17.1 Hard-Soft% and 4.0 K-BB%. He has a really tough park adjusted matchup against a lineup full of left handed power.

Cody Anderson (.224 BABIP – 89.2 LOB% – 8.8 HR/FB) – Of course, facing the Royals kills any potential he might have, but there’s enough interesting stuff going on with him that we’re going to talk more about him below because we have some time today.

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

John Danks – Although, I’m starting to wonder how his numbers are this bad when he dominates my DFS lineup every time out. He hasn’t allowed a run in three of his last four starts, but let up six in the other and has allowed at least four in 8 of 18.

Matt Harrison

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 – 20.1 K% – 9.7 SwStr% – 2.07 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.

Cody Anderson has struck out just two of his last 41 batters and a total of 12 in five starts. His SwStr% isn’t far below average though. There should be a massive adjustment to his K% coming. The concerning caveat here would be that he has faced mostly teams that strike out more than average.

Kevin Gausman has done most of his work out of the bullpen, but has had a double digit SwStr (above 11%) in each of his last three starts (of four total) with just a league average strikeout rate. I’ve mentioned this on Twitter, but I really think that elevating his 95+ mph fastball in two strike situations would generate him significantly more strikeouts, but the Orioles don’t really teach that. I wonder how much different it would be if he were brought up in an organization that emphasized high heat like Tampa Bay. The small park might be the reason why.

Kyle Hendricks has a K% that’s really borderline in range for his below average SwStr%, though it has been at least 8% in each of his last four starts. Both David Ross and Miguel Montero are above average pitch framers (combined +16.2 RAA according to StatCorner.com), but Kyle Schwarber (-1.2) does not seem to be with Taylor Teagarden (0.8) somewhere in the middle over a small sample. Pay attention to who starts behind the plate tonight as it’s a small thing that might be important to the K% of someone who gets so many called punchouts.

Lance Lynn – After four straight starts with a SwStr between 7% and 8%, Lynn has now been above 9% in each of his last three starts. There’s some improvement there and like Hendricks, his K/SwStr is really on the edge, but Yadier Molina (+9.7 RAA) helps. If I’m skeptical about his ability to sustain a 26.1 K% for the season though, the fact that he’s struck out 29.5% with a single digit SwStr% over the last month is laughable. Don’t buy into the spike.

Nate Karns – If you’re expecting a theme today, Rene Rivera has been a decent framer this year (+4.4 RAA) and he’s had a SwStr above 9% in three of his last four starts with Kansas City being the exception.

Robbie Ray has had a sub 5 SwStr% in two of his last three starts. While some of today’s pitchers have had borderline acceptable K rates in regards to their SwStr%, his is absolute baloney. The Diamondbacks haven’t even put a positive pitch framer behind the plate this year and they’ve employed six different catchers with each one progressively being worse than the ones before him. The current crew of Castillo, Salty, and Hernandez are a combined -10.1 RAA.

ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 3.83 ERA – 3.76 SIERA – 3.83 xFIP – 3.83 FIP)

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

Anibal Sanchez – This is all in his 14.2 HR/FB as his ERA isn’t much higher than his FIP. He’s stranding just barely 70% of his runners, but the interesting thing is that when he keeps the ball in the park, the BABPIP has been strong. It’s not an incredibly unsustainable number and with all the fly balls, at least he’s increased his pop up rate too. His very reasonable 7.9 Hard-Soft% is right around his career average despite the great shift in his batted ball profile and increased home run rate, so that’s mostly being seen in his BABIP.

Cody Anderson has been succeeding on the back of a .224 BABIP and 89.2 LOB% so far. There’s also the fact that he’s a 7.2 K-BB% with that a single digit K%, which means he’s not walking anyone. He hasn’t shown any tendencies that would suggest a low BABIP and, in fact, has a 23.9 LD%. Maturation in his K% to meet his SwStr% would benefit him greatly when the BABIP and strand rate regress.

Edinson Volquez has a 7.1 HR/FB that might be sustainable in Kansas City, though it would be the lowest mark of his career by far and he pitched in a big park in San Diego before without positive results. The ERA probably should still regress towards his FIP, though I’d think the defense might allow him to continue beating his estimators by a little bit.

Jorge de la Rosa has a 16.9 HR/FB, but nine of his 12 HRs have come in at home. He’s allowed just three in six road starts, although they’ve all come in his last two. His BABIP would seem normal and has been pretty much in line with his .299 career rate, but the Rockies have been terrible at preventing hits this year, so don’t be surprised if it rises.

Kevin Gausman has stranded just 63.2% of his runners this year and that’s pretty much all due to a start in Minnesota three weeks ago with a 13.2 LOB%. His enormous pop up rate and normal HR/FB along with a likely unsustainable, but impressive 12.9 LD% has his SIERA below four.

Kyle Lohse has a 16.1 HR/FB, but that’s not been his only issue. His .320 BABIP is well above his career mark and his first time above .276 since 2010. That’s not all defense either. His 24.4 LD% is a career worst, though his 34.6 Hard% is slightly less than each of the last two years, which is a bit of surprise considering HR and LD rates. This has all lead to a 65.3 LOB%. There should be some regression to all of these numbers, but maybe he need to get traded to a team like San Francisco to make it happen. He doesn’t throw hard, but his 89.2 mph average is within 0.6 of his average velocity each of the last six years.

Raisel Iglesias has gotten BABIP’d. He does have a 24.3 LD% that is not good, but his other markers are around league average. He’s a fly ball pitcher and while that might mean trouble in Cincinnati, it means his 9.8 IFFB% goes a longer way. This has led to a 67.6 LOB% that should improve as his BABIP expectedly regresses. He otherwise profiles as close to a league average pitcher and potentially slightly better with a K% that has a chance to improve due to a great SwStr%.

Robbie Ray – Did I mention a 2.7 HR/FB that goes along with a 27.2 Hard-Soft% in Arizona? Yet, he somehow has just a 69.0 LOB% with a normal BABIP.

BABIP Chart (2015 LG AVG – .295 BABIP – 9.3 IFFB% – 86.8 Z-Contact%)

A couple of years ago, 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 a pitcher has a much lower BABIP than his team’s allowed (red), then you look for some factors that may support it and maybe you’re onto something (check batted ball profile too).

Alex Wood – I hadn’t previously realized how bad the Atlanta defense has been. Add that to a 23.0 LD% and nothing of great interest in his other BABIP indicators in the chart above and that’s how you get to .341. It’s been above .340 in every month except June too. I’m not sure we can expect much improvement.

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 changed 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.

Value Tier One

Chris Heston (1) – The price has climbed on a couple of sites, most noticeably DraftKings. He’s the 3rd costliest pitcher on FanDuel as well, but with a much more reasonable price tag. He’s a solid or even great option regardless. This is an above average pitcher in a great park with a strong a strong matchup that could be even weaker if there are any trades made before game time. It’s just unfortunate that the sites have finally started catching up to the performance.

Value Tier Two

Kevin Gausman is the dumpster diving special. He had a bad start against the Twins and then allowed a couple of HRs in Yankee Stadium. Atlanta doesn’t strike out a lot, but they don’t hit the ball hard either. Freeman is back, but Johnson and Uribe were shipped out of town, so is this even a major league lineup? This is my Dumpster Diving Special today.

Kyle Hendricks (3t) is the type of mid-priced pitcher that could be interesting on a day like today. He doesn’t walk anyone or get hit hard and could generate around a league average rate of strikeouts against a team that is severely lacking offensively away from home.

Value Tier Two A

Raisel Iglesias could run into some trouble here. The Cardinals have a much lower strikeout rate (18.8%) vs RHP, but for a minimum or near minimum price tag across the board, you have to consider the strikeout potential in his arm in GPPs, especially on DraftKings.

Value Tier Three

Lance Lynn (2) – Although I’ve been skeptical of the strikeout rate for a while, I still have him for one of the top rates tonight (which isn’t saying much) and he should be good as he normally is at home. The Cincinnati offense should struggle in a bigger park, although Joey Votto can hit anywhere. It’s the elite price tag for a guy I consider a good, not great pitcher, that keeps him here. You might not have much of a choice in cash games tonight though.

Anibal Sanchez (3t) – The hope is that the environment and lack of power from the Tampa Bay side should mute his HR problem a bit and enhance his strikeout potential. I don’t think many people realize how often this team strikes out, especially at home. Due to price though, he’s probably still be just my 4th option in cash games, even today. Pitcher pricing on DraftKings seems higher than usual across the board today.

Value Tier Four – These guys seem basically in line with their price tag. They are either useable 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.

There seems to be a lot of average or mostly accurately priced tonight.

Joe Kelly – Does matchup and price make him not terrible tonight?

Jorge de la Rosa – There’s some risk, but the Cubs are terrible at home and he might have tonight’s top K rate.

Alex Wood

Nate Karns

Kyle Lohse

Edinson Volquez

Robbie Ray

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

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