Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Saturday, April 9th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-04-10 01:25:06

We’re going to give weekend baseball a try this year. For now I’ll be covering just the Saturday late slates, but not Sunday because of the 1pm main slate start time and also because I don’t want to burn out before the All Star break. So that means no Kershaw today, who pitches the late afternoon game, but if you need help trying to figure out what to do with Kershaw, you might need a different hobby. I aim to make the Saturday articles a little less wordy because who wants to spend their weekends reading 4,000 words about pitching. Then again, I aim to make all of my articles a lot shorter than they eventually end up being, so we’ll see how that works out.

New season changes to the article were outlined yesterday which you can find here so we won’t repeat those again today. Park factors should be updated by next week.

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 3 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+.

Bartolo Colon has already pitched an inning in relief because the Mets had a crazy schedule with three days off this week. He’s generally not going to be worth daily fantasy consideration due to a low strikeout rate, but he walks nobody. He’ll occasionally be wild over the plate and get smacked around and without the strikeout ability, he won’t be able to generate a high enough floor in those situations. However, he pitches in a friendly home park against the Phillies, who, we learned yesterday, don’t know the infield fly rule.

Carlos Martinez proved that not only does he belong in a big league rotation last year, but he belongs in the front end of a playoff caliber one. Shoulder issues that plagued towards the end of last season are a bit of a concern, but he seemed to come through March without a major issue. The change-up became a big difference maker as it allowed him to at least compete against LHBs while dominating from the same side. The Braves didn’t swing and miss against RHPs much last season, but struggle to make good contact in a matchup that should heavily favor the pitcher.

Cole Hamels generated 18 SwStrs and either struck out or induced a ground ball from 20 of the 28 Mariners he faced on Opening Day. He also walked three and allowed two HRs. That’s basically him in a nutshell all in one game. You’re apt to get any or all of those things in any given start. He’s a very good pitcher, who seems to be treated like an Ace. The one thing I have trouble with is that he allowed just one fly ball, so one of the HRs must have been considered a LD? I mean a 200 HR/FB is pretty impressive, even after just one start.

Drew Smyly is interesting working up in the zone against a team that chases, but has a lot of power in a small park. I can’t hold his first start against the Jays against him too much. I really think he has a chance to generate some strikeouts tonight, but he did have a 14.0 HR/FB on the road last year and the risk is what happened to Archer last night.

Garrett Richards generated 17 SwStrs against the Cubs and did not allow a fly ball against nine grounders and three line drives. That’s an incredible line and one he’s certainly capable of, but he struggled to put batters away at times last season after his breakout 2014. He’s always been able to generate tons of weak contact though. The Rangers have some LH muscle, which they flexed against Shoemaker last night, but the park plays favorably towards pitching.

Ian Kennedy has a chance to thrive in Kansas City. I’m not sure about the price based on recent performance, but he has the ability and the right skill set to pay that off in a big park with a great outfield defense. His problem in every season with an ERA over four has been a double digit HR/FB. For some reason all of the San Diego pitchers had high HR rates last season. He’s had a 24.4 K% each of the last two seasons. His issue is hard contact with a career 32.2 Hard%. The Kansas City park and defense should help him. It’s a heck of a lot better than running Guthrie and Vargas out there twice a week.

Nate Karns was an average pitcher last year, which is more than probably anybody expected from him. He’ll strike out batters and walk them at about league average rates. He had a 12.8 HR/FB last year (and now a 15.3 career one) in a good park last year and moves to a better one this year. The effects of the high amount of hard contact he allows should be felt less in Safeco. Remember that the Mariners offensively hit the ball harder than any team last year, but had less to show for it. That should work both ways. He starts in a solid spot against Oakland.

Vincent Velasquez was a well-regarded prospect in the Houston system last year when he jumped straight from just 33 innings at AA to the majors. He continued to strike out batters and have control issues. Perhaps he was not ready from looking at his 4.37 ERA, but his 3.46 FIP might argue. Most of his 55.2 innings came in his seven starts before being cast into the bullpen (and then eventually traded to the Phillies in the off-season). The stuff is there if he can harness command on it. He may need to work on his 0.67 GB/FB in Philadelphia, but that shouldn’t be as big a concern today in New York, which will be cold and plays more neutrally towards power.

Zack Greinke did not take long to introduce himself to the people in the bleachers in Arizona. He allowed three HRs and seven ERs. He allowed just 14 and 41 all of last season. He’s on pace to match that by the end of April. That won’t happen obviously. He’s still a good pitcher. He’s probably still an All Star caliber pitcher. He’s not going to strand runners at well over 80% or BABIP like he did last year, but he’s probably fine and still the best pitcher on tonight’s board. The Cubs are dangerous, especially in a park like this, but should produce some strikeouts too. On a side note, they have a lot of OF depth. The loss of Schwarber may be felt a bit from an offensive/fantasy standpoint, but maybe not as much from an fWAR standpoint where the defense should improve greatly. Their fly ball pitchers (not so much Kyle Hendricks) should benefit.

NO THANK YOU (In alphabetical order)

Doug Fister was rumored to be hitting 90 mph again this spring after sitting at 87 mph last year. If that’s true, it could be important, but he didn’t miss any bats last year.

Drew Pomeranz

Jorge de la Rosa

Julio Teheran usually pitches well at home where he can get away with some of his mistakes, but allows a lot of hard contact (including two HRs in his first start). I don’t want to pay a premium against a good offensive team.

Kyle Hendricks – If you plugged his expected K% from his SwStr% into his ERA estimators, there wouldn’t be much of a gap. That’s not the entire reason he’s here today though. It’s also the matchup in Arizona.

Mike Wright

Rich Hill did not pitch well in his first start, but that was a spot start. Maybe he wasn’t prepared. Maybe he was never going to be what he was last year. There are indications. His K% was too high for his SwSr%, but his SwStr% was still incredibly formidable. His 87.9 LOB% wasn’t going to hold up. His BABIP was .197. He can’t do that again, but his indicators were all green and should probably be super green (if that’s a thing) in the chart below. At this price, he’s going to have to prove it again though.

Tommy Milone could be the type of pitcher that does well against Kansas City, but he’s not going to strike anyone out and that’s only a guess because he generates lots of pop ups. The big park could work in his favor. I wouldn’t have enough confidence in this theory to roster him and find out.
Wily Peralta was not even able to generate the ground balls he did last year in his last start and though nothing left the yard, there was a lot of hard contact.

K/BB Chart

Pitcher and Opponent K% & BB% for titled splits, similar to the Main Chart.

K/BB Chart – Opponent

Batted Ball Chart

Pitcher and Opponent Batted Ball stats.

Batted Ball Charts – Opponent

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.

We’re using 2015 numbers for the first week. 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.

We’ve touched on Kyle Hendricks and Rich Hill in other sections today, but we’re not much interested in either.

Rich Hill had his abnormality happened over a much smaller sample size obviously.

Kyle Hendricks was one of the largest full season outliers in baseball last year. His SwStr went from 8.2% to 8.1%. His strikeout rate went from 14.6% to 22.6%. Look for something in between this year.

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.

Ian Kennedy had an outrageous 17.2 HR/FB last season because Petco Park obviously.

Zack Greinke – It’s easy to say he won’t retain his .229 BABIP and 86.5 LOB%. In fact, we’ve already said that above. His 7.3 HR/FB is also likely to increase and is in fact at 37.5 after one start.

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).

Garrett Richards has had a hard hit rate below 25% each of the last two seasons, but the 17.1 LD% is a bit low even for him. He has a 19.6% career rate along with a .285 BABIP and might see a small relapse this year, though it’s now two straight years below .280.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Here we normally 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.

Today, and probably for the first week or so, we’re not going to do that though. Instead, I’d like to revert to the previous format of just talking a bit more about the pitchers you might be considering today in relation to their price tags until we get a bit more information about 2016.

Bartolo Colon is cheap and faces the Phillies at home, which are each wonderful things.

Carlos Martinez – As long as he’s healthy, he may be tonight’s top point per dollar play.

Cole Hamels – I often feel as if he’s accurately priced. I always say that here too. He’s got great stuff, but has too many flaws and inconsistencies to be considered one of the best pitchers in baseball. He’s probably closer to the top of that 2nd tier. He’s in a good position to pay off his price tag tonight though.

Drew Smyly has the potential to be the top performer tonight. There’s a bit of risk he goes the way of Archer too, but with fewer walks maybe.

Garrett Richards should do well because I’m somewhat confident in the weak contact portion of his game at this point. I’m less confident in his K% here and don’t expect him to miss as many bats as he did against the Cubs. He does have the ability to miss a lot of bats though.

Ian Kennedy – I thought (and hoped) he’d be about $1K cheaper, but his HR rate is incredibly likely to significantly regress. How much it does should determine his success rate because the park and defense support his skill set. The strikeouts should be there and I like this matchup for him to start the season.

Nate Karns – Safeco should take some of the risk out of his batted ball outcomes, which makes him useful if he retains a 20+ K%. He seems to be at least accurately priced today up over $8K.

Vincent Velasquez is a low priced, high upside arm in a cold weather situation tonight. There is rain in the forecast too so watch out for that. The biggest concern here is that the Mets have patience and power so they could take their base a few times and run into one, but that’s why he carries such a low price tag I guess. There’s potential upside here. A combination of he and Smyly could end your night early or have you winning a GPP.

Zack Greinke still carries some risk in this matchup, but will eventually be much better, if not necessarily tonight. There should be some strikeouts there, but I wouldn’t really blame you if you were hesitant. Not because of one bad start, but because this is a lot to pay in a potentially dangerous matchup.

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

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