Advanced Stats Pitching Charts - Thu 7/10
We take on 12 games in this rare Thursday edition of the charts. It’s an early 12:30 EST start as I’ll attempt to be brief once again in order to sneak this in with time to spare before 1st pitch. There’s a lot of unknown today and then there’s Clayton Kershaw vs the Padres.
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. Team Def = UZR/150. L2Yrs is a rolling calendar. 2013+ is since the start of that season. Combo stats are explained below.
Aaron Harang – recent peripherals look a lot like Aaron Harang as he faces a hot Mets team.
Bartolo Colon – has just 5 K’s to 3 BB’s over his last 2 starts.
Clayton Kershaw – vs the Padres takes ALL the money. He’ll probably give up 5 runs in the first.
Colby Lewis – has 21 K’s without a walk over his last 18.1 IP, but has the toughest matchup of the day.
David Buchanan – has only gone past 6 IP twice and surrendered less than 3 ER three times in his 9 starts, but faces a cold Milwaukee offense.
David Phelps – has too much red in his line.
Drew Smyly – has a decent enough matchup, but has only 6 K’s over his last 2 starts.
Edinson Volquez – faces a St Louis team who has come alive offensively.
Gio Gonzalez – hasn’t allowed a run over his last 3 starts (19 K – 7 BB). He will be challenged today in Baltimore.
Hector Santiago – has to navigate a recently potent Texas offense in a tough park.
Homer Bailey – has allowed 1 ER over 17 IP in 2 starts and faces one of the worst offenses vs RHP.
Jeremy Guthrie – has his hands full with a hot Detroit team.
Jon Lester – has one of the greener lines today aside from the park.
Jose Quintana – hasn’t allowed a run over his last 14.2 IP (2 starts) with 3 BB’s and 17 K’s. He has the luxury of facing a weakened Boston team today.
Kyle Hendricks – makes his major league debut against the Votto-less Reds.
Matt Garza – has been pitching well and gets one of the day’s best matchups.
Odrisamer Despaigne – hasn’t allowed a lot of runs today, but looks like a disaster waiting to happen.
Scott Kazmir – although the Giants have been cold, they pose a threat at home vs LHP.
Shelby Miller – continues his troubling path this season.
T.J. House – has a lot of green, but some very dark red in his line.
Tim Hudson – has been great and Oakland seems less intimidating on the road.
Tom Wilhelmsen – starts his 1st game. You can really disregard most of his stats today. He can’t be good for more than 4 or 5 innings max.
Wei-Yin Chen – has 12 K’s and 7 BB’s over his last 4 starts, allowing 7 HR’s.
Yohan Pino – has not been very good, but has potentially the best matchup of the day.
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.
Aaron Harang – is going to have a problem with walks across the board.
Bartolo Colon – Harang’s counterpart is a clear opposite in terms of control.
Clayton Kershaw – dominates the green in the K areas.
Edinson Volquez – always has walk issues.
Homer Bailey – has at least 22% in every K category today.
Odrisamer Desaigne- has some ugly K/BB numbers and the Dodgers offer no help today.
Shelby Miller – both he and his opponent could put the fielders to sleep today.
T.J. House – has walked a total of 9 in 7 starts and never more than 2 in a game.
Tom Wilhelmsen – has had control issues out of the pen and Minnesota will take a walk.
Combo Batted Ball Chart
Ditto for the Combo Batted Ball stats in the Main Chart above.
Aaron Harang – has ugly batted ball numbers across his main chart line and a lot of that has to do with the Mets recent performance.
David Phelps – is 10%+ in every HR/FB split.
Jeremy Guthrie – has been hit hard in recent starts and the Tigers always hit it hard.
Jon Lester – has one of top LD and IFFB rates in the main chart and we see both green almost entirely across in the Batted Ball Chart.
Jose Quintana – I guess we’re apt to see a few IFFB’s in this game.
Shelby Miller – if nothing else, is still inducing pop ups, but the Pirates don’t give away many free outs on batted balls.
T.J. House – has allowed almost as many HR’s (6) as walks (9) in his 7 starts. He doesn’t need any help from the Yankees for the top HR/FB today. Thankfully he has a massive 61% ground ball rate with just 16.9% fly balls, so who cares if 1/4 of them leave the yard.
Tim Hudson – the ball just rarely leaves the park.
Yohan Pino – has allowed 1 HR in 4 starts.
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.
Aaron Harang – hasn’t struck out more than 5 in 7 starts since 6/1 and has only had a SwStr above 7% once in that span. In fact, his SwStr was consistently between 6-7% in 5 of those 7. That said, his career numbers are closer to his total 2014 than the last month.
Bartolo Colon – normally gets a lot of looking strikes when he’s going right, but while his 17.3 K% is right around his career rate of 17.8%, his SwStr is far from his career rate of 7%. Look for his K-rate to drop, unless the SwStr rebounds.
Colby Lewis – has returned this year with his K% not missing a beat off his career rate (19.5%). Unfortunately, the 6.7 SwStr% is his 2nd worst and well below his 8.5% career mark.
David Phelps – Unless he’s something we’ve never seen before, this can’t sustain. In fact, he had his 3rd highest SwStr% (7.5) in any of his starts last time out, but with just an 11.1 K%. Go figure.
Hector Santiago – had a double digit SwStr% in each of his last 2 starts, which he’ll have to keep if he wishes to maintain his K%.
Jose Quintana – has struck out at least 6 in each of his last 5 starts. He struck out that many in just 3 of his first 13 when his SwStr% was higher. It’s a little tough to buy.
Odrisamer Despaigne – was supposed to be a high K, high BB guy. So far, only the BB end of that is holding up. He should end up with a few more, but not as advertised like this.
T.J. House – is a bit deceptive in his SwStr of 9%. In 3 of his 7 starts he was above 11% and in 3 he was below 6.5%. Only once was he even near his year’s average.
Wei-Yin Chen – has maintained his K% with his SwStr% being cut nearly in half over the last month.
ERA Estimators Chart
How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.
Clayton Kershaw – my eyes just exploded because humans eyes aren’t built to view such awesomeness.
Colby Lewis – has had an ERA well above his peripherals over 800+ scattered major league innings. That said, .392 BABIP.
Gio Gonzalez – his estimators say he’s been the same guy over the last month, except that his FIP says he’s allowed a few less HR’s, or actually none. He has a .226 BABIP and 84 LOB% over that span.
Jon Lester – has chopped about 25% off his K-rate over the last month (see above chart), but has a .236 BABIP and hasn’t allowed a HR.
Odrisamer Despaigne – 19.2 IP – 8 BB – 5 K – .169 BABIP – 96.6 LOB%. He’ll probably beat Kershaw 7-0.
Yohan Pino – has only stranded 58.6% of his runners, but has also only allowed 1 HR.
That’s really it. There’s not a ton of distance (1.0+ gap) and if there is, it’s mostly in line with the FIPs which means HR’s.
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 (green). If you have a pitcher with a much higher BABIP (green), but decent IFFB and Z-Contact rates you may be onto something (check batted ball profile too).
Clayton Kershaw – the only thing he doesn’t dominate is BABIP, but his career mark is 20 points lower actually and his IFFB% is usually double this year’s mark. His LD% (17) is a career low. I could see his BABIP dropping.
Colby Lewis – has a 24.7 LD%, but .392 is not a sustainable BABIP in any league.
Drew Smyly – with league average Z-Contact and LD rates added to the high IFFB rate, Smyly could see his BABIP drop under .300 continuing on this way.
Edinson Volquez – has a career BABIP some 50 points higher and isn’t doing anything much better to deserve it.
Hector Santiago – has a .279 BABIP due in part to an elite pop up rate in his 282 career innings.
Homer Bailey – once we got past that .416 April BABIP, things began to normalize. It only looks so high in relation to Cincinnati’s very low team allowed mark.
Jon Lester – strangely has a .301 career BABIP despite an elite IFFB rate and normal LD%.
Odrisamer Despaigne – I guess if David Phelps can keep that K-rate, he can sustain this BABIP.
Yohan Pino – you’d think would have a lower BABIP, but 27.1 LD%.
Pitcher Notes & Summary
Clayton Kershaw – if you want to be a real man, try winning without Kershaw today. He breaks the board.
Drew Smyly – has some favorable prices and did have a decent run of starts going until his last 2. He pitched well against KC the last time and while it’s sometimes hard to pay up against the Royals for lack of K’s, it’s easier to pay down for lack of hard hit balls.
Gio Gonazlez – loses the spotlight to Kershaw today, but carries a hot streak (0 ER last 21 IP) into Baltimore. You don’t love the price or opposition though. He should provide a few K’s and the Orioles have been less than proficient at home.
Homer Bailey – is throwing the ball great. He’s struck out at least 6 in 7 of his last 8, has a very good matchup that should balance the bad park out, and finally looks like the guy they gave the big contract to. He’s mostly the 4th highest price on the board.
Jon Lester – while there’s mild concern about the strikeout drop, it hasn’t bothered him yet and he rarely lets Fenway bother him. There’s very little for a LHP to fear in that lineup aside from Abreu. The #2 price tag with the reduced strikeouts is probably the only thing that would give you pause today.
Jose Quintana – we discussed not completely buying into the recent strikeout binge, but we’re buying into the Red Sox offense even less.
Matt Garza – like many Brewer pitchers, doesn’t whiff as many as he used to, but he gets enough and you’re targeting most pitchers with any talent against the Phillies these days. He’s coming off his best start of the year (9 IP – 2 H – 0 ER – 2 BB – 9 K).
Scott Kazmir – has allowed more than 2 ER just once in his last 8 starts with at least 7 K’s in 6 of those. The Giants have a lot of RH power and the park doesn’t play as impossible from that side as it does to LHB’s, but his price matches up with Bailey around 4th highest today and he should get enough K’s to compensate for any offense they might muster.
Tim Hudson – had a little 2 game hiccup, but has gone right back to being great with 3 ER over 14 IP in his last 2 starts with 10 K’s and no BB’s. He’s not among the highest prices today, primarily because he faces possibly the best team in baseball, but he’s very difficult to elevate the ball against, which could negate a lot of the power. Oakland hasn’t exactly killed it on the road or recently. If you want Kershaw, you’re going to have to go lower with #2 and assume some risk. That’s the range Hudson falls into today.
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