Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Thursday, April 21st

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-04-22 01:46:46

Some people hate short slates. Some don’t even bother to play. I know I’ve expressed this before, but I love the six to 10 game slate both for playing and writing. I would never otherwise be able to spend the time I do on Dallas Keuchel, for example, today. There’s some stuff in there that should be useful next time, even if you aren’t playing today. Then again, if you aren’t playing, you probably aren’t reading this anyway. Less than three full weeks in and I don’t remember if I already used that line.

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 last week, but Seamheads.com still seems to be behind, so I think we’re officially now searching for another option before the end of the month, which I’m not all that happy about because I really liked the three year thing they did.

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+.

Dallas Keuchel had some worrisome signs prior to his last start, including a big drop in velocity and SwStr% along with a spike the wrong way in walks and hard contact. Not long after I noted these, Dave Cameron added that he’s not getting the low strike called and as a result, his chase rate is significantly reduced. Let’s take a closer look what happened against the Tigers. The results were good, he didn’t give up a run and only walked one batter. He struck out just four of 29, but had a league average SwStr% (9.3), his highest mark so far this year. That’s two good things. The velocity did not budge. Yikes! Brooks Baseball has the strikezone map for that game. He got a lot of calls inside to RHBs, but was squeezed outside. However, there were three low pitches. He got neither the two just below the strike zone, nor one that looked to be spotted perfectly down and away on the corner. Batters did swing at a season high 34.9% of his pitches out of the strike zone though, a season high and a bit higher than even last year. He really only had the one start in Milwaukee where his chase rate was way out of line. The contact was 14 of 24 batted on the ground with 7 batted in the soft category and an equal amount tabbed as hard. Overall, the velocity is becoming a concern and the strike zone might be a thing or maybe just three of the wrong umpires. As long as he can keep the ball on the ground, he should be able to mitigate a lot of damage even if there still are some concerns. Also, Texas mostly keeps their lineup balanced no matter who is pitching and doesn’t platoon, stacking the lineup with righties like many other teams against top lefties.

Edinson Volquez had me leading the fan club after a dominant start. He allowed two ERs or less for his third straight effort to start the season against Oakland, but walked four and struck out just two (4.9 SwStr%). That and a slight drop in velocity was disappointing. He’s still averaging a harder fastball than he ever has though with strong overall numbers, a great defense, and big park. If he can do even what he did last year and let the surrounding do the work, I believe he can continue to trend towards his FIP in that park, rather than a potentially higher xFIP/SIERA. It’s a tougher matchup with Detroit, but he’s at home and they’ve cooled down over the last week and have even struck out a quarter of the time vs RHP so far.

Gerrit Cole struggled in his first start, but was better against Detroit. His velocity is down a bit less than one mph, but right where it was last April, so no worries there. The walks are up a bit, but that was also all the first game. The Padres exploded against a mediocre pitcher last night, but have otherwise been terrible (27.4 K% vs RHP). Not that anything in baseball ever goes as planned, but this one, at least on paper, is about as easy as it gets today, which is much needed at this point.

Jake Arrieta has come out of the game almost as dominant as he ended last year. He’s pitched at least seven innings with six strikeouts in all three starts, allowing runs in just one of them. He’s keeping the balls that are hit on the ground and has a -7.0 Hard-Soft% through three starts with the 9th lowest average distance (180.71 ft). I lied above. This is as easy as it gets. He’s doing exactly what he did last year and is in the second best spot of the night.

Luis Severino showed signs he wasn’t a finished product and less than his ERA last year, but should be much better than what he’s done so far, though a lot of hard contact (30.0 LD%, 35.0 Hard%, 94.04 exit velocity) tells me he might deserve more than his ERA estimators think he does. The good thing is that’s likely more descriptive than predictive, especially at this point and though he’s missing fewer bats too, his SwStr% could suggest a higher K rate going forward. Lastly, he’s faced two teams (DET, SEA) that hit the ball very hard. He had a high HR rate last year and it takes a while to figure out how a young RHP is going to handle Yankee Stadium, but there looks to be at least a league average pitcher in there with potential for better eventually still.

Rich Hill is still a difficult call. The resurgence (or surgence) is now a total of seven starts, three this year. In his first of the season, he didn’t pitch well, but didn’t know he was starting until Sonny Gray couldn’t. Give him a pass. The middle start was just as good as the four last season. His last one didn’t even finish five innings, though he did strike out six of 24 Royals, he walked three. He did allow frequent hard contact in the two bad starts and overall much harder contact than the four starts last year. He’s also been much more ground ball heavy thus far, generating six pop ups in 62 batted balls last year and none yet through 34 with 17 on the ground. Now the good stuff: the velocity and SwStr% are right there, though I’m buying into more of a 22-25 K% than the 30%+ he’s put up through seven starts. His walk rate has nearly doubled, but three of his five this year came in his last start. We’re still in the need much more information stage, but the continued ability to miss bats at a brand new high rate does bode well. The Yankees are suddenly terrible. I mean, not suddenly, we all knew they were getting old, but they’ve gotten old fast. I believe their 88 wRC+ vs LHP (129 PA) will improve as their plate discipline numbers are excellent (6.2 K-BB%), but they just haven’t hit the ball hard (2.7 HR/FB, 0.0 Hard-Soft%). I’m always more optimistic about a lefty in Yankee Stadium than a righty.

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

A.J. Griffin struck out just one in his first start and walked four in his second. The Astros have a 27 K% on the road, vs RHP, and over the last week, but also hit the ball hard 34.3% of the time with a 19.4 HR/FB vs RHP so far. None of these numbers will hold up, but he’s been an extreme fly ball pitcher (0.72 GB/FB) in his career. He gets a ton of pop ups, but also 46 HRs in 282 innings pitching for Oakland. He did have a 12.5 SwStr% in his last start, but less than half that in his first. I can’t understand why he’s not priced near the bare minimum.

Brandon Finnegan dominated the Phillies with nine strikeouts, one walk, and a 15.1 SwStr%. In the two starts that have followed he’s walked nine and struck out seven with a league average SwStr% in 11.2 innings, while allowing just five hits. He’s not generating particularly weak contact, not that we could justify a .133 BABIP anyway. The Cubs have a league high 12.8 BB%, which nearly matches his own 13.7 BB%. He looked interesting the first time against the Cubs, when we thought they were a higher strikeout team and hoped he would have better control. With a little more information, both of those things appear to be more in doubt, making this a more concerning matchup, especially when casual fans remember he was no-hitting them deep into the game last time they met.

Chris Tillman had me cautiously buying in his last start, not because I believed in change after two outings, but I think because it was also a short slate and there weren’t many better choices. He stunk the joint up, striking out just one of the 25 Rangers he faced. I think we can chalk the opening day velocity spike up to an adrenal surge on the first day of work too because he’s been back to normal the last two starts in that department too. He has been getting a little unlucky in his BABIP, continuing to generate weak contact in his last start (-13.9 Hard-Soft% on the season) and an average exit velocity (83.55 mph) that’s ninth best among those with at least 20 batted balls, but weak contact has never traditionally been his forte. The Blue Jays could/should smoke him.

James Shields is doing a lot of the bad things he did last year, but not enough of the good. His SwStr% has been fine. I have faith his K% will be at least average, but four more HRs (21.1 HR/FB) and a bit too many walks. One bright side is that he’s only allowed one HR outside of Colorado so far, but it’s difficult to say he’s done anything to gain back the trust he lost last year. There is some upside here, so I might end up with one or two lineups out of 10 or so, but really can’t recommend much more than that. The Pirates have been tough on RHP so far with their big RH bats being just as strong or stronger against same handed pitching.

Marco Estrada has faced Boston twice, one good and one bad. I remain incredibly skeptical of what he did last year (.216 BABIP). He does have a .262 career BABIP now as a fly ball pitcher who generates a lot of pop ups and a 17.5 career LD%, but he’s not Chris Young. Even a .260 BABIP would leave him with an ERA around four. I would not like to test the soft tossing fly ball machine in Baltimore tonight at any price above the bare minimum.

Mike Pelfrey – Fahgettaboudit!

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.

James Shields had a 13.3 SwStr% in his last start, but was below average in each of his first two starts, though never below 7.5%.

Rich Hill has now done this for seven starts. He has had at least a 9.1 SwStr% in all three starts, but above 10% just once.

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.

None of this stuff yet means much after two starts, but there are a few interesting tidbits.

Dallas Keuchel already has a ton of words next to his name, but briefly touching on the .250 BABIP that’s lower than last season despite harder contact and more line drives. The 18.2 IFFB% is nothing (2) because he still doesn’t allow fly balls (11). The increase in line drives has come from his grounders. He’s stranded 80% of his runners (79.4% last year) and hasn’t allowed a HR yet.

Edinson Volquez has stranded 86.7% of his runners. That won’t continue, but as I said above, he could trend closer to his FIP (which does not normalize HR rate) than his other estimators. In four seasons since leaving Cincinnati (this is the 5th), he has pitched in similarly big parks and had a double digit HR rate just once. He could remain in the 8.0 to 10.0 range here too.

Gerrit Cole has a low strand rate and hasn’t allowed a HR yet. May not tonight either.

Jake Arrieta has a .236 BABIP and 98.6 LOB%, though two of his 13 fly balls have left the yard. Those numbers will regress, though he had a .246 BABIP last year and the Cubs shift more than most teams. With a high rate of weak ground balls, he may have some BABIP suppression skills, but we still can’t even expect what he did last year.

Luis Severino – Even if we take the HR rate at merit and use his FIP and allow for some hard contact otherwise, pushing it up about a half a run, this still looks like an average pitcher. We can’t expect a .436 BABIP to continue for a pitcher with major league talent, but he probably has to make adjustments.

Rich Hill has a completely absurd .485 BABIP, though I don’t entirely trust the 30 K% either.

BABIP Chart (2015 LG AVG – .295 BABIP – 21.1 LD% – 9.5 IFFB% – 87.7 Z-Contact%)

A few years back, 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. A pitcher with a much lower BABIP than his team allows is a red flag absent further supporting evidence, while a pitcher with a much higher BABIP than his team allows may have something to offer in the future, especially with the right indicators.

There’s not much else to say here that hasn’t already been said above.

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. We’ll probably return to last year’s format after one more turn through the rotation.

Dallas Keuchel – I’m slightly concerned, but not entirely against him today at a reduced price because it’s a very short slate and I’ve already punted the first three pitchers alphabetically. I may not have the luxury of avoiding any exposure on multi-pitcher sites, though there are two clear top choices above him.

Edinson Volquez is not in the perfect spot tonight and showed that he still has his flaws last time out, but the cost is moderate and as said in the paragraph directly above, we can’t avoid everybody tonight.

Gerrit Cole has the top matchup tonight and it’s not even close. He righted the ship in the second start after a rough first one. He’s expensive, but not unaffordable. In the price range, I (and probably everyone else) am likely to have much more exposure here than Keuchel.

Jake Arrieta compares very favorably and maybe even slightly ahead of Cole when considering cost and matchup. On merit alone, these should be your two pitchers before you start considering game theory and ownership approaches.

Luis Severino is perhaps just as risky, if not more so than Shields come to think of it and perhaps I should rate them similarly, but I see him having just a bit more upside at this point and a potentially better value for a lower price on DraftKings. This doesn’t apply at the same cost on FanDuel. Both are no doubt high risk, but I’d expect his ownership as lower considering early results. For the risk adverse, you may want to stay away until he makes above said adjustments. Others may want to jump out ahead of the curve and assume they are coming and he can (or will) be fixed. My imaginary borderline is right between these two (Severino & Shields) with very little room in between.

Rich Hill still doesn’t inspire absolute confidence, but does offer upside that you should at least be willing to look at for a below average price against a struggling offense.

The Clear and Easy Top Choices – Jake Arrieta, Gerrit Cole

The Most Stable Mid-Range Option – Edinson Volquez (I can’t believe I just typed that)

The Potentially Underowned GPP Play – Luis Severino

The Upside, But Who Knows – Rich Hill, Dallas Keuchel, (gap), James Shields?

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

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