Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Tuesday, April 5th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-04-06 02:15:28

And now it seems the 2016 baseball season is in full swing with all except the Marlins and Tigers playing at least one game. As we move on two most teams’ second starters and some teams’ third, what we notice today is several mound dwellers debuting for new teams (five of the 18 on the mound tonight to be exact) and as such it makes even more sense to use fielding independent stats to evaluate them in new homes.

We still aren’t loading 2016 stats for another couple of days even though there are one game samples available because they don’t mean really anything and in some cases would just make things appear even more a mess. You shouldn’t be discouraged with the lack of stats here yet though because what’s going on in the RG Research center is amazing in terms of additional articles, stats, and reports. I’m sure almost all of you are already familiar with the offerings, but if not, you’re already here. You might end up staying all day though.

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 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+.

Andrew Heaney was below average from a bat missing standpoint last year and really kept his ERA under four by keeping the ball in the park pitching in a lot of big parks. On his own merits, he’d likely be easily dismissed here, but just like yesterday, we’re going to acknowledge that while the Cubs will score some runs, they’ll also pile up the strikeouts. Case in point would be Garrett Richards striking out seven, while allowing three runs and nine base runners over five innings. The Cubs struck out a whopping 26.2% against LHPs last year.

Johnny Cueto was terrible after leaving Cincinnati. We always suspected that his low BABIP and high strand rate would come back on him a little bit, but the underlying stuff had improved to the point that where his K% was well above average. Last year, that came back on him as well. He posted a .281 BABIP and .237 LOB% and you saw what he becomes when those metrics even out. It’s not a bad pitcher with an ERA around three and a half and he still bounced back in the post-season and cashed in not only financially, but he put himself in one of the best situations that he could possibly be in. However, he’s not in San Francisco tonight. Milwaukee is a tough park, but the Brewers are rebuilding with some high strikeout bats.

Jon Lester is our meat and potatoes today. This is the least flawed pitcher on the board aside from the fact that he can’t throw to first. Hopefully, he won’t have to much today. His start in Chicago was rough as a high line drive rate drove his BABIP up early, but that ended up evening out and he put up typical Jon Lester numbers by the end of the season. The Angels had one of the lower K-rates vs LHP (18.6%) last year, but also just an 88 wRC+. The lineup looks a bit different this year, but the key players are still the same and the park favors pitching.

Jon Niese should improve a little bit with a better infield defense behind him, but the strikeout rate needs to rebound to at least above 15%. He’s also in an incredible part for right-handed power suppression, which should help bring his HR rate more in line with previous rates. The Cardinals don’t look like they’d be overly susceptible to left-handed pitching, but they tied for the 2nd highest K% (23.6) with an 83 wRC+ (6th worst) against them. I expect them to be better this year, but maybe that was some form of bounce back karma for that extremely high batting average with runners in scoring position a few years ago.

Jose Quintana struggled early in the season, but was his typical self the rest of the way and turned in another fine season for a bad team. He’d likely get more attention if he weren’t pitching behind Chris Sale, but everything about him is just a bit better than average. The A’s will run out a lineup mostly comprised of RHBs, but there are really no names that should concern you, especially with the park upgrade he receives tonight.

Justin Verlander turned in a 2.27 ERA over his final 99 innings last season and had a 23.6 K% in the 2nd half. Part of that was HR suppression (5.4% in 2nd half), but does have a 7.8% career rate. The velocity didn’t bounce back, but 93 mph is still above average. He’s unlikely to ever be as good as he once was again because that was an outrageous peak, but he can still be a guy that batters struggle to square up, generating a lot of weak contact and striking out batters at an above average rate. That’s a good pitcher. He gets the Marlins, who should be better than they were last season, but that’s not saying much.

Michael Wacha underachieved last year in nearly every metric except his ERA. The underlying numbers told the picture of a merely average pitcher by strikeout and walk rate. Not even his hard contact rate was exceptional and he had a slightly double digit HR rate, which, as a Cardinal, isn’t all that common in a great park. The spot isn’t terrible today. The Pirates are a decent offense, but play in a pitcher’s park with most of their thump coming from the RH side.

Scott Kazmir has struggled down the stretch seemingly every season since his revival, but the difference was that last year, the signs were there in his estimators the whole way and he still beat them by a run. By strikeouts and walks, he was just average and much less in the 2nd half (16.8 K%). Both his hard hit rate (28.4%) and HR/FB (12.1) were significantly higher after the break as well. Yes, he was traded from Oakland to Houston, but park effects don’t explain all of it. The one thing he has done the last three years was start strong and he could do so again. The Padres lean heavily right-handed, but in a normally pitching friendly park (though the ball flew out last year and the Dodgers opened with 15 runs yesterday). None of this seemed to bother Kershaw, but now we’re talking about an entirely different species to whom none should be compared.

Shelby Miller is not a bad pitcher, but what Arizona valued him as in that trade is borderline ridiculous. Strangely, he became the sabermetric “Kill the Win” poster-boy from non-sabermetric fans when he went 6-17 with a 3.02 ERA, but few actually noticed that his ERA beat the crap out of his estimators due to a 6.4 HR/FB. Colorado is a much diminished offense away from Coors, but as they proved last night, Arizona is far from a pitcher’s park.

Wei-Yin Chen suddenly becomes interesting as a HR prone fly ball pitcher, moving from an extremely tough park in a tough division to one of the bigger parks in baseball in a great division. However, the Marlins “(classname)shortened and lowered the fences(title tooltip)”:http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/sports/baseball/marlins-park-dimensions-shorter-fences-lower-but-s/nqyGw/ though it will still play much friendlier than Baltimore. He also has the misfortune of against the 2nd best offense in baseball vs LHP last year (120 wRC+), though they do sacrifice a DH today.

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)

We’re probably not going to use this section a lot through the first week otherwise guys like Kazmir and Miller might show up here if they replicate their 2015 and are priced like All Stars.

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

Aaron Sanchez needs to prove he can throw strikes, miss bats, and keep the ball in the yard as a starter, none of which he did last year.

Chad Bettis didn’t get much better away from Coors and Arizona is not a much more favorable park.

Chris Bassitt surprised some people last year when he showed an extra mile and a half per hour on his fastball and got a shot in the rotation over the summer before tanking down the stretch, failing to strike out more than four in any of his last five starts. The White Sox should be improved offensively, but I’m still almost interested in this pitcher from a pure stuff standpoint, but just don’t think he’s cheap enough on either site to entertain further.

Hisashi Iwakuma struck out more than seven just four times last season and three of them were in his last four starts. In the other of those four starts, he struck out one. That last month pushed his strikeout rate for the season above average. He generally compliments this with excellent control, so the many HRs he allows don’t do as much damage. He has a 13.8 career HR/FB, which actually drops to 12.7 on the road, but without confidence in his ability to consistently miss bats at an above average rate, I’m very hesitant to pay a high price for him. This is even more so on the road. Despite Texas being a little less hitter friendly lately, it’s still not a pitcher’s park. I’m looking at him as a mid-rotation pitcher that’ll cost you a bit more than that right now.

Jake Odorizzi actually increased his SIERA by a quarter of a run last season while his ERA dropped by over three quarters of a run. Each of his BABIP (24 points), his K% (2.8 points), his BB% (1.6 points) and his FB% (8.1 points) dropped significantly last year. As I attempt to look for differences in approach on Brooks Baseball, it looks like he drastically changed his pitch usage from 2014 to start last season, but then changed it back after the All Star break. Sure enough, his K%, BB%, HR/FB, and FB% all increased by a noticeable amount in the 2nd half. Unfortunately for him, he has a bit of reverse platoon split both last year and for his career. This makes him a concern against Toronto despite the great home environment. And that’s the most I’ll probably ever write about two pitchers I’m not recommending at all.

James Shields had a 26.9 K% at home last season, but also a 21.1 HR/FB. While his K% declined in the 2nd half, his HR rate did not. The volatility makes him a big risk at a high cost against an offense that has some thump despite the injuries.

Jimmy Nelson is a guy I might be neutral to or even favor in a better spot. He actually had a 3.42 xFIP and 23.6 K% at home in a tough park. He also allowed a 15.4 HR/FB and 29.8 Hard% at home last season and the Giants can rake. The home park keeps their perception in check, but they often show up on the road in better parks. Today’s price tags and matchups are pretty tough.

Martin Perez generated a ton of weak ground balls last season (59.9 GB%, 3.4 Hard-Soft%) and allowed just three balls to leave the park. That should help him in this matchup, but he does not generate enough swing and miss to be interesting from a daily fantasy perspective. The difference between he and Niese is small and they both face under-achieving teams vs LHP last year, but Niese is in a much better park.

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.

With everyone measuring between 1.89 and 2.53 and the band even tighter than that outside just a couple of pitchers, nobody stands out today. Just another reinforcement that nearly every pitcher (under the age of 40 at least) conforms to his SwStr rate.

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.

Andrew Heaney had a 7.0 HR/FB last year, which is not entirely unsustainable in his home park.

Justin Verlander – We’ve already talked about the HR prevention and that’s something he’s done well throughout his career. The BABIP was a bit low as well, but he’s had seasons like that before and the defense was a bit better than what he’s used to. He generates pop-ups and gets a lot of misses and weak contact in the zone. He’s traditionally beaten his estimators by about a quarter of a run and while he may not be that guy anymore, there’s some wiggle room. Three in a half looks about right if healthy.

Martin Perez allowed just three HRs last season, but also a .324 BABIP and 62.8 LOB%. The strand rate almost has to improve, but the BABIP could continue to be an issue (.311 career). The interesting thing is that both his LD% (17.9) and IFFB% (13.8) were by far career bests, so it might seem he was really misfortunate last year on ground balls. He throws so many of them (ground balls) that he only generated 8 pop-ups despite the high mark.

Michael Wacha over-achieved through a 5.5 HR/FB in 2014. Last year it was a .272 BABIP when the HR rate doubled. However, he’s been below .280 in two of his three years so far. His indicators are slightly above average and the defense as a batted ball neutral pitcher should be ok, so it’s not really extreme.

Scott Kazmir ran the 2nd lowest BABIP of his career (.273) and his lowest since 2008. Now, he went from an atrocious defense in a great park to a better and very shifty one in a tougher park, but his BABIP was actually nearly 20 points higher after the trade. There is some concern that he’ll go from All Star last year to average if his strikeout rate doesn’t rebound, but he can still be a useful pitcher and is more likely to start strong and fade.

Shelby Miller – Arizona must really believe in ERA over this SIERA/xFIP/FIP garbage (if they even understand what they measure) because they sacrificed an awful lot to acquire two of the biggest peripheral beaters in the league last year. They hope he fares better than Greinke in his debut and he should, but he’s going to a much tougher park and is likely losing something defensively too. Expect that 6.4 HR/FB from 2015 to double as he sat at 10.1 and 9.9 in each of his first two seasons in another great pitcher’s park in St Louis.

Wei-Yin Chen had a career high 80.5 LOB%. Mediocre bat missers generally don’t come close to that mark, but his 11.2 HR/FB should improve with his transition to Miami.

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).

Jose Quintana has a career high .327 BABIP mostly due to a 23.2 LD%. It was the highest mark in his four seasons, but his 21.8% career mark is a little bit high and with no other positive indicators and a mediocre defense, we might expect him to continue to run around .300. He’s countered that by doing a decent job of suppressing HRs (8.5 career) in a tough park.

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.

Importantly, there are many good, but flawed pitchers going on Day Two (otherwise they’d be going on Day One, right?). A lot of pitchers seem to be over-priced early or in bad spots, which is the opposite of yesterday, so we’re crossing out some guys you’d normally consider and stretching for some guys you might rather not. Corey Kluber cost the same as Wei-Yin Chen.

Andrew Heaney is immediately one of those stretches as his estimators were much higher than his ERA, but the Cubs struck out at an absurd rate against LHP last year. That makes him one of the more attractive (if risky) pitchers near the bottom of the board.

Johnny Cueto is the 2nd highest price today and may not be the lock he was before the trade to Kansas City last year, but is still in a great spot with a lot of upside.

Jon Lester is the top dog today and the most likely to cover his salary the most often in this spot. I expect him to have extremely high ownership in H2H and DU contests today.

Jon Niese doesn’t have much upside and I expect the Cardinals to be better vs LH pitching, but if you really need to hit the bottom of the board, he’s in a decent spot and should have some kind of reasonable floor at least, although if things break right Sanchez or Bassitt could have more upside. Those two are also more likely to implode though.

Jose Quintana is a pretty reasonable choice behind Lester today. He may not have the upside some other pitchers today do, but is in a pretty safe spot and should carry less risk than a lot of other guys. I could see a lot of people pairing him with Lester in cash games.

Justin Verlander has a higher ceiling, but might be a bit more volatile than Quintana for a similar price. I can see him being over-owned by casual players in cash games (though not a terrible move) who see that upside, but I think I really like him more for GPPs.

Michael Wacha should be fine, but also probably over-owned for the lower ceiling he’s shown over the last year. As opposed to Verlander, I think he’s more of a cash game pitcher today for those looking for a safer floor.

Scott Kazmir has an uncertain floor and ceiling after last year. I suspect he’ll be over-valued and really don’t think I’d be drawn to him in either format on Fan Duel, but he can be of some use on two pitcher sites at a lower price in San Diego.

Shelby Miller is another play for the casual fan who knows that Wins are over-rated. However, the cost is marginal enough that he probably makes more sense than just about anybody below him. As I’ve said, it’s not that he’s a bad pitcher, but he’s not being priced for his ERA today. I’m less certain about what to do with him than probably any other pitcher today.

Wei-Yin Chen is probably going to see better days in a Miami uniform, but he’s probably accurately priced today, which probably doesn’t offer you much excess value. It’s not the best matchup and we’ll have to say how the park plays with the changes, although there are guys on both side that can hit it out of any park.

Questions, comments, and insults can be directed to @FreelanceBBall on Twitter.

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