Advanced Stats Pitching Charts - Wed 6/25
To start with, below are the charts for all of Wednesday’s games (except for 1 – see explanation below) for those of you who like some daytime Daily Fantasy action, kicking off at noon. Pitcher notes for the night games will be added shortly. The K/SwStr and ERA Charts already include pitcher notes because they were completed the night before.
EDIT – Pitcher notes for late games have now been added!
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.
NOTE: The afternoon game in Colorado likely features Marco Gonzales vs Yohan Flande, or so I’ve read. Who? Exactly. You weren’t touching those 2 pitchers anyway, so I’m not going to drive myself nuts finding information or manually inserting them into the chart (which I have to do with pitchers who have no major league experience).
A.J. Burnett – gets the Marlins team we all expected at the start of the season. The offense has tanked. I’d caution the stellar Home xFIP though, since much of it was compiled in Pittsburgh last season.
Alex Wood – hasn’t pitched in the majors since 6/8 (in the minors since 6/18) and hasn’t started since 5/4. He gets the coldest bats in the majors, but how deep will he go?
Anibal Sanchez – whose last start we talk about under the ERA chart, also gets a surprisingly favorable matchup, but in the day’s toughest ballpark.
Dollar Brad Mills – faces the league’s suddenly hottest bats, a Mets team that has scored double digit runs in back to back games and feasted on Kazmir last night.
Chase Anderson – has mostly red in his ledger, against a tough team in a tough park.
Clay Buchholz – returns to face a Seattle team who has been hitting well lately.
Collin McHugh – who has come back down to earth lately and hasn’t gone more than 6 IP in any of his last 4, gets another of the day’s better matchups.
Corey Kluber – needs to survive his defense and the ballpark.
Dan Haren – has the KC dilemma. Most of it looks ok, except for the K-rate, which is a staple of the Royals offense, but also a problem of his own this year.
Drew Hutchison – has the day’s worst K-rate and hasn’t been good at home.
Edwin Jackson – gets a better Reds offense, but we’ll talk in the ERA chart why his peripheral stats could be mis-leading.
Garrett Richards – has become the Ace of the staff, with little concerning in his main line.
Hector Noesi – has NO right there in his name. With some dark red, you see the reason why.
Henderson Alvarez – keeps the ball on the ground and has a nice matchup, even if the K’s may be lacking.
Hiroki Kuroda – has today’s toughest matchup.
Hisashi Iwakuma – has been pitching well, is usually a better matchup at home due to HR issues, and gets a favorable matchup with Boston.
James Shields – has the top defense behind him, but hasn’t been pitching all that well and has a tough matchup.
Joe Saunders – against Detroit? In Texas?
Mat Latos – has had some issues since returning, but faces the best possible opponent for a RHP.
Ubaldo Jimenez – should have a NO in his name too.
Yohan Pino – faces tougher opposition in his 2nd start. There’s an error in the chart because I didn’t have Pino in my database when I originally posted. The Angels have a 107 wRC+ vs RHP.
Zack Wheeler – has been kind of up and down and faces a tough matchup for any RHP.
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.
Alex Wood – what you couldn’t see above, but see now and probably predicted, is that Wood would have had one of the greenest K%’s in today’s chart had those numbers all been available.
Dan Haren – will trend towards a lot of batted ball outcomes in today’s contest as nearly the perfect complement to the KC offense.
Drew Hutchison – combines his own faults with the Yankees incredible plate discipline over the last week.
Ubaldo Jimenez – that main chart walk rate is all his. The White Sox may not need to do much to help him along.
Yohan Pino- if they were to be shown, the Angels exhibit roughly league average K and BB splits vs RHP.
Combo Batted Ball Chart
Ditto for the Combo Batted Ball stats in the Main Chart above.
Anibal Sanchez – curiously has the day’s best HR/FB in Texas. While this lends mostly to his road and recent numbers, Texas doesn’t necessarily resist much here.
Chase Anderson – has a 28.8 LD% and the Indians hit the ball hard.
Edwin Jackson – has allowed 4 HR over his last 3 starts.
Henderson Alvarez – shows many reasons here why he should continue to keep the ball in the park, even in Philly.
Hiroki Kuroda – it’s more the Blue Jays that give him the best IFFB in today’s main chart than anything he does.
Hisashi Iwakuma – has allowed 5 HR’s in his last 4 starts, lending to sudden pause concerning his predicted success tonight.
Yohan Pino – not pictured, and potentially of interest, the Angels have the highest IFFB% (12.4) vs RHP.
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.
Alex Wood – has been in the bullpen for the last month and a half. I won’t draw too many conclusions on a total of 8.1 innings of work.
Brad Mills – got a total of 5 swings and misses in 94 pitches in his lone appearance of the season last week. Expecting a league average strikeout rate with that is more than a little optimistic. There’s a reason he was bought for $1.
Collin McHugh – after serving double digit SwStr rates in each of his first 5 starts to the season, he has only exceeded single digits once in his last 6 (although he does have a 9.8 & 9.9 in there).
Dan Haren – 5 K’s in his last start broke a string of 4 straight with exactly 2. That was the Padres though. His SwStr has remained rather consistent throughout the season, while his K-rate has dropped over the last month, which meant his string of 2’s were likely to turn into something better (assuming a continued SwStr pace). But not a lot better. It’s still pretty bad.
Ian Kennedy – is really borderline caution for the last month and has some of the best framing catchers in baseball, so I wouldn’t be concerned.
Ubaldo Jimenez – has already seen his K% drop over the last month and it may be in line to do so even more. He had a 1.9 SwStr% (just 2) in his last start against the Yankees! Yet he walked 6 and allowed just a single run. Go figure.
On a positive note, it makes me feel more confident about this process with almost every pitcher moving into the standard zone as the season gets deeper.
ERA Estimators Chart
How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.
Anibal Sanchez – has a career low 7.5 HR/FB, where he’s normally league average, explaining why he’s in line with his FIP. He’s allowed just 1 HR this year. In his last start, he didn’t strike out a single KC Royal, who don’t strike out, but a lot of times make weak contact, maybe also explaining the 1 ER allowed and playing havoc with his more recent estimators.
Chase Anderson – has never had a BABIP this low (.257) in the minors and although major league defenses are better, not by this much. See BABIP chart.
Clay Buchholz – has had one disastrous start over the last 30 days (5/26). His season has been a series of them. Health….questionable?
Collin McHugh – has a .255 BABIP, but we’ll talk about that more below. He’s also keeping the ball in the park. The BABIP and SwStr chart show some things that his estimators don’t take into account though (remember, they mostly care about K’s, BB’s, and HR’s).
David Price – has seen the ERA drop over the last month that his peripherals have predicted all season.
Edwin Jackson – may be another guy who just never matches up. At some point, we consider the actual results when it happens year after year (and this is the 4th in the last 5). In each of those 4 years, he’s had a BABIP of at least .313. He owns a 27.7 LD% this season.
Henderson Alvarez – because you can’t possibly sustain a 0.83 ERA. His estimators he may eventually allow a few HR’s as well.
Hisashi Iwakuma – has the same problem as he ever does, a career 14.0 HR/FB. He does have only a career 30.3 FB (fly ball not fastball)% though, so it’s not disastrous. I’d be more confident playing at home than in smaller parks though.
James Shields – over the last 30 days (5 GS – 31.1 IP – .337 BABIP – 7 HR – 22 K’s). The only thing has been working is his control (8 BB).
Marco Estrada – keeps serving them up, but now his K/BB is 2.89 instead of 4.07 (2013). All the cool kids are using K%-BB% now. That’s gone from 17.4% to 14.1% this year.
Stephen Strasburg – some crazy BABIP. More below.
Tim Lincecum – I stopped trying to figure him out last year. Your sanity begs you to do the same. There was something written on Fan/Rotographs recently about him having one of the straightest fastballs in the game, although I forget the exact numbers and can’t find the link right now.
Ubaldo Jimenez – see notes about last start above.
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).
Alex Wood – should see his BABIP normalize.
Anibal Sanchez – shows another reason his ERA estimators may be a run higher. He has a .297 career mark and is really doing nothing significant, at least that I can see, different this year.
Brad Mills- 5 of 11 balls in play were line drives and none we pop ups. I don’t know how he made it through that start without more damage done.
Chase Anderson – .257 BABIP and we just talked about his 28.8 LD%.
Clay Buchholz – has been bad and injured, but deserves some more BABIP lovin too.
Collin McHugh – shows some indicators here that if they continue on this path, may conspire to keep his BABIP lower than league and team average.
Corey Kluber – ugh that Cleveland defense, although it should still come down somewhat with that excellent pop up rate.
Edwin Jackson – as mentioned in the ERA chart, carries a high BABIP normally and his LD rate is out of this world, so he may be the exception to a lot of rules.
Joe Saunders – I guess it’s time to say something nice about him. He carries a .299 career BABIP, so it should normalize.
Mat Latos – just 2 starts.
Stephen Strasburg – not only didn’t lower his BABIP in his last start, but the .444 mark actually increased it! His LD rate is 22.8%, which isn’t great, but there’s really nothing visible to suggest that this should continue for much longer.
Ubaldo Jimenez – batters are so surprised to see a pitch in the strike zone that they often become flustered and pop it up.
Zack Wheeler – has a 54.5 GB% and this looks like a few too many getting through with a decent 18.5 LD%.
Pitcher Notes & Summary
A.J. Burnett – hasn’t been spoken about yet, but has thrown at least 7 innings in 5 of his last 6 and remains a good matchup play against a Marlin offense that many may not know has gone cold yet. Your caution would be that he’s struck out 4 or less in each of his last 4 starts (exactly 3 3x), but the Marlins again may help with that if you look at the KBB Chart up top.
Alex Wood – went 5 in his last minor league outing a week ago. He could be ok if you think he’ll give you length, but he’s not all that cheap.
Anibal Sanchez – the park, the price, and the suspect BABIP might make this a tough stretch despite the matchup.
Collin McHugh – as has been talked about in a few spots today, neither his ERA nor his estimators may tell the entire story here. It’s a sneaky decent spot, but may depend on comfort level with his price.
Corey Kluber – surprisingly, I don’t have much to say about him today. It’s a tough park, but he’s fared well enough in those this season. Strikeouts always help, but the D’Backs don’t do much of that and he’s gone through a stretch of 4 starts with 6 or less. I guess that’s why he didn’t blast out to me anywhere today.
Dan Haren- if you believe the Dodgers will catch the ball, 6 IP and 3 ER’s is almost exactly what he’s given you every time out, but there’s a realistic chance he puts up another 2 in the K column….if not worse.
Edwin Jackson – the peripherals and the price tag combine to make him look like a reasonable option. The real life results may debate that.
Garrett Richards – is becoming a guy you shouldn’t fear paying the top of the board price he’s beginning to command in decent spots. He’s allowed a total of 2 ER’s with 30 K’s (6 BB’s) over his last 4 starts (27 IP). There’s nothing scary in any of his charts today.
Henderson Alvarez – should be able to continue the strong performance he’s shown lately, now with increased strikeouts, making him Daily Fantasy relevant.
Hisashi Iwakuma – comes down to whether he can keep the ball in the park or not. If so, with a very good matchup (and it still feels strange to call Boston that), he could be among the night’s top pitchers. In the last 6 starts where he’s allowed 1 HR or less, he’s allowed a total of 6 ER’s. He’s had 3 starts with 2 HR’s and 4+ ER’s allowed mixed in though.
James Shields – is another top reputation, with caution signs today.
Mat Latos – you love the matchup, but there is concern about the performance and velocity drop since returning. Hopefully it’s more rust than anything else.
Ubaldo Jimenez – again…..2 Swinging Strikes, 6 BB’s, and just 1 ER in his last start!
Zack Wheeler – could be interesting today in that, much like his season, there a lot of good and bad. Aside from Oakland’s ability to handle RHP, they did not do so last night and Wheeler looked great last time out (9 IP – 3 H – 0 ER – 1 BB – 8 K) against a sinking Marlins team. He’s shown stretches, like a 3 game one in late May where he gets his breaking ball over for strikes, gets ahead, and can dominate with electric stuff (3 BB’s total). Then over the next 2 starts prior to his latest (5 BB’s total), it was ball 1, ball 2, followed by a line drive, where he was even banged around by the Padres. I’d be more apt to take a contrarian shot on good Wheeler in GPP’s at a decent price because his good can be dominant.
You can find me on twitter @FreelanceBBall for any questions, comments, or insults.