Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Wednesday, April 13th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-04-14 02:31:15

When I say today is our first full day of the baseball season, I don’t mean that every team is in action with a heavy 12 game night schedule today. I mean this is our first day with all the blanks filled in and it flows and looks great due to Brian (CruzintoVictory), whom I’ve previously not properly appreciated here I don’t think, making it all flow neatly on the page. All of today’s pitchers have pitched this season. Every team has played home and away. Tomorrow is a lighter day, but I want to mention that it might be worth a read even if you’re not playing because it allows us to get deeper in depth occasionally with maybe something that will be of use at a later date.

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 over the weekend, but Seamheads.com still seems to be behind, so we’ll give it a few more days before searching for another avenue.

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+.

Carlos Carrasco has been the most dominant of today’s pitchers over the past few seasons and may project for the top strikeout rate tonight after a 29.6 K% last season. He did get hit hard in his first outing (3 HRs) and not of concern yet, but of note, he’s down about a mph off last year’s velocity, though he did generate 10 swinging strikes against a tough team to strike out (Boston). The Rays have flashed some power at home in the early going (19.0 HR/FB) and against RHP (20.5 HR/FB), but it’s generally a very good park for pitchers in Tampa Bay and a lineup with some swing and miss in it.

Carlos Rodon is coming off what looks to be a great start by his line score in Oakland. I mentioned seeing a large number or hard hit outs and was called on it on Twitter (not in a bad way). Looking at batted ball information shows us 13 of 22 batted balls on the ground, which is excellent and a league average rate of 27.3% hard contact. Looking at the play log shows five “liner” or “fliner” (fly/liner combo) outs. It just so happened that a lot of his ground balls went for hits instead. The other thing was it seemed like he was always behind, but 61% of his pitches were strikes and he walked just one. However, he had just a 44.8 F-Strike%, so he was starting most plate appearances 1-0. So there was something there, though maybe not as much as I thought I saw. He also generated 12 swinging strikes and if his control problems are behind him, which I’m not ready to buy yet, he’ll be able to go deeper in to games more consistently. The Twins are off to a terrible start and represent a great opportunity in what should be a cold, difficult park to hit in. The Twins have struck out in a league leading 30.4% of their offensive opportunities.

Drew Smyly was bounced around by Toronto in his initial outing, for which we can’t get too worked up about. He did allow three HRs, but only five hard hit balls in total with 10 swinging strikes. Everything other than the HRs was pretty much in line, which is important because he missed more than half of 2015 with shoulder issues. He should be able to bounce back here at home against a more average offense and has the potential for one of the higher strikeout upsides tonight.

J.A. Happ out-pitched his peripherals in his first start, striking out just four of 26 batters, right? He generated 11 fly balls, seven line drives, and just two ground balls along with 40 Hard%, while stranding 92.1%. Well, yeah, most of that is pretty bad, but he did generate 12 swings and misses in 89 pitches. It remains to be seen if he’ll be able to continue to produce as he did in after being traded to Pittsburgh last year absent the miracle working pitching coach, but he faces a team that leans left-handed up top.

Jerad Eickhoff was very mediocre in his season debut against the Mets, but was lifted after five innings and didn’t miss many bats. He pitched well after coming over in the Hamels trade, but allows a lot of hard contact (35.8 Hard%) and doesn’t have overwhelming stuff at 90 mph, profiling as a mid-rotation pitcher. The Padres have been awful against RHP in the early going (68 wRC+, 24.6 K%).

John Lackey might find himself below on a lesser day, but there’s not much to say (more below) as he out-pitched his fairly average estimators. He’s in about an average spot at home against the Reds and that could change with the weather at Wrigley, but a quick early look at our Weather Page doesn’t show anything extreme. He encouragingly missed 11 bats in his season debut, but allowed two HRs in Arizona. We pretty much know who he is at this point.

Mike Leake had a terrible Cardinals debut, walking more than he struck out with a 50% line drive rate, missing just four bats. While not a pitcher who strikes out even close to a league average rate of batters, we know he’s better than that. The Brewers have a 27.3 K% so far though and could prop him up, especially in a very friendly new home park that should hold the ball.

Editor’s Note: Stephen Strasburg (illness) has been scratched from his start. Tanner Roark will start in his place.

Stephen Strasburg allowed just one run, but really under-performed against the same opponent with three walks and four strikeouts in his last start, but the Braves have otherwise been as terrible as expected when not facing either he or Scherzer. They’ve strangely walked much more frequently than expected (12.1% – 2nd in MLB), but have just a 1.9 HR/FB and 25.9 Hard% over the last week.

Yordano Ventura is perhaps the most interesting pitcher today. He made some real gains after the break last season (5 point jump in K% and decrease in Hard%) and sort of kept that up from a strikeout standpoint in his first start. However, he also walked six Twins and allowed much more hard contact than two hits might show. He doesn’t have the benefit of a spacious home park, but still has that same great defense tonight against a team that can do damage, but has struck out a ton (27.4%) so far.

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

Alex Wood was up over 90 mph last month and has held that velocity through his first start. He also generated 11 ground balls and just three hard hit balls. That’s all good, but he’s still not missing bats.

Alfredo Simon – Bombs away!! Good lord, he’s $7.6K on FanDuel! How??

Chase Anderson was impressive in his first start against Houston, shutting them out through five innings with five strikeouts and no walks, but he lasted just 18 batters (why only 85 pitches?) and had an average SwStr% against a team that swings and misses often. While I might have some interest in him in a pitcher’s park at a lower price, his first start didn’t move the needle for me that much and St Louis is not a team I’m comfortable testing here.

Colin Rea struck out five, but has also walked five of 25 batters faced so far. He had just a 19.6 K%, but just a 5.3 SwStr% last year in just 31.2 innings. I was ready to more quickly right him off as a 26 year old rookie with what seems to be average strikeout rates and some control issues in the minors, but then I saw 93 mph and a more positive Fangraphs player profile paragraph than I expected. The Phillies are terrible, but I’m still not paying $7K for him on DraftKings, nor venturing out on one pitcher sites with a double digit walk rate.

Jake Peavy

Joe Kelly missed eight bats in his first start and allowed just one fly ball. That fly ball left the yard as he allowed seven runs to the Blue Jays though, and he generally doesn’t miss enough bats. Now he takes on the hottest offense in baseball. Expect a lot of hard contact (see Batted Ball stats below).

Jordan Lyles

Matt Wisler has some talent and missed 10 bats in his first start, but allowed a lot of hard contact in the air and is still very much a work in progress at the major league level on a rebuilding team. If he is going to start missing bats more often now with good control, stay tuned.

Michael Pineda doesn’t often find his way down here and is perhaps the most surprising pitcher in this section, especially on a pitching light day, but he has under-performed relative to his strikeout and walk rates. Hard contact and HRs have been an issue and though he’s outside Yankee Stadium tonight, the Blue Jays are not an offense to be trifled with, especially when an under-achieving pitcher displays these type of issues. And although he doubled his GB/FB last year (1.62), his first start reverted to an extreme fly ball rate (0.63) much closer to his previous career number. I’ve surprisingly noticed that the Blue Jays have the 2nd highest K% (27.8) so far this season.

Phil Hughes only got four swings and misses against the Orioles. I saw just a little bit of that game and must have caught all four in a span of an inning or two because it looked like they were swinging and missing a lot. And I thought he had some kind of back issues to last year. Why is he still only throwing 90 mph?

Rubby de la Rosa did not allow a HR in his first start in Arizona against the Cubs. That’s an amazing development. He did allow a lot of hard contact and walked more than he struck out, lasting only three innings. The Dodgers will run out a heavily left-handed lineup, against which he’s allowed a .378 wOBA through 820 career PAs.

Ryan Vogelsong takes the spot start for Liriano in Detroit today. Bombs away!

Scott Feldman had a 13.5 K% last season and takes on the Royals. Look at his SwStr% in his last start before buying into the high K% and further understand it occurred against the Brewers.

Shane Greene hasn’t really pitched this season. He faced three batters in relief on the 5th of this month and was terrible last season after a promising first couple of starts.

Ubaldo Jimenez struck out nine Twins and perhaps more surprisingly, didn’t walk a single one. His 11.2 SwStr% might not match up but it’s still an impressive mark and three points higher than what he did last year. However, we thought Ubaldo was fixed before and things happened. The matchup in Boston with a Red Sox offense that doesn’t frequently strike out against RHBs is really what tips this over. If I were to move one pitcher from here to “meh” territory though, it would probably be him.

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 still using 2015 numbers a bit long until just about every pitcher has made a couple of starts, but also using this year’s stats in the “L30 Days” column. 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.

While there’s nothing particularly noteworthy among pitchers we might be interested in tonight, note that Stephen Strasburg did not have an extremely high SwStr% and could see a small dip in his K% should that remain so.

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.

Carlos Carrasco had a slightly elevated BABIP and a slightly below league average LOB% last year, but the defense is supposed to be improved this year (it couldn’t be much worse). The real issue was a 13.2 HR/FB and he didn’t do much to help that in his first start, already one-sixth of the way to last year’s total of 18.

Jerad Eichkoff generated a .257 BABIP despite no particular outstanding skills and stranded 80.4% of his runners last season.

John Lackey does not have a history of generating an ERA anywhere below his estimators and stranded 82.6% of his runners last season with essentially league average peripherals otherwise. As this is really the least controllable of the factors that go most into this type of thing, look for him to regress to averageness this year.

Stephen Strasburg – each of his HR/FB (12.4), BABIP, and LOB% (70.7) were a bit worse than league average. On their own, none were even that noticeable, but combined they set the stage for a sizeable gap between ERA and estimators. The most likely event is a settlement somewhere in between if his K% drops to around 25% or so.

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).

Don’t pay much attention to this year’s Team BABIP yet. The sample is way too small. Pitcher numbers are still from 2015.

Mike Leake had a career low .260 BABIP last year that you can’t expect him to replicate. He does have an acceptable .289 pitching in front of a very good defense his entire career. The Cardinals could potentially be a small step back from that, but not concerningly so.

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. However…..

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.

Carlos Carrasco carries the highest price tag on DraftKings and didn’t get off to a great start. He should find a few more strikeouts in this lineup. The velocity drop is something to watch, though he still generated an above average numbers of swinging strikes. You might lean more risk oriented today without any completely comfortable names on the board.

Carlos Rodon – I’m not sure I’m ready to pay up for him yet, but he’s in a great spot and as I mentioned just above, it seems the type of day to pay for talent and upside rather than look for relative safety, which may not be there.

Drew Smyly is slotted into the 3rd most expensive spot on both of the big two, although there’s more of a gap between him and the top two on FanDuel. Taking cost, matchup, and of course pitcher talent into the equation, I might be drawn more to Smyly than the two above, at least in cash games.

J.A. Happ – I was ready to give him a pass until I see how he fares for a while post Ray Searage, but a modest price below $8K on both major sites probably at least puts him in the conversation as most of the good (swinging strikes) and bad (lots of hard hit balls in the air) things he did in his first start are hidden beneath his resulting line score.

Jerad Eichkoff is right in the middle of the board and is kind of take or leave. I don’t see him as having any huge particular upside here, but he could do well enough. He might be a little expensive for my taste on DraftKings, but potentially reasonable considering the names around him. There’s just not much to say either way.

John Lackey might be slightly over-priced as an average pitcher in what looks like an average spot. However, he’s near the top of either board tonight. That speaks more to what else is available and why we’re even still talking about him. Relative to everyone else, he might be one of the more comfortable names tonight, but don’t expect too much.

Mike Leake is much the same as John Lackey here. He’s an established sort of league average pitcher, who may be over-priced, but might deserve consideration due to lack of strong options. Really, it’s the big ball park that a team like the strikeout prone Brewers should really struggle in.

Stephen Strasburg doesn’t always inspire total confidence, even against these Braves, but look up and down at these other characters on your pitcher pricing list and tell me you have any reliably stronger options.

Yordano Ventura showed some good things and some scary things in his first start and has perhaps the widest range of potential outcomes this evening. He has the potential to rack up some Ks tonight though, and like I’ve mentioned several times already, it’s a risk taking kind of night.

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

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