Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Wednesday, April 20th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-04-21 02:24:30

I finished the entire article before realizing I never wrote an introduction. We’re at nearly 5K words now after finding so many interesting things to talk about today, so I don’t think I will write one, unless I just did exactly that by telling you that I won’t.

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+.

Bartolo Colon is not going to continue to strike out a quarter of the batters he faces. His 7.7 SwStr%, up from last year so far and a higher mark than he’s had in a decade, doesn’t even begin to suggest such things. If we don’t know who he is at this point, then we don’t know who anybody is. He has walked just 3.3% of the batters he’s faced over the last two calendar years. The strikeouts are usually just enough to keep him useful and the contact could go either way. Lucky for him the Phillies are a young group of impatient hitters who make some of the weakest contact in the league as a group (0.6 Hard-Soft% on the season).

Chris Archer hasn’t finished six innings in any of three starts with an ERA and FIP of nearly six! What’s wrong? First, he faced the Blue Jays and Orioles, two top offenses, which accounts for a lot of the hard contact, though a 47.7 Hard% is absurd. A double digit walk rate is also not going to work no matter how many bats you’re missing because you’ll be gone by the 6th inning, which he has been in every start. Lastly, even though he’s missing bats at about the same rate as last season, he’s down about 1.5 mph. It’s not as big a deal as it looks because he started throwing harder over the summer last year, but it’s still his lowest April velocity in on record so far according to Brooks Baseball. Now he gets the Red Sox, which is not a walk in the park again, but they can be pitched to. Some of this is more concerning than other aspects (walk rate, sizable dip in velocity), though it’s not panic time yet. I’m of the mind he’ll figure most of it out, but maybe last year was a career year too with his best full year walk rate at any level by far.

Drew Pomeranz has walked six of the 45 batters he’s faced, but has also struck out 15 of them with the overwhelming highest SwStr% on the board (17.0) through two starts. He’s been above 16.5% in each of his two starts in Philadelphia and Colorado. Now, those are two teams that we know are going to swing and miss, but Brooks Baseball has him reintroducing a changeup he hasn’t used much in the past on 12% of his pitches. Fangraphs is calling it a knucklecurve he’s not throwing 40% of the time. Whatever it is, it’s working. The Pirates aren’t as whiff happy, but you have to call pitching in Petco and upgrade over Colorado. You obviously want to see less walks, but the rest of the package looks interesting so far.

Ian Kennedy seemed like a great fit in Kansas City independent of what people thought of the overall contract and he has pitched his first two games like he’s worth that money (13.2 IP – 1 ER – 3 BB – 14 K – 1 HR – 48 BF). Home runs or hard contact in general was the issue and while that has continued (32.3 Hard% in 2016 – 32.2 Hard% career), he has a better defense than ever behind him and a big park. His career strikeout rate is 21.8%, but it’s been above 24% each of the last two years and now close to 30% through two starts with a 12.1 SwStr% well above his 10.7% career high. I wouldn’t expect him to continue on nearly at that level, but don’t see why he can’t be good in Kansas City. The Tigers have been pounding RHP, but also striking out a good amount against them (26.4 K%).

Jeremy Hellickson got mauled in his last start, lasting three innings against Washington, but has had at least a 9.9 SwStr% in each of his starts and pitched well in his previous two. He has a 20.0 K-BB%, but frequent hard contact and as a fly ball pitcher with a double digit HR/FB could hurt him at home against a Mets team that has homered ten times in the first two games of the series.

Joe Ross has pitched almost the same exact game twice: completed seven innings with two walks and five strikeouts in each with one total run allowed. His SwStr% is down about a point and a half, but still above average and he’s still primarily a sinker/slider guy over 90% of the time. With a strong ground ball rate he nearly mimics his brother and only five of his 40 batted balls have been classified as hit hard so far. There are some obvious issues with the ERA that we’ll get to below, but he’s otherwise pitched fine as he did last year.

Kendall Graveman has some interesting stuff going on that’s not easily seen in the surface numbers or even some of the peripherals. We see a low ERA, but also a gap between that and the estimators and a low K%, a K% the same as last year (15%). Then it’s a low BABIP and high strand rate. Case solved. He’s not this good. You’re probably right and that’s where I often left it last year, but a few things are different. Let’s keep going. He has kept 23 of his 32 batted balls on the ground and has induced more weak contact than hard (-5.7 Hard-Soft%) so far, just 11.1 innings. Among pitchers with at least 20 batted balls, he is tied with Syndergaard for the 6th lowest exit velocity (83.47). It’s an honor to be tied with Syndergaard for anything at this point, right? With all the ground balls, he’s 11th in average distance (181.66 ft). Now look at his SwStr%. He has induced 20 whiffs through two starts. Maybe he reverts to last year more than his surface numbers reflect what the pitches have actually done at this early point, but does this seem like the type of profile that might have a chance at Yankee Stadium, against a lineup that’s been merely ok against RHP over the last year or so?

Madison Bumgarner was roughed up in his last start and in two of his last three, but I saw some encouraging signs. His velocity was still down from last year, but at least where it was last April in his last start. He allowed two more HRs (four in two road starts), but at least only walked one with seven strikeouts and an 11.0 SwStr%. His K% is where it needs to be and he’s walked a total of two in his last two starts. He still allowed a lot of hard contact, but less than his last two starts. There was some talk about illness and nagging injury entering the season, so it’s possible, maybe even probable, that he’s healing up, which is fantastic news with so many other aces seemingly ailing early on. Look at the high priced pitchers on today’s (and yesterday’s) boards. Who do you trust? I’ve been saying that Arizona is an average offensive team in a suppressive park the last two days as they beat on mediocre Giant pitchers. We’ll try again with a better pitcher who might be putting it together in his fourth start tonight.

Nathan Eovaldi pitches in the wrong state to average 97 mph if he wants attention. Another problem is that it’s coming right back at him as hard as he throws is (93.3 avg exit velocity is 11th among 20 batted balls or more). He’s allowing a ton of hard contact in the air with four HRs already in just under 12 innings. However, he’s faced the Blue Jays and Astros, two teams that hit the ball really hard, so I have confidence he’ll straighten that out some. He’s also missing more bats, not enough for his 30.0 K%, but more. We have to preface that too by saying he’s faced two teams that have swung and missed a lot though. We do know there is active change in his pitch selection though as he continues to throw his splitter a quarter of the time (he started doing that in the 2nd half last season) and it continues to generate more swings and misses for him. He faces a lesser offense finally today.

Rick Porcello has struck out 15 of 50 batters and allowed four HRs. There’s a lot of noise in both those numbers. His SwStr% is down, well below league average. He’s faced the Blue Jays in both starts and generated a lot of weak contact (2nd lowest exit velocity 20 batted balls or more – 82.35 mph). I see potentially better things in his future and the Rays have struck out 27.2% of the time vs RHP so far. This may be an under-rated offensive unit overall, but it is a lineup with some swing and miss in it.

Ross Stripling may have pitched better in his second start where he actually struck out several more batters than he walked. He still projects as a back end of the rotation guy, but he’s generating a lot of grounders (54.5%) and weak contact (0.0 Hard-Soft%), which should allow him to handle the Braves (4.3 HR/FB, -2.3 Hard-Soft% vs RHP).

Zack Greinke is paying up on his deal with the devil last season, so expect his ERA to run double his estimators. No, that’s not really the way this works. His velocity is in line with last April and he’s really looked better since a couple of innings into his 2nd start, not that you can judge these things well after facing the Padres. I really expect him to return to the guy he was last year with an expectation of an ERA in the low threes. The tough Giants offense probably wipes out a lot of the gains of pitching in a great park, making this a somewhat average spot.

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 (.295 BABIP – 72.3 LOB% – 10.8 HR/FB)

Jimmy Nelson (.157 BABIP – 90.9 LOB% – 23.5 HR/FB) – We’re dumping so many words on so many pitchers I didn’t expect to today that we’re just going to add a 5.4 SwStr% over three starts and leave this as what it is.

Jordan Zimmerman (.205 BABIP – 100 LOB% – 0.0 HR/FB) – He is generating exceptionally weak contact (12.8 Hard%, 84.13 exit velocity), but has just 10 swinging strikes in two games and faces a team that, although they’re striking out a bit more early this year, has built a reputation on not striking out. Five run gaps between ERA and estimators generally don’t hold up too well. I’m sure the estimators and SwStr% will have some positive movement to them too and eventually meet somewhere in the middle.

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

Cole Hamels has pitched progressively worst in each of his three starts, walking five and striking out just eight over his last two (47 batters). Additionally, in Monday’s MASH report, Jeff Zimmerman noted that his velocity is down 1.7 mph and his Zone% down seven points! The sub-three ERA can be explained by the 90.9 LOB%. The Rangers would probably rather that he’s hurt than he just suddenly sucks. And oh yeah, he’s facing the Astros, who pummel lefties. Here’s an idea: stack Astros! The one thing I would say he does continue to have going for him is that he’s maintained a double digit SwStr% in every start, though also decreasing in each one, and the Astros tend to strike out. It still seems higher risk than reward though.

Doug Fister is barely averaging 85 mph and topping out nowhere near the 90 mph someone said he was hitting in March. This all adds up to a 5.9 SwStr%, which is essentially what he’s done ever since being traded from Detroit, who maybe wasn’t so dumb.

Jeff Locke does have a 9.6 BB% and is facing the Padres, making this more difficult, but he’s throwing so many balls out of the strike zone that he’s walking everyone before he can get to strike three. He’s walked nine of the 49 batters he’s faced. A quick look at the plate discipline shows that he’s actually increased his Zone% from 43.3% to 50%, but has just an 18.8 O-Swing% compared to a 72.4 Z-Swing%. His Z-Contact% is not much higher than his O-Contact%. He’s not fooling anybody, but they’re still swinging and missing at strikes? What the…..? It’s gotta be some ridiculous small sample size thing because he walked seven and threw nearly 50% balls in his last start. He’s had a near average SwStr% with a low K% his entire career so far. This was supposed to be the easy pass today.
Julio Teheran moves back a day after being scratched on Tuesday. He has pitched better at home, but has a tough matchup and continues to command an upper tier price tag for some unknown reason.

R.A. Dickey has had a double digit SwStr% in all three starts. That’s interesting on another day where he’s not facing the Orioles (21.1 HR/FB vs RHP). The knuckleball is traditionally a little less controllable in the fickle April weather too.

Tommy Milone is suddenly a ground ball machine (60%)? A few more changes and a few less curves, but same guy otherwise. Four of nine fly balls have left the yard so that hasn’t changed.

Ubaldo Jimenez projects for a lower ERA because his estimators believe in his strikeout rate and they don’t know his nine strikeouts, no walks came against the stumbling Twins in his first start. I’d buy the four walks and five strikeouts in his second start more. It seems like I’m touting the power of the Toronto offense pounding some of these pitchers early as the reason why some of their numbers look worse than you’d expect. However, now I’m going to contradict myself and tell you the Blue Jays have been striking out a lot and hitting the ball with league average authority early on. Go ahead, look below. There is no way in hell I’m rostering this guy against them.

Wei-Yin Chen looked bad against Detroit and good against the Braves. Let’s split the middle. However, his velocity was equally down two mph in both starts and he missed one in between due to an elbow issue. Paging Dr. Andrews! The Nationals have 97 PAs vs LHP, one of the lower marks in the league. They’ve destroyed LHP in that time. Their lineup leans heavily RH, but the two lefties are still the best bats vs LHP since last season. The keywords are still elbow and velocity though.

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.

Bartolo Colon hasn’t had a SwStr% above 6.4% in over a decade (2005), so I wouldn’t expect any of this to continue.

Kendall Gravemen had a 7.6 SwStr% with a similar K% last season. We’re not yet at any stabilization point and this could revert, but he only had a double digit SwStr% in four games last year and none as high as his 13.3% in his last start.

Nathan Eovaldi certainly won’t hold this K% and maybe not the SwStr%, but there’s hope for that and perhaps an above average K%.

Rick Porcello has been the biggest farce early on, but let him face someone other than the Blue Jays before judging him too harshly.

Zack Greinke struck out just five of 29 Padres on a 13.7 SwStr%. He’s been above 13% in each of his two starts.

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.

Chris Archer has allowed five HRs on 12 fly balls and a .436 batting average on those balls that have stayed in the yard. I guess the good news is that 21 of his 44 batted balls have been on the ground. Additionally, his 90.76 exit velocity and 214.06 average distance are not among league leaders, mostly due to all those ground balls and two of the seven fly balls that stayed in the yard stayed in the infield as well.

Ian Kennedy is going to be the first person in baseball history with a perfect strand rate. Let’s give him the .200 BABIP too while we’re at it.

Jeremy Hellickson has just a 49.2 LOB%, which means that he’s been pitching really well.

Joe Ross has been exceptional in inducing a ton of weak contact, but he still has about as much chance as Kennedy of sustaining that .200 BABIP or 91.7 LOB%. And somebody is going to hit the ball in the air hard enough to carry out of the park eventually too.

Kendall Graveman won’t sustain that BABIP because nobody does, but everything weak and/or on the ground would be an optimal way to try.

Madison Bumgarner will see improvement in his 20.0 HR/FB and .349 BABIP.

Nathan Eovaldi has faced two powerhouse offenses leading to a 25.0 HR/FB and 63.8 LOB%. However, I’m not buying entirely into the K% in his estimators as already mentioned.

Rick Porcello – Again, let’s see him face someone other than the Blue Jays because all of the stuff that stays in the park has been handled.

Ross Stripling – Look at that stupid BABIP! Like every pitcher, HRs will come, but maybe just not tonight?

Zack Greinke – I’m not even really buying into his estimators yet because I expect to see more strikeouts. His BABIP is up over 100 points and his LOB% down over 25 points with his HR/FB nearly doubled through three starts vs last year.

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.

Bartolo Colon – Catch the damn baseball, Mets! His current 1.6 GB/FB is way more lopsided than any mark he’s had in his career. Unfortunately, he’s not generating any more ground balls (44.4% is not too far from what’s done career). The fly balls have turned into line drives, but his 27.8 LD% is higher than his 26.3 Hard%, so don’t worry I guess? He’s somehow kept his ERA relatively in check with an 88.2 LOB%. Lots of strikeouts combined with one walk so far. That’s how you do that.

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.

Bartolo Colon is the 2nd lowest price on the board on DraftKings, but middle of the board on FanDuel where a pitcher has less control over their score. The W factor on FanDuel likely makes him useful on either site, but potentially an enormous value on DraftKings against the Phillies, who have yet to even reach double digit hits in a game this year. The strikeouts project to drop by about a third though.

Chris Archer is still the highest priced FanDuel pitcher. Forget about it with his current issues. I was surprised to see him at just $8.5K on DraftKings until diving into all of his issues. The high strikeout floor and upside still afford him some potential value there, but strictly in GPPs right now.

Drew Pomeranz – Who knew he has this in him? Sure, it’s only two starts against two bad teams (one was in Colorado though) and the control is an issue, but that’s why the cost is so low.

Ian Kennedy seems to offer nearly equal risk and reward when taking his price into consideration. He could strike out a fair number of Tigers and has the park and defense in his favor, but it’s still a hot and dangerous lineup that he’s facing. The range of potential outcomes here feels fairly large, but you can say that about a lot of pitchers today, though his doesn’t hinge as much on a questionable walk rate as some others.

Jeremy Hellickson – Well, I guess you can worry about the Mets hitting another four or five HRs, but they don’t all have to be off him as most of their damage has been done against the pathetic Phillies bullpen the last two days. I was ready to pass considering his hard contact and fly ball heavy profile, but he’s missing more bats and throwing more strikes than he ever has in his career. Maybe a couple mph slower at this point, but this is who we thought he was supposed to be as a prospect a few years ago. Add another low priced pitcher with some risk and some unexpected upside to the pile tonight.

Joe Ross seems like a revelation today in that he’s one of very few pitchers who seems to be what he is and that’s it. I’m not talking about his ERA obviously, but he throws his sinker and generates a lot of weak contact on the ground when he’s one. He throws his slider and gets enough strikeouts to be useful in a daily fantasy sense and maybe a few more on a good day. He has a decent matchup against the Marlins in a decent park. Basically, he’s worth his price and maybe more so on FanDuel where it’s slightly lower.

Kendall Graveman is normally a pitcher I avoided last year when others liked him. He just wasn’t missing enough bats. So far, the batted ball stuff looks even better, he’s throwing harder (did I neglect to mention that?), and he’s missing more bats. Yes, just two starts and I expect regression, but he might still be better and this is the type of profile that might survive Yankee Stadium. It costs you very little at the bottom of the board to find out.

Madison Bumgarner is another high profile pitcher who you might be hesitant to fully trust after a few rough April starts, but there were good signs in his most recent work. The cost is high and there remains more risk than usual in this arm, but I think he’s on the right path and should show up tonight.

Nathan Eovaldi finally doesn’t face an offensive beast and while I’m buying into some increase in his K%, be careful not to expect too much. He could be one of the better performers at one of the more mediocre prices on DraftKings, although he looks a bit more cost prohibitive elsewhere.

Rick Porcello should be a bit of a sleeper pick against a high K team after two starts against the mighty Blue Jays, but an $8.2K cost on DraftKings is borderline ridiculous for a guy with an ERA near five and 29 HRs with an average strikeout rate since the start of last season. He might be able to reach it tonight, but it shouldn’t be that high. He looks more interesting for nearly $1K less on FanDuel. These guys with lower exit velocities and weaker contact might be more interesting on a site that doesn’t factor in strikeouts as highly. That’s just a theory because we’re still unsure about stability in contact rates.

Ross Stripling may not be long for this section as his price continues to rise, depending on opponent of course. It’s the Braves though, so here he is.

Zack Greinke might be the most reliable top of the board candidate tonight against the Giants is not something you’d probably expect to hear after his first outing. What he might have done is dropped his price a bit though and we’ll take that on either site.

I’m going to try and add something a little different here today and see how it works out by attempting to further classify some pitchers. Although, I’m already beginning to waffle and regret it.

Top of the Board – Zack Grienke, Madison Bumgarner

High Risk/High K Arms – Chris Archer, Ian Kennedy

Mid-Range Arms (in order of non-GPP format confidence) – Joe Ross, Ross Stripling, Nathan Eovaldi, Rick Porcello

GPP Sleepers – Drew Pomeranz, Jeremy Hellickson

Dumpster Diving – Bartolo Colon (low upside), Kendall Graveman (high risk)

Surprisingly Unworthy – Cole Hamels, Jordan Zimmermann

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

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