Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Wednesday, April 29th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2015-05-01 23:09:10

We’re skipping the early games today and covering everything from 6 PM EST on. We did something new here yesterday and went dumpster diving, looking to pair a bottom feeders who might have a chance with a stud in your GPPs in order to afford more offense. The result was two for three, hitting with Wood and Hernandez, but getting smoked with Kendrick. We only really missed out on Pelfrey. I may consider doing this more often as it seems that a couple of these pitchers come up roses every night.

Note – We have a new toy! Although, I can’t incorporate it into the stats in the chart yet, Fangraphs is now posting quality and direction of contact in the batted ball section of their team and leaderboard pages. We’re gonna try to have some fun with that today.

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. Home team is in bold. Team Def = UZR/150. L2Yrs is a rolling calendar. Hm/Rd xFIP is since the start of the 2014 season. Opp team offensive stats are wRC+. Combo stats are explained below.

Aaron Harang allowed three of his four runs this year in just one start and flashes a good 15.5 K-BB%. Just one of his 33 fly balls have left the yard and while that won’t sustain in Philadelphia, it might for at least another game in St Louis. The Cardinals have a 3.1 HR/FB at home, but have hit the ball well over the last week.

Alex Wood is struggling, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at his ERA. His 2.0 K-BB% is more telling. Eno Sarris recently theorized that although he’s still throwing all the same pitches, he’s throwing them in different locations: all low and less frequently in the strike zone. Washington has hit LHP well, including a 14.7 BB% and 13.2 HR/FB. Wood has a 28.1 K% at home since the start of last season, but has struck out just one of his last 51 batters.

Bartolo Colon is pitching well and the Marlins have struck out 22.7% of the time vs RHP. In addition, the Marlins have made a lot of weak contact at home, which not only can you tell from their “Home” section in the Batted Ball chart below (4.3 HR/FB, 13.0 IFFB%), but the brand new Fangraphs “Batted Ball” stats show that they have the 5th largest soft rate (21.8%) at home.

Carlos Martinez exceeds expectations since being moved to the rotation so far. He’s using a fourth pitch, a changeup to positive effect (45% of the time with two strikes against LHBs now), getting 20.3% whiffs and only one single (.063 avg) against. He’s been able to maintain an above average SwStr% as a starter and 18.4 K-BB% due to his new weapon. Oh, and the Phillies, the fifth worst road offense with the fourth lowest hard hit rate, and the second worst offense vs RHP, with a 19.8 hard%, the only team below 20%.

Danny Salazar Strikes Out the World, coming to a ballpark near you. Seriously, there’s an amazing stat about his whifftasticness (not a real word) below. While, he strikes out 1/3, the problem is that another 1/3 have hit line drives. Will the Royals sap his daily fantasy value? They have a 25.2 LD% on the road, but the lowest Hard% (21.6) and the 2nd lowest Hard% (20.4) vs RHP despite a 23.4 LD%. Their second-best 129 team wRC+ vs RHP is mostly due to a .349 BABIP.

Felix Hernandez is probably in your daily fantasy cash/double up lineups. Case closed. The Rangers have been worse than the Phillies against RHP, but have hit the ball harder. They have just a 15.0 LD% and 4.1 HR/FB vs RHP though. The King has struck out 21 of his last 59 batters.

Gerrit Cole hasn’t allowed more than a single earned run in his last three starts. He has a neutral matchup with the Cubs today, but a good one for K’s against a team that’s struck out 24.6% of the time over the last week. Cole has combined a 3.15 GB/FB with a 26.7 K% so far, looking to put his name up there in the conversation among the elite pitchers in the NL.

Jesse Hahn might fool you. From a results standpoint this was the guy we saw light it up upon his debut last year, but from a peripheral standpoint, this is latter part of the season Jess Hahn, with warning sirens blaring. We’ll tell you why below. He didn’t strike out a single Royal in his last start over 10 days ago. The Angels continue to scuffle offensively in all manners. They have a 25.6 Hard% vs RHP, 5th worst in the majors.

Jordan Lyles hasn’t had bad results outside of Coors in two starts, though his 3.0 K-BB% on the season prevails and it’s a shock that he hasn’t allowed a HR yet. He has a solid matchup, despite the park and Arizona’s explosion last night. Learn why he may have some sneaky upside in his K%, but the Diamondbacks don’t strike out a ton.

Jordan Zimmermann has been awful and much like Teheran yesterday, maybe you were expecting a fluke, but this is very real. His velocity is down approximately 2 mph and he’s not missing bats. He’s cut over 10 points from K%, while chopping his SwStr% in half. In addition, Atlanta has had a much better offense than expected this year and they do not strike out.

Kyle Hendricks should be a bit better, though I don’t buy the K rate, and we’ll get into that later, but let’s talk about the Pirates. When they hit the ball, it’s fine. It’s even better than fine, it’s great. They lead the majors in with a 34.9 Hard% on the road and are in the upper part of the league vs RHP. They just can’t hit the ball (26.3 road K%, 22.0 vs RHP) and there’s nobody on (4.9 road BB%, 4.8 vs RHP) when they do. Those marks are similar (23.4 K%, 3.2 BB%) over the last week.

Mat Latos is still feeling the effects of his first start. It takes a long time to flatten out seven runs in less than an inning. His last two have actually been decent. The Mets offense has not been decent on the road or in this series.

Matt Shoemaker has had a performance that makes you wonder if a two mph velocity drop has made him more hittable. Details to follow. Oakland hasn’t hit for much power, but has the lowest combined strikeout rate in today’s situations (at home, vs RHP, and last seven days).

R.A. Dickey is having issues controlling the knuckler. He’s walking way too many batters and missing fewer bats. The Red Sox have been a bit better as of late and at home (though Hard and Soft batted ball rates don’t bear that out – they’re bottom half of the majors in both). Dickey has allowed four HRs and the Red Sox have 15.0 HR/FB over the last week.

Rick Porcello has a HR problem and faces the mighty Blue Jays with a 14.6 HR/FB vs RHP and 15.3 HR/FB over the last week. Opposite from Oakland though, the Blue Jays have the highest combined strikeout rate in today’s situations (on the road, vs RHP, and last seven days), including over a quarter of the time over the last week. Porcello has struck out 13 of his last 54 batters with a double-digit SwStr% in his last two starts.

Ryan Vogelsong allowed two HRs in his last start and it was his best start because it was the only two runs he gave up. His bullpen work as a long man hasn’t been good at all and his only other start was terrible as well. The Dodgers mash, but surprisingly aren’t among the top quarter of teams in hard hit rate either at home or vs RHP. You may want to take a look at their HR/FB rates (all above 16.0) in the Batted Ball chart below.

Wandy Rodriguez makes his second start for Texas, so we’ll ignore a lot of his numbers below today. The Mariners haven’t been hitting the ball well lately, but I expect to see a lot of Nelson Cruz in lineups again tonight.

Yordano Ventura had his best start of the season last time out, until he lost his mind. I’m afraid to say anything else about him or risk being shouted obscenities at.

Zack Greinke has long been known for being dominant at home, but it’s actually where he’s allowed all four of his runs this year. That’s right, he’s allowed just four runs. He has a 26.5 K% at Dodgers Stadium since the start of last season. His opposition is in the neutral range here.

Combo K/BB Charts

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 originally were due to size 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.

Combo K/BB Charts – Opponent

Combo Batted Ball Charts

See the explanation for the K/BB chart above.

Combo Batted Ball Charts – Opponent

K/SwStr Chart (2014 LG AVG – 20.3 K% – 9.3 SwStr% – 2.18 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.

Alex Wood peaks at a 6.1 SwStr% in his four starts and has accumulated just five of them over his last 196 pitches. This has been brutal and concerning for a guy who had a 9.7 SwStr% last year.

Bartolo Colon – This is deceptive. I’d be tempted to just look at this and say it’s par for the course for him, but it’s his highest SwStr% in over a decade, except that it’s only been above 6.6% in his first game, when it was 15.1%. That lower number is more par for the course and I’d be willing to give him some leeway on the K%, but not above 20% or much beyond a 3.0 K/SwStr. He’s struck out exactly five (19.5%) in each of his last three starts.

Danny Salazar – Hitters have swung and missed at 41 of the 220 pitches he’s thrown this year. Let that sink in.

Jesse Hahn had a double-digit SwStr% last season and struck out batters three times more often. His curve, which got 20% whiffs last year, is getting less than 13% this year. He did face the Royals in his last start, but didn’t strike out a single batter and you can’t fault velocity as he’s actually throwing harder.

Jordan Lyles has a career 7.4 SwStr%, but has had a double digit mark in each of his last two starts against good offenses (LAD, SDP). It did not really show in his K%. Let’s not make much of two starts, but his K% is likely to rise either way.

Josh Collmenter has yet to eclipse an 8.0 SwStr%. He’s not a guy you expect to strikeout a lot of batters and maybe even fewer than the 16% last year, but you should expect more than this.

Kyle Hendricks had an 11.1 SwStr% in his second start. It’s been below 3.5% in his two others. He didn’t even strike out 15% of batters last year, though he had a respectable 8.0 SwStr% that suggested better. Thus far in 2015, its’ been the complete opposite. Don’t expect it to last.

Ryan Vogelsong – This could get ugly.

ERA Estimators Chart (2014 LG AVG – 3.80 ERA – 3.72 SIERA – 3.80 xFIP – 3.80 FIP)

How a pitcher’s ERA matches up against his defense independent estimators.

Aaron Harang – The 3.2 HR/FB has already been mentioned, but we also have to mention the .203 BABIP and 86.7 LOB% that comes with it. Harang is a fly ball pitcher and an extreme one (0.69 GB/FB) this year. His line drive rate is normal and he’ll usually get the league average rate of pop ups (10.4% career), but he’s doing some great things with zone contact this year (84.4%). This would be the 2nd lowest mark of his career. That’s great stuff, but Harang has a career BABIP almost exactly 100 points higher, so you’re still expecting a sharp adjustment.

Alex Wood – Fortunately he’s kept the ball on the ground (14 ground balls in 20 batted in last outing) and in the park. Wood has allowed only one of 24 fly balls to leave the yard (4.2%), but that should rise. His BABIP has actually worked against him at .321 with a 16.9 LD% and five IFFBs, but he has a poor zone contact rate. His 80.9 LOB% is a little high, but not too bad.

Carlos Martinez – The issue here is simple. He hasn’t allowed a run to score except for three solo HRs and his low BABIP (.178) isn’t backed up by anything, not that one so low could be supported anyway. This should take nothing away from his successful transition to the rotation so far. He’s been really good and his 18.8 HR/FB should improve as those other things decline too.

Jesse Hahn has just a 3.0 K-BB% and while the park in Oakland should be his friend, he to allow a HR (14 FBs). His .228 BABIP is somewhat countered by just a 61.1 LOB%, but there are absolutely no indicators towards a low BABIP (normal LD%) and are, in fact, some against it in the chart below.

Jordan Lyles – All 19 of his fly balls have stayed in the yard. Wait, he pitches in Colorado, right? Well, he has twice at least……and once at Wrigley.

Kyle Hendricks is a bit tricky because if we account for the expected drop in K%, which we can’t in numbers, then his estimators rise a bit, but right now he has a 19.0 K-BB% built on impeccable control. He’s walked just one batter. He’s also, somehow, stranded just under half of his runners. If K rate and LOB% balance out, it should leave him with something in the high threes I’m guessing.

Mat Latos – As mentioned at the top, he’s pitched much better over his last two starts, but is still feeling the effects of a lambasting opening week. This has left his BABIP and LOB% in shambles, though he’s continued to have some issues with contact management. He’s only allowed one HR (4.8 HR/FB) and has been able to limit those in the past (8.4 HR/FB career). His new park should help him even further. I’ve been off the bandwagon since the velocity drop last year, but maybe there comes a point where it turns completely around and he’s undervalued.

Matt Shoemaker has a slightly decreased, but still perfectly fine 14.7 K-BB% (18.4 last year). The biggest issue has been HRs. He’s been an extreme fly ball pitcher (47.9%) and four of the 23 have left the yard. Unlike the damage Latos did early, this could straighten out in two good starts. It wasn’t an issue last year. Combining the 27.1 LD%, higher than his 25.0 GB%, makes one pause and wonder if something has changed. The two immediate differences I see are that he’s dropped two miles on his fastball (everything is slower in fact) and has dropped some sliders for more changeups, though the latter could just be a factor of facing a higher percentage of LHBs early than last year, which seems to be the case.

Rick Porcello – This is an easy one. He has perfectly league average K and BB rates, but is not so much of a ground ball pitcher this year (1.24 GB/FB) and six of those 29 fly balls have left the yard. He’s allowed at least one in each of his four starts and is already 1/3 of the way to his career-high of 18, which he’s hit in four of the last five years. When you allow a lot of HRs, you don’t strand as many runners and he has just a 62.9 LOB%. His BABIP is fine, and should be even lower than his .310 career rate due to improved defense, and he even has a low 16.7 LD%. Have faith. He should figure it out.

Ryan Vogelsong – This already is ugly, but could get uglier considering his low SwStr%.

Zack Greinke – The low BABIP is odd because his career rate is over .300 as he usually carries a LD% higher than league average, though it’s below 20% so far. His 53.4 GB% would be his first time above 50%. Expect the 87.4 LOB% to normalize as the BABIP does. One odd thing I’m seeing is that his fastball’s dropped a little over a mph, but he’s throwing his secondary pitches a little harder.

BABIP Chart (2014 LG AVG – .295 BABIP – 9.5 IFFB% – 87.2 Z-Contact%)

A couple of years ago, 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 a pitcher has a much lower BABIP than his team’s allowed (red), then you look for some factors that may support it and maybe you’re onto something (check batted ball profile too).

Danny Salazar – BABIP was an issue for him last year. You look at batters missing on 1/3 of their swings at pitches in the strike zone and you wonder how, but he seems to be unable to locate where he wants to and often leaves pitches out over the plate as his 32.1 LD% can attest to. And Lord knows that Cleveland defense isn’t going to help him. They’ve been atrocious on balls in play no matter what improvement UZR shows. Lucky for him that he’s been striking everybody out and stranding 98.7% to cancel the BABIP out.

Felix Hernandez has an astounding batted ball mix. Forty-one (63.1%) have been ground balls and just eight (12.3%) have been line drives. Of his 16 fly balls, four have been IFFBs. He’s only ever had a league average IFFB% once though.

R.A. Dickey is no stranger to BABIP suppression, but it’s generally about 30 to 40 points higher and he generally induces a few more pop ups, but his 12.3 LD% is well below his 19.2% career rate. So how the hell does he have an ERA over five? A 12.4 BB% and a 68% strand rate.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Bartolo Colon has simply done a good job at pitching so far and the Marlins have not done a good one at hitting baseballs. Colon is priced a tad higher than expected in most places, which limits expectations on his value, but he should still give you a good return for your fantasy dollar.

Carlos Martinez – After gushing about his use of the change up so much today, how could I not? It’s affordable and it’s the Phillies, although that hasn’t worked so great in the first few games of this series. It’ll be different this time, he promises.

Danny Salazar is a tough one for me today. He and the Royals contrast so much in styles. He’s all line drives and strikeouts, while they’re all about weak contact. He’s a GPP option with a huge ceiling for sure, but I might look for something more stable in other contests.

Felix Hernandez – Yes, please? Great pitcher in a great spot.

Gerrit Cole is one of your best bets for strikeouts, but is more stable than Salazar (and has a better matchup) and is much cheaper than Felix. That doesn’t mean he’s cheap overall, but his price should climb throughout the season if he continues pitching like I expect him to.

Jesse Hahn – Sometimes you whip a guy and never expect to mention him in this section, but then you see his price tag and wonder. The Angels lineup shouldn’t scare you after you get past the top two and he’s priced very low on one of the big two sites. I’m probably still avoiding him altogether, but wouldn’t tell anybody if you wanted to take a low-risk shot… not in double ups though.

Kyle Hendricks – I’m still not buying the K rate, but it may have a chance at thriving for one more game against these horribly plate-disciplined Pirates. Considering the parts, you’d be shocked if he walked a single batter. Best of all, he’s super cheap.

Mat Latos – The Mets have been awful on the road and in this series and he’s pitched well in his last two starts. I’m almost there at his affordable price tag, but might hate myself if I pulled the trigger after being so down on him every time I’ve written about him over the last two seasons.

Zack Greinke – Is right there with Cole behind Felix today. You might trust him a little bit more as the Giants don’t seem to have as much power as the Cubs and he’s at home where he dominates, but he may not have the strikeout upside that Cole does today. It’s a fair tradeoff.

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