Advanced Stats - Pitching Charts: Wednesday, June 10th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2015-06-12 23:11:04

Due to the facts that FanGraphs was down for a over an hour late last night, it’s an early 12:30 EST start today, and a couple of the afternoon probables weren’t available at the time of setup last night, we’re doing without the afternoon matchups entirely today. Additionally, with the amount of work that could be done last night being limited due to the downtime on FanGraphs, write-ups may be a little shorter today as well. Remember to check lineups, weather, and umpiring assignments, which can all have a major effect on the things we talk about.

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.

Brett Anderson has had modest peripherals, but great results over his last few starts and now has allowed two ERs or less in six of his last seven starts over which he has a ridiculous 74% ground ball rate and 9.8 LD% to go with a -2.4 Hard-Soft%. Basically, almost everything is a weak ground ball. He doesn’t have great upside in his strikeout rate, but does miss just enough bats to give us some kind of expectation of a fantasy floor worth playing with those incredible batted ball rates. Additionally, he keeps finding himself in decent spots, either in Dodger Stadium or other pitcher’s parks. The D’Backs have just a 95 wRC+ vs LHP, but a 14.5 Hard-Soft% against them.

Charlie Morton, like Anderson, has a massive groundball rate (72.7% through three starts), but, unlike Anderson, just a 2.6 K-BB%. He’s induced just 10 swinging strikes and four fly balls over those three starts. He has very little upside, but he does have a -9.1 Hard-Soft% and does counter a right handed heavy attack for the Brewers, who shouldn’t be able to elevate the ball tonight. A park adjustment gives him the top matchup of the night. The Brewers have the second worst road offense and are tied for 3rd worst vs RHP.

Edinson Volquez has a 20.1 Hard-Soft% this year, but struck out 15 of his last 50 batters, which is a two-game high for him this year. Minnesota is generally good at home, but struggles against RHP (tied for 3rd worst offense, 5.5 Hard-Soft%) and almost got no-hit last night. He’s catching them at an opportune time in a ballpark that plays similar to Kansas City in that it inflates offense, but deflates power. This could work in his favor as a pitcher with the best outfield defense in baseball. It worked for a similar pitcher in Chris Young last night, except Volquez has more upside in his K rate. His 10.9 SwStr% is his best since 2011.

Erasmo Ramirez has allowed one ER, striking out 12 of 47 batters over his last 12.1 IP. His problem has never really been missing bats (more below), but what happens when he doesn’t. A 33.1 Hard% can get him in trouble sometimes. The Angels continue to hit well and are now even almost league average vs RH, but are still a bad road offense in a pitcher’s park.

Jake Arrieta is your clear #2 pitcher tonight and has the peripherals in the main chart to prove it, right behind Harvey. He’s struck out at least five in every start this year and has seen his SwStr% rise over the last month to match his K rate. Surprisingly, it’s not the slider, but the curve that he’s been using more and that has been generating more whiffs, according to Brooks Baseball. He must enjoy pitching on the road, because he has a 27.7 away K% as a Cub with just a 7.4 HR/FB. In addition, he’s generated an elite -0.6 Hard-Soft% on contact this year. The Tigers are actually the worst park-adjusted matchup today and are really the only offense that adjusts much above average, though they have just a 7.5 HR/FB at home and Arrieta still projects for a top K% and K-BB% tonight.

Jesse Hahn has basically just abandoned a curveball that is no longer getting nearly as many whiffs as last year and is throwing 50% sinkers now with a fairly even mix of other off-speed pitches and a four seam at around 10% each. It hasn’t even really changed his batted ball rates much as he has the exact same xFIP (3.59) as last season, the only difference being he’s not beating it by half a run this year. That said, less reliable contact rates have changed as his Hard-Soft% has gone from 11.5% last year (near league average) to an exceptional 2.8% this year. So, maybe that sinker is working out for him after all. The matchup works in his favor, as the Rangers have fallen back to earth, with a 27.5 K% and 6.8 HR/FB over the last week.

Jose Quintana has struggled a bit with his walk rate (9.7%) over his last four starts, but has better underlying numbers than his ERA suggests this year and has a -15.8 Hard-Soft% over the last two weeks. Houston is basically a neutral matchup, but hasn’t been hitting the ball well. They are prone to these cold streaks as a team due to the way their offense is built. He’s the third consecutive LHP the White Sox throw at them, but is very different from the previous two. He’s generally not a huge strikeout pitcher, but projects for potentially the top rate tonight with a 23.2 K% at home since 2014 in addition to the Astros striking out 24% on the road, 24.7% vs LHP, and 30% over the last week. The Astros have some power (13.7 HR/FB vs LHP), but Quintana has just a 2.7 HR/FB at home since the start of last season.

Matt Harvey is your top pitcher and faces one of the top overall offense, but the park adjusts the matchup down to nearly neutral. He’s had some early issues in each of his last two starts, before putting it together and striking out 20 of his last 58 batters and has at least nine strikeouts in four of his last five starts. He has an amazing 25.3 K-BB% at home this season. The Giants may pull down his K%, striking out just 17.2% vs RHP, but he still projects for one of the top K rates, the top BB%, and also the best K-BB% tonight. The Giants are the best road offense and 2nd best vs RHP, so we might not get dominant Harvey, but he has the top ERA estimators in the main chart today and only Arrieta is even within a half a run.

Shane Greene has not been good and, in fact, has been terrible, but may need to be briefly mentioned just because the Cubs strike out so much, struggle against RHP, and he’s incredibly cheap. Should you expect to generate a lot of value out of him? Probably not, but he might accumulate a few strikeouts and not completely kill you. He’s allowed eight HRs on the season, but five of them came in just 12 batters two starts back against the Angels.

Tim Hudson is finally seeing the ball bounce his way (literally). We’ve kept harping on the fact that he’s throwing a lot of ground balls that aren’t finding gloves, but he’s now allowed two ERs or fewer in three of his last four starts and even struck out six in his last start. His ERA has now pulled into range with his estimators, though there’s still a small gap. The Mets struggle against RHP, which was very obvious last night, and adjust down to one of the top matchups tonight.

Tyson Ross is in the same boat as Shane Greene for me tonight. He doesn’t project as being much better than his price tag suggests in a fairly neutral matchup against an Atlanta team has just a 17.1 K% vs RHP. They don’t hit the ball particularly hard (7.5 Hard-Soft%), but could limit his upside.

Vincent Velasquez just turned 23 on Sunday and makes his major league debut tonight because the Astros are calling up everybody. He’s a prospect of some note, who rated #3 (higher than McCullers) on the organizations FanGraphs list this past off-season. Injuries have been his major issue, but healthy now, he’s moved faster than most scouts/prospect writers have expected by dominating AA for 26.1 innings and, like McCullers, being jumped straight to the majors. The Astros are being really aggressive, but the first two guys showed they can play so far, so why not use his bullets at the major league level if he’s injury prone? He struck out 37 of 101 minor league batters this year, has a good, but not great fastball, and useful secondary pitches (curveball and change-up) with near average command, which is ahead of where a lot of pitchers his age are. He has upside and a great matchup tonight.

Wei-Yin Chen is the 3rd pitcher today who seems accurately priced (Green and Ross are the other two). He’s pitched well recently and has a great matchup against a bad road offense that is just as terrible vs LHP (83 wRC+, 3.4 Hard-Soft%), but the park takes away from that a little bit and they have been ok over the last week. The problem is that his upside is limited with just an 18.8 K% over the last two years, a 17.8 K% at home since the start of last season, and the Red Sox striking out only 16.3% on the road and 17.1% vs LHP. In addition, he’s a fly ball pitcher with a 12.5 HR/FB at home since last year and has already allowed 11 HRs total this season.

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)
Extreme deviations from league averages are italicized.

Kyle Gibson (.265 BABIP – 82.5 LOB% – 13.8 HR/FB) – I had him as one of my pre-season sleepers, but not in the way he’s currently doing it. I wish I had time for a full write-up.

Trevor Bauer (.262 BABIP – 80.7 LOB% – 7.3 HR/FB) – He’s still ok and projects as one of the better K rates tonight, but what I think the numbers don’t like are the walk rate, price, and fact that Seattle has a 15.3 Hard-Soft% vs RHP. He has some upside and would probably get more space if FanGraphs wasn’t down last night.

Williams Perez (.260 BABIP – 79.3 LOB% – 12.4 HR/FB)

NO THANK YOU

Jered Weaver – The park and matchup might suit him better than Yankee Stadium in his last start, but I’d rather not pay even a mid-range price for his skill set. Call me when he hits the bottom of the pile.

Jeremy Hellickson – Lamb…..meet slaughter.

Kyle Lohse

Rick Porcello

Taijuan Walker

Yovani Gallardo – This is more lack of upside in a neutral spot at a neutral price than because he’s been really bad.

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 (2015 LG AVG – 20.2 K% – 9.6 SwStr% – 2.10 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.

Erasmo Ramirez has a 19.2 SwStr% over his last two starts and has had at least a 9.9 SwStr% in all but one of his seven starts. We’ve seen him generate a few more strikeouts over his last two starts, but there’s even more potential still there.

Jake Arrieta – His K% is still borderline for his SwStr%, but he’s generated at least a 9.3 SwStr% in each of his last six starts after failing to do so in four of his first five.

Tim Hudson has a career 9.0 SwStr%, but has dropped as low as 8% a couple of times with slightly better strikeout rates, so I still think there’s some upside here and he has struck out 10 of his last 53 batters (18.8%). I wouldn’t expect him to continue that, but something around 15% is not out of the question. The caveat here is that his SwStr has surpassed 7.1% just once in his last six starts.

Tyson Ross has seen his SwStr% rise for the 3rd straight season and has a top 10 rate this year, but a K% that sits 20th in the majors. He has a double-digit SwStr% in all but two starts this year, at least an 8.4% in every start, and has been over 17% in three of his last four starts. He’s missing a ton of bats and his K rate over the last month is severely understated.

ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 3.88 ERA – 3.80 SIERA – 3.88 xFIP – 3.88 FIP)

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

Charlie Morton has allowed one HR over three starts and has a 25.0 HR/FB. He also has a 50 IFFB%. I’ll just let that resonate. That means he’s had one normal fly ball to the outfield over three starts. That 97.5 Z-Contact% is a doozy also. Who knows how sustainable all of this is, but with all these weak ground balls, who can complain about a .262 BABIP. If this keeps up, maybe they should consider a new extreme shift and pull the right and left fielders into the infield to further lower his BABIP.

Edinson Volquez is the complete opposite of Charlie Morton in every way. He has allowed 65 fly balls this year, but hasn’t induced a single pop up and has only allowed four HRs. He has just a 7.1 career IFFB%, but a fairly average LD%. If he had a reasonable IFFB rate, I’d probably be fine with his low BABIP because he has a great Z-Contact% and look at what the Royals have done as a team.

Erasmo Ramirez is showing a lot of upside in the underlying numbers. The casual fan might write him off at his 5.10 ERA. A more observant one will not even be impressed by his league average strikeout rate. One who really looks hard will see the potential in his SwStr rate to increase his strikeouts and drive his ERA estimators down even further. His biggest issue has been sequencing. The BABIP and HR/FB are fine, but he’s only stranded 61.6% of his runners.

Jesse Hahn has beat his estimators over the last month with a .235 BABIP.

Jose Quintana has adjusted over the last week, but still has a .345 BABIP, mainly because of defensive issues. He has just a 6.6 HR/FB, but a 5.1 last year and, as was mentioned earlier, just a 2.7 HR/FB at home since last year. One has to wonder if he’s discovered some kind of magic HR suppression skill or just pitches on the days the wind is blowing in.

Shane Greene has a 12.5 HR/FB that matches last year, but five of those came in one starts (just 12 batters faced). In addition, he has a 61.4 LOB%, so one of his issues is just plain dumb sequencing, but with just an 8.4 K-BB%, that’s not all of it. He does have a 0.0 Hard-Soft% though.

BABIP Chart (2015 LG AVG – .293 BABIP – 9.5 IFFB% – 86.8 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).

Tyson Ross has a .353 BABIP over 40 points above his career average and also over 50 points above last year’s rate. His 82.8 Z-Contact% is a new career low and that could help his BABIP, but hasn’t and the 2.8 IFFB% hasn’t helped either. He hasn’t been hit particularly hard though (4.2 Hard-Soft%, 18.4 LD%) and his 62.6 GB% is 3rd in the majors. Lefties (.391 BABIP) have been a much bigger problem that RHBs (.320 BABIP) for him, but I would expect significant regression from both considering his GB rate. The Padres’ defense is bad, but that’s more the outfield and they should be able to position themselves better to put fielders in front of some ground balls.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Because there seems to be such a wide gap in several defined tiers value wise today, I’m going to write this section a little differently and rank pitchers in terms of value tiers. While some readers might like this, I might also set myself up for a beating in being more vocal about personal preferences in such a high variance game. You can usually tell by tone which pitchers I like more than others on any given day, but today it will be more obvious.

Top Tier (Value only – NOT overall rankings)

Brett Anderson – I don’t know why this man is so cheap. Not that I’m complaining, but I’m trying to find the flaw in his game and aside from a below average strikeout rate that isn’t even that bad, I can’t find it. He generates so many weak ground balls that a K% above 15 is a bonus. Not many pitchers do so much of both. He also has the 2nd best park adjusted matchup of the night.

Tim Hudson – Very similar to Anderson, he generates a ton of ground balls, but doesn’t strike out as many, though his SwStr% and long track record suggest a few more. He also similarly has a matchup that rates similarly in a good park, but is costs just a tad more than Anderson almost everywhere.

I don’t think I’ve ever recommended taking two lower upside guys on two pitcher sites for your double ups, but if you wanted to load up on offense tonight, I wouldn’t hate it.

Matt Harvey – All the above said, I’ll probably still be pairing one of the above guys with Harvey. This is not the best matchup you’re ever going to see him have or the best he’s ever projected, but it’s still plenty good enough to be the top overall pitcher tonight by far a wide margin and likely one of the top values as well. The Giants might hurt his K% slightly, but it shouldn’t kill him, but not too bad and he’s struck out at least seven in four of five home starts. After watching the other team no-hit his offense last night, I think he’ll be properly motivated too.

Secondary Tier (These six guys are bunched incredibly close together, but fairly distant from both those above and below them)

Charlie Morton refuses to let the opposing team hit the ball in the air out of the infield. That has happened just twice in three starts. That should limit any upside the Brewers have in a park that already crushes RH power. Two things that keep him from the top-tier are that he’s slightly more expensive than Anderson and has virtually no strikeout upside or even a floor. No strikeouts, no fly balls, just ground balls. That’s it.

Edinson Volquez is not priced much higher than the low upside ground ballers on most sites and does have a bit more risk in some cases, but also a little bit more upside in his K rate. Minnesota hasn’t been a comfortable place for opposing pitchers over the last year or so, but they don’t hit RHP well and have been struggling lately. A park that suppresses power even though it enhances overall offense (like Kansas City) should work in the favor of a fly ball pitcher with a great outfield defense.

Erasmo Ramirez is no Chris Archer, but this guy has league average upside in his current profile at worst. Now take that league average, put it in a great park with one of the top defenses and slap a rock bottom price tag on it and what have you created? A good amount of potential value.

Jake Arrieta is the clear #2 pitcher today in terms or price and general upside, but has the worst matchup and the only one that park adjusts to really any worse than neutral. That’s why he finds himself here instead of in the top tier. He’s still a fine option with above average upside tonight.

Jesse Hahn – Maybe these next two guys should be tier 2a. He’s not missing bats like he did last year, but the sinker that he’s throwing half the time is generating weaker contact. He’s a bit different than Volquez, but priced similarly in a good park with a decent matchup.

Jose Quintana is priced almost exactly the same as Hahn across the board. The risks and wider range of outcomes are different here. The Astros have some power and could do some thumping, but for some reason, he doesn’t allow HRs at home (even though it’s an extreme hitter’s park for power). However, they are currently running cold and may help pull up an already slightly above average K rate, pushing it into potentially the top K rate of the day with the Giants expected to pull down Harvey’s a little. It’s close.

The Wild Card

Vincent Velasquez has the matchup and the pedigree to do some interesting things tonight. Plus he’s either the bottom or close to the bottom price on the board on every site except one that refuses to play along. On those other sites, I’ll probably have him in a few GPPs tonight linked up with Harvey tonight.

The Not Much Better Than Their Price Tag Club – You can use these guys and the return probably won’t kill you and may even have upside in a couple of cases, but they’re generally not giving you much more than you pay for. We’ve already discussed why today, so just the list follows.

Wei-Yin Chen

Tyson Ross

Shane Greene

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