Advanced Stats - Pitching: Friday, May 13th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-05-14 03:34:38

We knew Thursday was going to be pretty volatile aside from Kershaw and if you wanted to stay at $20K for two pitchers on DraftKings, his complement likely put you in a big hole with a negative showing. Someone else was probably going to break out last night, but it was so difficult to tell who. It ended up being David Price, who we said could either strike out 15, allow eight runs, or both. It turns out he just nearly did the first thing.

If there were 26 hours in the day, I’d consider writing a column about all the unforeseen and completely unpredictable things that happen in baseball each day. Mike Pelfrey would probably star in that article today, but there are only 24 hours in a day. Maybe I’d be of more value writing an article about what happened than trying to write one about what I think could happen every day. At least it feels that way sometimes.

Changes for 2016 were outlined on Opening Day, which you can find here.

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+.

Chris Sale tied a season high with nine strikeouts in his last start with just a 7.5 SwStr%, a mark he has now been at or below in four of seven starts. He may think the “(classname)new pitch to contact approach(title tooltip)”:http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/chris-sale-is-pitching-to-contact-now/ is working as it’s shown in his ERA, but the estimators are nearly a run higher with his batted ball and contact profile being similar except for a likely unsustainable 6.0 HR/FB. The one thing it has allowed him to do is get deeper into games (at least seven innings in six of seven starts), but it’s good to at least know he might have something to go back to when the BABIP and HR rate normalize. The Yankees have been a disappointment, but got their cleanup hitter back last night at least and still represent something of a neutral matchup at home, though they have just a 6.9 HR/FB vs LHP.

Edinson Volquez has been pretty mediocre. In fact, he has been pretty bad after an interesting start, but all of his bad starts have come on the road, where he’s walked 10 and struck out nine in three starts. At home, he has five walks and 27 strikeouts. Since last year, he has a 7.0 HR/FB, 5.3 Hard-Soft% at home. This is a pick your spots pitcher and this is the best spot. Atlanta has a 2.5 HR/FB on the road and 3.9 HR/FB vs RHP. They might not be the top matchup of the night only because the Phillies are actually worse vs LHP than the Braves are vs RHP.

Jake Odorizzi is a pitcher who I tend to buy into FIP with at home. It even partially regresses by accounting for his entire HR rate, not just at home. In 226 home innings in his career, he has a 5.2 HR/FB and while that’s not a rock solid stable number yet, it’s enough to start to think there’s something there. He’s decreased his BB% while keeping his K% steady, though he’s allowed a lot of hard contact (20.8 Hard-Soft%), which might be one reason to not completely buy into that HR rate yet. He has a marginal matchup with an Oakland offense that is average, but had just a 3.8 HR/FB and 4.5 Hard-Soft% over the last week.

Jeremy Hellickson is coming off a couple of rough outings against tough offenses and has now allowed nine HRs with a 17.1 Hard-Soft%. However, he has also generated at least a 9.2 SwStr% in all but one start and has a career high 16.2 K-BB%. He’s in a strong spot against a Cincinnati offense who’s K and BB numbers on the road and vs RHP are nearly exact matches for his this year, though they’ve hit the ball well against some weaker pitching over the last week.

Jonathan Gray is talented enough to make me re-think my strict Colorado policy. He’s been roughed up in his two home outings and has allowed at least four runs in each of his last five home outings going back to last season, but struck out 10 even in one of his two home starts this season. The Mets are an up and down offense as the power goes with the majority of their power left handed bats struggling currently, though this is still a really bad matchup and he has a 17.9 HR/FB at home since being called up last year.

Josh Tomlin has been mediocre, but dealt with an injury early on and has faced some tough offenses through his first five starts. His SwStr% and K% are down this year, but he has an 18.4 K-BB% over the last two calendar years and it’s even slightly better at home since last season, though a high rate of hard contact is admittedly a problem. The Twins have been a below average offense with average power. They have a 23.0K% vs RHP and 28.1 K% on the road.

Junior Guerra has allowed four ERs in each of his two starts, completing six innings both times, striking out 12 out of 47 batters, while walking three. He’s had a double digit SwStr% in each start. It’s a high ERA with a 0.64 GB/FB in a dangerous park, but he’s stranded less than half his runners as the numbers underneath the high ERA are passable for a fourth or fifth starter. The matchup is one of the better ones available tonight, even in a high run environment. The Padres have a 28.1 K% on the road, 25.8% vs RHP, and 25.7% over the last week. He should have the platoon advantage through most of the lineup tonight.

Luis Severino struck out a season high nine batters in his last start with a 9.7 SwStr%, but his overall numbers have been disappointing with 16 HRs allowed in 94.2 career innings. We know there’s potential in that arm and he’s walked just six batters this season, while cutting down on hard contact over the last three starts. Despite five HRs, he has a -2 Hard-Soft% in those starts with a 26.7 Hard% high and just five line drives over his last two starts. I’m not saying he’s absolutely about to snap out of it, but it looks much better than the ERA under the hood and there’s a chance he’s improving. The White Sox strike out a bit less than the average team, but have about average power.

Nate Karns is coming off his best start of the season, striking out nine Astros. One of the main complaints against him is HRs/hard contact, while that’s continued, but a bit better at home and the Angels haven’t hit for much power (7.6 HR/FB, 0.0 Hard-Soft% on the road, 9.8 HR/FB, 7.2 Hard-Soft% vs RHP). Another is an inability to get six innings in, but he’s hit that mark in each of his last three games. The Angels strikeout just 15.8% against RHP, but a bit more over the last week and missing bats has never really been his problem.

Nicholas Tropeano has gotten hit hard (six HRs, all in his last three starts with a 37.8 Hard% overall) with walks contributing to the problem and has yet to complete six innings in any start (though he’s gone at least five in all six), but he missing a ton of bats. He has the highest SwStr% on today’s board and it’s not even close. The Mariners strike out about an average amount and do have power (14.6 HR/FB vs RHP, 13.7 HR/FB at home), but haven’t been hitting the ball as hard (4.8 Hard-Soft% at home, -1.3 Hard-Soft% last seven days).

Rich Hill has allowed a total of five runs (four earned) over his last four starts, though the overall quality of those starts has varied. He’s faced some tough lineups lately too (BAL, HOU, DET). Tampa Bay hits for a lot of power vs LHP (16.2 HR/FB, 16.3 Hard-Soft%), but also strike out a lot (24.0%) with a 5.9 BB% and represent an overall average matchup in a slightly negative run environment in which they’ve struggled offensively this season.

Ricky Nolasco has been rocked in two of his last three starts and has now allowed at least four runs in four of his last five. His peripherals look much better than the ERA, but that’s always the case with him. Peripherals (especially strikeouts) count more in DFS, so perhaps we can still salvage something from an above average strikeout rate. The Tribe are about your average offense though less balanced and strong up top, weaker towards the bottom with not much in their overall profile that really stands out aside from a double digit walk rate at home. That’s one thing we don’t really have to worry about with this pitcher though.

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 (.297 BABIP – 72.5 LOB% – 11.8 HR/FB)

Brandon Finnegan (.214 BABIP 69.4 LOB% – 19.0 HR/FB) draws an evening with the Phillies, but has been mostly a mess since his first start, striking out more batters than he’s walked just twice in his last six starts and not by more than two. He’s allowed eight HRs and if not for the low BABIP, it would be much worse than an ERA just above four.

Steven Wright (_.219 BABIP – 81.5 LOB% – 5.1 HR/FB) is missing bats and knuckleballers don’t adhere to traditional baseball laws, but these numbers are too extreme at a cost that’s very high now.

Chris Tillman (.302 BABIP – 75.1 LOB% – 2.4 HR/FB) has allowed just one of 41 fly balls to leave the yard when he has a career 10.7 HR/FB. He has a career high K%, but also a career high BB% (10.3) and a bit of career reverse platoon split. The Tigers are an offense likely to make him pay for walks in a dangerous run environment.

GIo Gonzalez (.243 BABIP – 78.0 LOB% – 4.7 HR/FB) has struck out a total of three in his last two starts and was smacked around in his last one by the Cubs. His SwStr hasn’t exceeded 6.5% in his last three with a hard contact rate of at least 35% in each one. I think we can afford to pass today and see how this continues to shake out.

Martin Perez (.250 BABIP – 75.8 LOB% – 10.0 HR/FB) has increased his K% and SwStr% a bit this season, but it’s still below average and he’s walking nearly as many as he strikes out.

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

Michael Wacha has a career 7.3 HR/FB at home, but 10.4 HR/FB on the road. Since last season, it’s an 11.8 HR/FB on the road. His SwStr% has dropped each year of his career so far, while his K% has moved up above average this year again, though I’m having trouble buying it. The Dodgers have been a major disappointment and on this year’s numbers alone, rate has potentially the 3rd best park adjusted matchup tonight, but they’ve begun to hit for some power over the last few days with a 16.4 HR/FB and 25.4 Hard-Soft% over the last week and we expect them to come around. The cost is a bit too high here in a matchup that might not be as good as some of the numbers look.

Matt Harvey has looked better in two of his last three starts and needed an IV in the one where he floundered, but still hasn’t entirely re-established himself and while the Rockies have been a below average offense and maybe not even one of the worst matchups tonight, the park still amplifies the offense enough to keep it an unfavorable spot. The cost is down significantly on DraftKings though and I think there’s a chance he does pitch well, but probably not enough of one to make it worth the risk.

Jeff Samardzija has been fine in San Francisco, very good even, but he’s faced some poor, high strikeout offenses so far and isn’t the 2nd highest priced pitcher today at $9.5K a little aggressive for a trip to Arizona? It’s probably more borderline if Peralta remains out.

Ross Stripling faces one of the top offenses vs RHP and they exploded on a mediocre righty last night.

Julio Teheran has been fine so far and you would think this is the type of park that would favor his skillset, but he’s been pretty terrible on the road and the Braves don’t have the defense of years past.

Justin Verlander is out of consideration tonight more because of the matchup than performance. He’s been inconsistent, but flashed former brilliance a couple of times, including his last start vs Texas, but two of the worst three matchups don’t even appear to take place in Colorado tonight and this is one of them.

Lance McCullers pitched well in two minor league rehab starts, facing a total of 31 batters. Best case scenario he gets five or six innings and maybe 75-80 pitches I’d guess, but he has the toughest park adjusted matchup tonight. The Red Sox are laying severe beatings on every pitcher they face this week.

R.A. Dickey

Tom Koehler

Shelby Miller

Christian Friedrich wasn’t announced until after last night’s game in Milwaukee ended. It’s not like he’s a consideration either way, but explains why his name was just added last minute without stats.

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 – 20.6 K% – 9.4 SwStr% – 2.19 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.

Rich Hill has seen his K% drop a bit. Nobody expected it to remain at 30% and it probably has a bit more to go into the 25% range, but there’s no denying the double digit SwStr% that he’s continued to flash.

ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 4.10 ERA – 4.05 SIERA – 4.00 xFIP – 4.00 FIP)

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

Chris Sale – We touched on this above, but he has a great BABIP profile, though the LD rate is on the precipice of potentially being sustainable. This has led to a fine career .289 BABIP and he might be able to lower that a few points. His 6.0 HR/FB is a career low and he’s only been below double digits a single time. In the end, I think this is going to hurt him. I mean, why mess with one of the most dominant pitchers in the league?

Jake Odorizzi has a 6.0 HR/FB that’s just a bit below his 8.5 career HR/FB with two of his three HRs allowed on the road this year.

Jeremy Hellickson has a 22.0 HR/FB, which shouldn’t be sustainable, but he’s in a tough park and it’s pretty clear some adjustment is going to have to be made.
Jonathan Gray had a BABIP over .500 in his first two starts (at home), stranding only half his runners.

Luis Severino has allowed a lot of hard contact, but his last three starts have been better where he’s been a little unlucky in that most of the hard contact he’s allowed has left the yard. The Yankees defense does few favors, but his BABIP and 65.5 LOB% should regress. Yankee pitchers are going to have some issues with their HR rate, but there’s still improvement potential and even likeliness in an overall 20+ HR/FB rate, even if he retains one nearly that high at home.

Nicholas Tropeano has been hit hard, showing up in his 14.0 HR/FB and .345 BABIP, but has somehow managed to strand 89.5% of runners.

Rich Hill has a 78.4% strand rate that might be considered a bit high, but he might be able to come close to sustaining with a high strikeout rate. The 6.5 HR/FB is probably too low though he pitches in a great park and isn’t in a bad one tonight, though the Trop has become more homer friendly in recent years.

Ricky Nolasco rarely generates an ERA in line with his estimators due to a high BABIP (.314 career) and low strand rate (68.2% career). His BABIP is just a touch over .300 this year and not that bad due to a very low LD rate. The Minnesota defense has struggled to turn batted balls into outs though, so that may not last. He’s stranded just 59.5% of his runners this year though and that should get at least a bit better.

BABIP Chart (2016 LG AVG – .297 BABIP – 21.0 LD% – 9.2 IFFB% – 86.6 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.

There’s nothing all that interesting here that we haven’t already talked about today.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Here we 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.

We’ve been commenting on tremendous price discrepancies across the two main sites all week and it finally calms down tonight with just five pitchers having more than a $1K price gap. The higher cost is on FanDuel in all five cases. The largest discrepancy on the board can be found with Rich Hill being $4.2K more than Ross Stripling on DraftKings, but just $1K on FanDuel.

Today is another day where I don’t absolutely love anyone for their combined cost, but that seems to be what we’re dealing with nearly every day with tighter pitcher pricing in most spots. Rich Hill, the top spot tonight, would probably have been bottom of tier two, top of tier three the last couple of years. Maybe I just haven’t tempered expectations as much as I should yet. Overall scoring does seem down a bit since last year, though I haven’t done any work to actually prove that. Maybe it’s just my scores?

There’s a pretty massive gap in overall quality between Sale and Hill and the next group of guys. I have a spreadsheet that says those are Tomlin and Nolasco, but I’ve made a small human adjustment for stuff I’m just not completely buying into. But it’s those top two, massive gap, and then pretty much all the other names you see below bunched closely in mediocracy.

Value Tier One

Rich Hill (2) – The cost has finally gone up, but he’s still below $10K (and even $9K on FanDuel). He’s run through a stretch of tough offenses lately and has handled them well, while not putting forth elite performances. The Rays hit for power, but strike out a lot and he’s done a decent enough job of keeping the ball in the park his entire career (9.8 HR/FB), though that’s still just 537 innings.

Value Tier Two

Ricky Nolasco once again has a much higher ERA than estimators, although the contact profile isn’t even as bad as usual this year. He’s been striking out batters a bit better than average and doesn’t walk anybody. The lack of run prevention might have you hating yourself in the 3rd inning, but the quality peripherals play in daily fantasy and he’s really cheap.

Junior Guerra has looked “interesting” in his two starts. Though he’s allowed a lot of runs, it’s mostly a case of not being able to strand runners, while missing bats at an above average rate. The Padres represent a great matchup at a low price. Knock him down an entire tier or more for $6.7K on FanDuel, but for $2K less, he’s the lowest priced pitcher on the board on DraftKings with a chance of returning the most value, though you might not need him unless you’re rostering Sale.

Value Tier Three

Jeremy Hellickson is in a favorable spot, although you have to worry about the long ball a bit. A price below $7K partially accounts for that. His well above average K-BB% matches that of the Reds on the road and vs RHP. He’s been roughed up by tougher offenses in his last two starts. The upside here appears to exceed the risk.

Chris Sale (1) can be the top pitcher on the board if he wants to be. He’s easily the highest priced and only pitcher above $10K on either site. I don’t expect him to abandon his new throw the ball slower over the plate approach until it backfires and that makes him more of a decision than we’d like at his current cost.

Josh Tomlin is a someone I think almost everyone will give no second thought to and he’s been nothing special this year, so why would they. However, for an average price, you get a pitcher with a dominant K-BB% over the last two years (especially at home) against a below average offense that strikes out a lot. He’s not the type of pitcher with upside to build a lineup around, but he has a decent chance to surpass his cost here and wouldn’t make me throw out the entire meal if he lands on my plate.

Jonathan Gray is a big risk, but one that I don’t think a lot of people will take that could pay off in GPPs. He costs less than $7K and has a chance to pile up some strikeouts, giving him a base even if things go bad. The Mets left handed bats have been struggling over the last week, while some of the right handed ones deal with injury. They still have power and Gray has not looked good at home from a run prevention standpoint, sometimes not even from a strikeout standpoint. Tread carefully, but it’s something to consider that could pay off.

Value Tier Four – These guys seem basically in line with their price tag. They are either useable and shouldn’t hurt you too much, but might not help you much either or have such a wide range of outcomes that you can’t see much benefit beyond the risk.

Jake Odorizzi probably won’t hurt you in a decent spot at an average cost, if that’s what you’re looking for. He should be able to limit the damage and generate about a league average strikeout rate.

Luis Severino – While you may not be able to tell, his contact values have grown weaker over his last three starts and while he allowed three HRs his last time out, he struck out nine it what might have been his best start. He doesn’t walk batters and there’s some upside in this arm in an average spot for a below average cost, though the risk you incur in the Bronx keeps him from moving any higher right now.

Nate Karns costs slightly more than average in a good matchup. While the Angels may be lacking in strikeouts, he should be able to miss enough bats to remain useful, while the park should help mitigate some of the damage against an underwhelming offense.

Nicholas Tropeano is not here because of his ERA, which should be higher. He’s here because he has a very low cost and a lot of bat missing potential. He allowed two HRs in less than six innings with 10 strikeouts in his last start. That’s a bit extreme, but if he does that again, players are probably happy with that.

Edinson Volquez costs $8K (or more) and has been kind of scary over the last month, though all of the bad has been on the road and he’s facing the Braves, so it’s all good. Well, not really, but it might be good enough.

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

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