Advanced Stats - Pitching: Friday, May 4th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2018-05-04 19:40:00

Happy Star Wars Day everyone! The force may be needed to get through our first 15 game slate of the season (I believe). This, coming off a four game slate where if you found two pitchers with positive point totals, you won. Maybe it’s because I haven’t covered a board this large yet, but it sure seems like there are a lot of rookies pitching tonight. Let’s get to it.

Column shading issues have been worked on, but it’s still not yet entirely what it’s supposed to be. There are still a few glitches and right now, which some readers pointed out last week, but priorities lie with some awesome new things being added to PlateIQ. I’m still hopeful everything will be corrected this week. Columns are sortable by clicking on the headers, which is probably the more important thing.

As always, don’t forget to check lineups, umpire assignments, line movement, ownership projections and the weather forecast 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. All of these things are available right here on the site.

Legend

Starting Pitching Main Chart

Daniel Mengden is coming off his worst start of the season in Houston after acquitting himself admirably against the Red Sox. While his strikeout rate is down (16.9%), his 8.8 SwStr% is where it’s been his whole career so far (19.3 K%). Some people think he was injured last year and like his stuff more than we’ve seen previously. I’m not sure he’s shown us that this year, but he’s in one of the top spots on the board in a great park (Orioles 72 wRC+, 17.8 K-BB% vs RHP – no idea how they have just a 16 K% over the last week).

Garrett Richards got thrashed in his last start against the Yankees. Twenty of his 55 pitches in that game were sliders and a lot of them seemed and only six of them appear to be below the waist (you can break it down like this using Baseball Savant’s player page tool). He threw 14 pitches (25%) over the heart of the plate, but also walked three of the 15 batters he faced. Control has been a major issue (15 BB%) and he’s completed six innings just once, but generating a lot of strikeouts with a SwStr rate not much above average. There might be a slight drop in the K% coming, but he’s also generating a lot of ground balls (55.7%). He faces a good offense, but in a negative run environment in Seattle and has some upside.

German Marquez has only had two poor starts this season, but has still only gone six innings twice (and no more than that). He was finally allowed to throw 100+ in his last start. He has his K%, ERA estimators and xwOBA all sitting at league average and that’s about what he’s been on the road since last year. He gets a massive park upgrade against a good offense, but one that’s struggling. One thing they do well though, is take a lot of walks (Nimmo is expected to lead off tonight) and he has had some issues throwing strikes this season (12.3 BB%).

Gerrit Cole has struck out at least 11 in four of his six starts this year and missed seven innings for the first time last time out by a single out. He faces a league average offense in maybe a league average park (humidor?) with the highest K% (more than two starts) and SwStr% on the board. His .253 xwOBA is third best on the board because his contact management has been just ordinary. And it doesn’t need to be more with his stuff, even if Trevor Bauer disagrees.

Gio Gonzalez is going to give you five innings of frustration occasionally, but he’ll generally miss enough bats and manage contact well enough to be useful with the occasional gem as well. The Phillies have been a below average offense against southpaws despite a 15% walk rate (again, small sample issues). There are some strikeouts in this lineup (23% vs LHP).

Ian Kennedy is sitting on the lowest SwStr% of his career, though his strikeout rate has not suffered much. That could change. In his home park, it’s basically “here it is, hit it” and then he lets his outfielders run the ball down in a spacious park. See the .399 xwOBA at home 40 points above his actual mark since last season. He’s one of many pitchers on this board who’s gotten barreled up frequently this season. However, the Tigers are making every pitcher they face look like rock stars recently. It’s a one (Nick Castellanos) or two (Jeimer Candelario) man effort at this point.

J.A. Happ has struck out at least eight in five straight starts. If you look at his Statcast page, he’s throwing each of his pitches to a different area of the plate. He’s elevating the four-seamer, dropping sinkers low in the zone, aiming sliders glove side and low with changeups nearly perfectly located on the arm side edge of the plate. A few curves have been out of the zone mostly. Ahead in the count, he’s been getting the whiffs with that four-seamer up in the zone or changeups away to right-handers. He’s never previously had a double digit SwStr rate and is now at 13.1%, but it’s all about location. Occasionally, he’ll miss and has allowed six HRs. You can see the high exit velocity and a 12.5% rate of Barrels when batters do connect, but there’s just so much more DFS upside in this approach. The Rays have been enormously successful against southpaws (120 wRC+), but with a 24 K%. Again, small sample size stuff probably, but this team made a concentrated effort to solve their high fastball problems offensively, so you wonder if this is an approach that be less successful against them?

Joey Lucchesi has effectively used a deceptive delivery to a 19.2 K-BB% his first time through the division. He might not have this much upside, but has been an above average bat misser at every level of professional ball, including 139 innings at AA since last season. The Dodgers have yet to see him and haven’t been good against LHP, but that’s more due to a 6.7 HR/FB than anything else.

Jose Berrios has lasted a total of seven innings over his last two starts (nine ERs, two HRs) and even failed to strikeout a since Cincinnati batter (17 faced) in his last start. He doubled his season walk total to six in that start, having become a quality arm after having fixed earlier career control issues. He’s been a decent, not spectacular bat misser, but the interesting and perhaps unexpected part is that he’s been a magnificent contact manager. Despite a 26.1 LD%, he’s got the lowest aEV (80.9 mph) on the board by three and a half miles per hour. Only 13.2% of his contact has been above a 95 mph EV. Looking at his most recent start on Baseball Savant, he just didn’t seem to be able to consistently throw any of his pitches for strikes (season low 38.3 Zone% via Fangraphs), which is hopefully an isolated incident, but his velocity was down a bit too in that start, both things we want to keep an eye on tonight. For now though, there’s not enough reason to side against him in a fine spot in Chicago. The White Sox were missing two of their better bats last night (Moncada and Wellington) and are not an imposing offense even if those two play.

Miles Mikolas has gone seven innings in three straight starts with a total of five runs allowed after struggling his first two times out back in the states. He’s missing bats at just a league average rate, but has only walked two the entire season so far. His 22.8 Z-O-Swing% is best on the board (more than one start), so he’s certainly doing something right, which is compensating for his lack of whiffs in the zone (92.1 Z-Contact%). His 12% Barrels/BBE is one of the highest marks on the board despite one of the lowest aEVs (85.7 mph) and highest ground ball rates (50%). The Cubs are the coldest offense in baseball, having been recently shut down by the Rockies with the wind blasting out at Wrigley. They have just a 6.0 Hard-Soft% over the last week and 6.2% vs RHP this season. Now they experience a park downgrade against a pitcher who throws strikes and gets batters to hit the ball on the ground when he doesn’t.

Nick Pivetta allowed RHBs a wOBA above .400 last season. This year, he has a 29.8 K-BB% and -7.1 Hard-Soft% against them. That’s an acceptable amount of progress. His overall swinging strike rate is up over two points and he’s throwing first pitch strikes over 70% of the time, which has nearly cut his walk rate in half, while his velocity is up over half a mile per hour. This looks like a different guy and kudos to those who saw something in him prior to the season. The Nationals are not an easy assignment and they (or more accurately Bryce Harper and Matt Adams) have a 27.7 HR/FB over the last week, but they’ve had their offensive struggles beyond those two this season with a good chunk of the starting lineup disabled.

Walker Buehler has struck out 11 of the first 43 batters he’s faced. This has been done with just a 5.5 SwStr%, but the prized pitching prospect struck out at least 29.6% of minor league batters at every minor league level he pitched at (three) since last season. The young flame thrower has more than we’ve seen and was allowed to throw 94 pitches in his last outing. Encouraging, considering the organizational reputation with starters not named Kershaw. While not necessarily buying into that he’s ready to set the world on fire right away, the Padres have a 27.4 K% vs RHP and that’s what makes him most interesting today.

Zack Wheeler has struck out 16 of 47 Padres and Marlins this season, but just five of 48 Cardinals and Nationals. At least he has his walk rate in single digits for the first time in his career and seems to have managed contact well (sub-25% hard hit rate) in three of his four starts. He probably has the top matchup on the board at home against the Rockies, so I’d look for the Padres/Marlins version again.

NOT AS GOOD AS THEY LOOK (OR THE FADE LIST)

This list is reserved for pitchers who may look attractive because their ERAs are much lower than their estimators. The reason for this is usually extreme BABIP, LOB, and/or HR/FB deviation from the norm.

League AVG (.299 BABIP – 72.1 LOB% – 14.2 HR/FB)

Mike Foltynewicz (.270 – 84.3% – 13.3) has significant platoon splits which have not continued this season for pure BABIP reasons (.237). He’s walked 15.6% of them and has seen a nearly nine point jump in his overall strikeout rate this year with less than a point increase in his SwStr%. I’m not saying he’s a bad pitcher. He has some talent, but the results don’t match the performance. He’s not in a terrible spot, but does seem to be a bit over-priced. This is a nice spot to look at Brandon Belt.

C.C. Sabathia (.207 – 79% – 9.1) may be good for a few more strikeouts going forward and does have a strong BABIP profile, but his Statcast profile has not been as strong as it’s been in the past and it’s never wise to buy into a BABIP that low. He’s also in a tough spot against Cleveland. Everyone knew this offense would get going sooner or later and they have the highest wRC+ in the league over the last week with just an 18.7 K% vs LHP this year.

Junior Guerra (.232 – 87.5 LOB% – 0) can probably add his 2.81 K/SwStr% and board high 44.2 Z-O-Swing% to the list of things that don’t jive with his 0.82 ERA too. The Pirates don’t offer a lot of strikeout upside either.

Francisco Liriano (.215 – 77.2% – 9.4) still walks too many and is now striking out fewer. The Royals have some weird, probably small sample size numbers against lefties.

Carson Fulmer (.269 – 71.8% – 7.9) has allowed just two runs over 13 innings, but has just a 4.4 K-BB% on the season with a 5.7 SwStr% that does not even support his 15.8 K% and absolutely no batted ball support for his BABIP. He’s one of three pitchers on the board above .452 BABIP and has allowed the highest rate of Barrels/BBE (14.3%).

Chris Stratton (.264 – 64.8 – 3.0) may see his strand rate improve, but his BABIP and HR/FB go the other way. He’s had two outings without a walk, but just one more strikeout than walk in his other four combined. The Braves the (bleep) right now. This is a team DFS players don’t want to oppose, not just because they seem to be good now, but even at best, they probably won’t swing and miss a lot.

Bartolo Colon (.225 – 80.4% – 14.3)

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

Rick Porcello has a slightly below league average swinging strike rate similar to what he’s done the last three seasons, in which he generated a league average strikeout rate. There’s no reason it should be higher than that this year. He’s only walked four batters all season and has changed his pitch mix to pop his ground ball rate back up 10 points and generate weaker contact (85.5 mph aEV, 2.7% Barrels/BBE, 21.6% 95+ mph EV, .219 xwOBA). At first it was more sinkers, but it’s been trending to an increase in changeups and sliders (40.7% combined usage this season). It’s working, but the price tag is a bit too high for this park, though not necessarily against this offense outside of it.

Jose Quintana did not miss a lot of bats last year, but accumulated a lot of looking strikeouts for some reason. The inability to miss bats at a league average rate has continued and the strikeouts have dropped, as expected. Additionally, the quality of his contact has been terrible, which may not have been expected. While not the worst on today’s board, he’s one of a handful of arms above a .400 xwOBA.

Nick Kingham struck out nine of 22 Cardinals, allowing just a single hit in seven shutout innings in his major league debut. It’s a tough analysis because he’s been in the Pittsburgh system since 2010 and misses most of 2015 and 2016 due to Tommy John (the surgery, not the man), striking out just 19.3% of 482 AAA batters faced last season as a 25 year-old. He was an “additional mention” in the Pittsburgh top prospect report for Fangraphs this year, who might be a fifth starter if things fall right. He’s since struck out 30.3% of 89 AAA batters before making his debut this year, so who knows, but his cost seems to have climbed immediately to one I’m not entirely comfortable with.

Andrew Cashner has not retained his ability to induce weak contact from last season. Don’t buy into the strikeout rate increase either. This might get worse. He hasn’t even been very good against RHBs, which could have been his saving grace in Oakland tonight.

Sal Romano

Mike Leake

Wei-Yin Chen was alright at his peak, but I have no idea what he is at this point, having thrown fewer than 50 professional innings since 2016.

Kris Medlen has not thrown a major league pitch in nearly two years (5/10/16). He’s had nearly a double digit walk rate in four AAA starts this season and has only even completed five innings once.

Andrew Kittredge is a 28 year-old reliever.

Josh Tomlin

Peripherals (Pitcher)

Pitcher and Opponent K% & BB% for titled splits, similar to the Main Chart.

Peripherals (Opponent)

K/SwStr Chart (2017 LG AVG – 20.5 K% – 9.7 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.

Some of the most interesting guys on today’s board are ones who are within an acceptable range, such as Jose Quintana who’s strikeout rate has decreased to meet his swinging strike rate and Nick Pivetta, who has done exactly the opposite. His SwStr% has increased to justify his K%.

Rick Porcello is not out of range, but almost and has seen an increase in his K% increase without any movement in his SwStr%.

ERA Estimators Chart (2017 LG AVG – 4.48 ERA – 4.48 SIERA – 4.41 xFIP – 4.50 FIP)

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

Daniel Mengden also has just a 52.4 LOB%. The 5.6 HR/FB will probably increase, so we can’t buy into the really low FIP, but if the estimators are right, this is a league average pitcher.

German Marquez had a 62.5 LOB%, but his DRA (like most pitchers today for some reason) is well above his ERA.

Gio Gonzalez has a .344 BABIP, but 79.4 LOB% and 3.4 HR/FB.

Ian Kennedy has a 78.1 LOB% four points above his career average. He’s exceeded this just twice and you can probably guess once is the season he won 20 for the Diamondbacks.

J.A. Happ has a 20 HR/FB. He’s basically turned into Drew Smyly. When you miss, the ball leaves the yard sometimes.

BABIP & Statcast Chart (2017 LG AVG – .297 BABIP – 44.3 GB% – 20.5 LD% – 9.4 IFFB% – 86.7 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.

Aside from not generating popups, there is nothing to suggest Gio Gonzalez should have a BABIP this high.

StatCast Chart

All stats from BaseballSavant.com.

We see a lot of 90+ mph aEVs on today’s board.

It’s a little surprising to see Garrett Richards below a .300 xwOBA and his exit velocity is not even as low as it’s been the past, but it’s probably all the strikeouts.

Jose Berrios …I just want you to look at those numbers in comparison to everyone else. That’s what a .217 xwOBA looks like.

Beyond Berrios, who stands so far out, it appears Zack Wheeler and Rick Porcello have been the top contact managers on the board this year.

Pitcher Notes & Summary

Here we rank pitchers by value tiers with their overall rank in parenthesis next to the name for the top few. These are not hard and rigid rankings. Everything is fluid and can change 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.

To be clear on one thing, I’d actually consider Rick Porcello a top four to six overall arm tonight, butreally don’t like the price tag at all in that park with his general lack of significant upside to counter the risk. It’s interesting that just eight games on Wednesday seemed to be so much better for pitching choices than a full 15 games tonight. This is really a low quality slate (pitching-wise) behind the top few guys.

Value Tier One

Gerrit Cole (1) stands a decent chance of giving you seven innings with 10 strikeouts or better. He’s the pitcher most likely to do this on this slate, though a few others may be capable. That’s why he’s the highest priced arm on this board with a $1.5K gap to the second highest priced arm on FanDuel.

Value Tier Two

J.A. Happ (2) would have probably crushed last year’s Tampa Bay lineup, but despite loving his approach for DFS success in general, you wonder if it’s the best one in this spot. He’s doing some wonderful things and players should have some exposure here, but the cost is significant at this point.

Jose Berrios (3) is coming off his worst start of the season. While he’s been fine at generating swings and misses, the real strength of his game has been inducing a ridiculous amount of weak contact and he attempts to do that tonight against the White Sox for less than $10K on either site. In fact, at just $8.4K on FanDuel, perhaps he deserves a bump into the top tier. Minor concerns about his velocity and command in his last start, but it’s probably just an isolated incident.

Zack Wheeler (4) is cheap with some upside in a great spot. He’s shined in those so far this season and considering what the starters have done to the bullpen recently, they probably wouldn’t mind pushing him deep if he shows any competence tonight. It’s very close between him and Pivetta, but he gets the nod due to cost and matchup.

Value Tier Three

Nick Pivetta (5t) has been a completely different pitcher this year, making massive improvements against same-handed hitters. There seems to be nothing fluky about a low-threes ERA, while striking out a quarter of the batters he’s faced this year with a substantially increased SwStr%. He’s not in a great spot, but costs just $7.5K on either site. He drops from the second to third tier because he’s only pitched into the sixth inning in half of his starts and only reached 100 pitches once, but Gabe Kapler appears to be trusting his starters a bit more after early season bullpen hijinks.

German Marquez is essentially a league average pitcher when stripping out Coors effects and then you add a negative environment to those results and he’s probably worth more than a cost around the $6K mark in this spot.

Garrett Richards will generate lots of ground balls and strikeouts when he’s on, but he’s also had some massive control/command issues this season. There’s some risk, but more than enough upside to consider for less than $8K.

Gio Gonzalez (5t) reaches $10K on DraftKings, which contains quite a bit of risk for a pitcher who sometimes struggles to find the plate against an offense that will take walks. Still, the upside and maybe even the expectation is there for a quality start in a somewhat favorable spot tonight.

Value Tier Four – These guys seem basically in line with their price tag. They are either barely usable 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.

Joey Lucchesi has had some success with a 91 mph fastball and the cost is now above $8K. While the Dodgers have struggled against southpaws, I’d expect them to be better and him to be worse going forward, but the Dodgers have not seen him yet and he doesn’t necessarily profile as a bad pitcher.

Walker Buehler has just a 5.5 SwStr% through two starts despite striking out a quarter of batters faced, but has burned through the minors with great stuff. He up around or above $8K already and may not reach 100 pitches, but the Padres strike out a (bleep)-ton.

Ian Kennedy is missing fewer bats, but the park is generally helpful to him. Even though it’s not a negative run environment, it suits his skillset (or lack of one?) well. It’s the Tigers and only around $7K.

Miles Mikolas has been a quality pitcher. He faces a good Cubs’ offense, but catches them at a great time in a negative run environment. This could be worth more than an average price tag.

Daniel Mengden has league average estimators and is in a great spot. He could make a reasonable DraftKings compliment to a higher priced arm for less than $7K.

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