Advanced Stats - Pitching: Friday, May 5th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2017-05-06 03:48:50

Happy Cinco De Mayo to everyone, which I believe is Spanish for “the day Montero replaced Syndergaard and we all wept”. We’re two short of the standard full Friday night slate, perhaps to make up for the back-to-back 15 game ones on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Last night was one of the worst baseball slates you’re ever going to see (depending on your results though). Consider how poor the pitching choices were to begin with and then it was a one man show with Matt Andriese, who at least was the top projected value here yesterday. Two games (40% of the slate) had weather concerns. One game got started and then was rained out before it was official, wiping the points off the board. A couple of key players left another game with injuries. Then, players were left to scramble when Mike Trout was unexpectedly omitted from the Angels’ lineup less than an hour before first pitch.

The bright side is: there’s nowhere to go but up…unless you’re a Mets fan and Montero is replacing Syndergaard.

As always, don’t forget to check lineups, umpire assignments, line movement, ownership projections 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. And all of which are now available right here on the site.

Legend

Starting Pitching Main Chart

Andrew Triggs stepped up for seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts (no walks) against a very potent Houston lineup that had even cut their strikeouts below league average this season. Coming into that game with just 13 Ks over four starts, the most recent effort saves us from having to ask what’s wrong with a pitcher who debuted with a 23.1 K% in 56 innings last year and had well above average strikeout rates at every stop of the minors. Though his K% is still below league average, his SwStr% is now in double digits and not just from one start, as it’s been above 12% in three of his five starts now, providing further confidence that things were previously moving in the right direction. Reasons for further optimism are that his ground ball rate (55.8%) has been at least 50% in four of five starts with his hard hit rate (24.1%) has been 25% or below in four of five as well. He doesn’t even average 90 mph, with sliders and curves making up 50% of his pitches and he only throws 40% of his pitches in the strike zone, while getting an average rate of swings outside the strike zone. Nobody has yet really even tried to figure out what he’s doing (at least not that I’ve read), but his results suggest an All-Star caliber pitcher. He’s got a tougher matchup with a Detroit team that hammers RHP (29.0 Hard-Soft%), but the larger concern might be that Detroit is the top offense against ground ball pitchers (148 sOPS+) with an offense that improves 42% above their overall mark.

Chris Archer has virtually the same SwStr% and K% as the guy directly below him, which is great for Keuchel, but a decline for Archer. Oddly, the results have improved, while the peripherals and estimators have risen. His ground ball rate is down 10 points and his hard hit rate is up six points, but he’s not getting to too many of those perfect launch angles that would result in Barrels, which is why he’s only allowed three HRs after allowing 30 last year. The walk rate is the highest of his career too. This is not what we mean when we talk about regression. Results are expected to improve (and they did in the second half last year) only if we expect the process to stay strong. In this case it’s not, so let’s see if we can see why.

The velocity is the same, but he seems to have almost completely ditched his change-up and is now throwing his slider (48%) even more than his fastball (47.7%). There doesn’t seem to be much of a change in the shape of the pitch. It actually seems as if his slider is getting a bit more drop, if anything, though it’s generating just 16% whiffs after getting 20% whiffs over the last three years. Perhaps the additional drop is what’s generating better launch angles? That’s just a guess, but his chase rate (27%) is now below average too.

He’s facing good offenses, which includes the AL East and Detroit. Unfortunately, he can’t face his own team, but perhaps the strikeouts will come with a decline in competition. His SwStr rate isn’t even that much lower than last season. He does seem to have benefit from a bit of fortune so far though. Tonight, he gets Toronto for the third time this season and second in a row. They’ve looked a bit better this week, but are extremely right-handed (which is perhaps another reason he’s ditched his changeup – he’s faced mostly predominantly right-handed teams so far), while he’s had an 11 SwStr% in both starts against them, striking out 13 of 57 batters, pitching into the eighth inning each time. Toronto has an 84 sOPS+ against power pitchers in addition to their 80 wRC+ vs RHP.

Dallas Keuchel is dominating the bottom of the strike zone and below it, as he’s only throwing 35.6% of his pitches in the strike zone, yet his walk rate is a respectable 6.7%, while his 11.0 SwStr% is the best of his career. He’s gone at least seven innings in every start, allowing only even two runs one time with at least seven strikeouts in three of his last four. His ground ball rate is back up to 62.8% with a -5.2 Hard-Soft% and the lowest aEV on the board (84.9 mph). The Angels don’t strike out (17.5% vs LHP), but don’t have much power either (3.4 HR/FB). They have an 89 sOPS+ vs ground ball pitchers.

Danny Salazar has the highest SwStr% on the board (second highest in baseball) and is one of five pitchers with a strikeout rate above 29% pitching today. However, an 11.1 BB% has allowed him to go 6.1 innings only once, while a .354 BABIP isn’t helping matters either. His ground ball rate is 10 points below his career level with just a 23.5 Hard%. While there may be more HRs in his future, the BABIP should be a fluke. He has one of the top matchups on the board in Kansas City, who add a 78 sOPS+ vs power pitchers.

Eduardo Rodriguez has exhibited a major control issue (14.7 BB%), which has not allowed him to go past six innings, but he settled down to just two in his last start with nine strikeouts and he’s otherwise become a bat missing machine with a SwStr% would be top five in the majors if he had a few more innings to qualify. He has generated just 13 ground balls with a 34.0 Hard% through four starts. A 10% Barrels/BBE is concerning with runners frequently on the base paths, but his Barrels/PA is reasonably just half that due to all the strikeouts. Minnesota has been surprisingly poor vs LHP this year. They walk a ton (11.1% vs LHP), which can be a problem tonight, but they somehow hit for no power (5.2 HR/FB vs LHP) despite a 23.1 HR/FB over the last week. They’ve also been about average against both power and fly ball pitchers.

Michael Fulmer is still beating his estimators with an even lower BABIP (.220) and even higher LOB% (81) with a 13.7 K-BB% very similar to last season. A few ground balls have turned into line drives with hard contact on about one-third of batted balls, which is up just a bit and his SwStr% has dipped a bit over a point to barely over 9%. His estimators mostly still see something of a league average pitcher. With that said, he’s in a decent spot in Oakland against an offense hitting for a bit more power, but also striking out at a high rate (24.5% vs RHP).

Stephen Strasburg has been incredibly consistent in terms of results: seven innings of two or three run ball in all five of them. Those are all quality starts. He’s struck out eight to 10 in three of them, but just a total of five in the other two, though those are the only two starts where he didn’t walk anyone. His ground ball rate, which has fluctuated wildly in past seasons, is currently the highest of his career (53.1%). The Phillies are improved as an offense, but still have a 24.0 K% vs RHP.

Yu Darvish has struck out at least eight in three of his last four, but his SwStr% is pretty borderline in supporting a strikeout rate that high, being above 11.5% in just one start. That’s still quality work and with a career 30 K% on a 12.0 SwStr%, he tends to run a bit higher on that scale. His hard contact and walk rates are up a bit, but his exit velocity and barrel count are fine. He faces a very tough offense, but the significant park bump he gets makes it nearly comparable to facing a league average offense at home.

Zack Greinke with reduced velocity was supposed to be a fairly easy pass in Coors tonight, but as we’ve noted last time, he’s been pitching extremely well with less velocity so far. He’s now struck out 20 of his last 51 batters and true it was the Padres and Rockies, but both were at home in a very unfriendly park and he’s facing the same, severely under-performing offense here. His four start string of improving swinging strike rates stopped with a drop to 13.1% in his last start, but he started at 9.8% in his first start and has been above that in every one since. The hard contact is definitely too much at 38.5% and he can make fewer mistakes with lesser stuff, while Coors still makes this a dangerous spot, but there might be some benefit here.

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 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 (.298 BABIP – 72.3 LOB% – 13.3 HR/FB)

Mike Foltynewicz (.264 – 75.5% – 11.1) has an excellent batted ball profile, so I feel alright with his BABIP. There were three unearned runs in his last start, which probably explains part of the gap as well. He walked more than he struck out in each of his first two starts, but has bounced back with 15 Ks to just two walks over his last two against the Phillies and Brewers. I’m still not sure what we think about those offenses this year, but I’m finding it hard to hate him for $7.4K on either site. In the end, the Cardinals still hit RHP well and a park that fly balls seem to carry well in so far is in line for some strong winds out towards left tonight. I suppose he may be usable if Fowler and Piscotty, who both left last night’s game, are out of the lineup tonight.

Wade Miley (.254 – 89.4% 13.0) has only failed to generate at least eight strikeouts against the Yankees in two starts, though his higher strikeout starts were against either poor or high strikeout offenses. While his league average SwStr% is nearly tied with his 9.7% career high, it projects for something closer to a league average strikeout rate than an elite one, especially with an 18.8% career mark. The other matter is that the White Sox have been much more than competent against LHP with a low 16.8 K%.

Lance Lynn (.228 – 84.5% – 13.8) still has massive issues with LHBs and has always suffered a bit on the road. Additionally, Kevin is calling for strong outward bound winds to left in this game in a park that has so far shown to be very power friendly.

Miguel Gonzalez (.302 – 75.4% – 6.0) additionally has to worry about a strong wind blowing out to left in Baltimore tonight, even if the offense hasn’t been performing up to their normal standards thus far.

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

Nick Pivetta had a strong showing in his debut, holding down the Dodgers for five innings, while striking out five of 23 batters faced. Fangraphs graded the 24 year old as a very low end prospect (27th in the system with a 40 grade) and “thinks his future is in the bullpen” http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-33-prospects-philadelphia-phillies/ due to expected issues with LHBs, though that certainly wasn’t the case in his first start. There have been several more articles over there about him the last two weeks, which I’m not going to link to, but you can see under his player page on that site. One looked in at his first start and didn’t see much difference from the scouting reports. Another remarked about increased fastball velocity and a 30.5 K-BB% through three AAA starts after a professional high of 16.8% through five AAA starts last year. There may be something more there than originally thought a month ago or it may be an unknown pitcher excelling in his debut. I couldn’t argue much with a flyer as an SP2 for $4.7K on DraftKings, but he’s facing a tough Washington offense that should have a little more information in a power friendly park.

Kenta Maeda should be better and has an enormous SwStr%. He’s allowed seven HRs already with much more contact in the air this season. This is made all the more frustrating by the fact that he might be in the top spot on the board tonight, but even at his best, he was a five-inning pitcher, a target he has not exceeded in four of his five starts. Should it then be encouraging that he turned in his best outing last time out, lasting seven innings with 101 pitchers or discouraging that they may be even more cautious this time out?

Francisco Liriano continues a theme of high strikeout pitchers with double digit walk rates. The fact that the Rays strike out 26.8% of the time vs LHP should be an additional benefit, but his upside to risk ratio outlook is not as positive as some of the other pitchers. His ground ball rate is down five points to a mere league average this season, yet he’s somehow allowed just a single HR after having some severe HR issues in the past. Tampa Bay does lose 45% of their overall offensive output against power pitchers though (70 sOPS+).

Yovani Gallardo possesses more positive qualities than I expected to see this year. Increased velocity had led to a career high 9.3 SwStr% and his batted ball profile has always been decent. He’s struck out 14 of his last 50 batters over his last two starts, but did not generate one weakly hit ball. He does pitch in a favorable park against an average offense too. He might be becoming more interesting, but with a long history of less than mediocracy trailing a couple of good starts.

Jhoulys Chacin was destroyed by a Dodgers’ offense that likes to beat on RHP in his first start of the year. Since that time, three of his last five have been at least decent from a fantasy perspective. He does get them at home, though either park is really favorable and costs very little, but I’m not sold on his sustaining his current strikeout rate.

Jason Hammel

German Marquez

Jesse Chavez has walked six of his 11 batters over his last two starts with a HR allowed in three straight and just three strikeouts last time out. This is more a Houston problem though. They’re hitting for power and not striking out much. The Astros may represent one of the day’s worst matchups even in a squarely negative run environment.

Rafael Montero

Chad Kuhl is missing a lot of bats and FIP really likes him, but he can’t sustain a 3.1 HR/FB and he’s walking too many batters (11.1%) for his SwStr rate to matter much.

Tom Koehler

Phil Hughes

Jimmy Nelson is probably getting rained out anyway.

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 (2016 LG AVG – 20.2 K% – 9.5 SwStr% – 2.13 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.

Wade Miley has the elite strikeout rate that I’m most comfortable in believing won’t stick, while Chad Kuhl could be more interesting on the other end if he threw more strikes.

ERA Estimators Chart (2016 LG AVG – 4.34 ERA – 4.30 SIERA – 4.24 xFIP – 4.30 FIP)

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

In all my glowing about Andrew Triggs, I forgot to mention his .233 BABIP or 3.7 HR/FB, but the contact has been exceptional. I wouldn’t regress him all the way to his estimators because I believe his strikeout rate will improve too.

I’m almost starting to regret including DRA because it seems to disagree so substantially with everything else and I can’t argue for or against it because of the vagueness about what goes into it. Hopefully, it’s just an early season calibration issue that will matchup better in the coming weeks.

BABIP & Statcast Chart (2016 LG AVG – .298 BABIP – 44.3 GB% – 20.9 LD% – 9.5 IFFB% – 87.2 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.

Eduardo Rodriguez is generating so many fly balls that I’d expect him to have a BABIP in the lower range, even if he doesn’t maintain this number.

Most guys with at least four starts are within about 50 points now at least, although we’re still seeing some ridiculous things. (I’m staring right at Dallas Keuchel and “(player-popup)Danny Salazar”:/players/danny-salazar-15290’s profiles).

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 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.

Value Tier One

Stephen Strasburg (1) has both the strong upside and has been a model of consistency this season, though the strikeouts have been a bit more hit or miss. He’s faced the Phillies twice this year, striking out eight batters each time.

Andrew Triggs is a potential top DraftKings ($6.7K) value despite the rise in cost because it’s still well below what his overall performance merits. While I like him on FanDuel as well (still below $8K), I might drop him a tier because Detroit is elite against GB pitchers and also admit that he may not be a top tier guy on a normal slate. While this isn’t a poor board of options by any stretch, it’s appears fairly accurately priced with any super-value types.

Value Tier Two

Chris Archer (3t) hasn’t appeared as dominant despite a low ERA, but perhaps that’s been mostly a consequence of stiff competition. He’s looked good against the Blue Jays twice already and it appears to be a positive spot against them again at home for less than $10K.

Value Tier Three

Dallas Keuchel (2) won’t retain his .186 BABIP or 98.7 LOB%, but he might have the highest floor tonight. Facing the Angels might be tough on his upside though, and he’s the highest priced pitcher on FanDuel. There’s a bit of an overall bump if Mike Trout misses again, but Ben Revere actually cuts down on strikeout potential.

Danny Salazar (3t) is almost the opposite of the pitcher directly above at a similar cost. He has great upside in a nice spot, but carries a lot of potential risk and may not go very deep into the game.

Zack Greinke is pitching well no matter what the radar gun says. True, it’s been mostly against poor offenses, but in a terrible park and that’s what he’s facing tonight as well. Although the park is more extreme than Arizona, certainly, his price tag is reduced to around $8K to compensate.

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.

Yu Darvish (3t) is not in a great spot with some flaws and the highest price tag on DraftKings, but has as much upside as tonight’s other top strikeout arms.
Eduardo Rodriguez is a bit of a poor man’s Salazar. He costs more than $2K less, but carries more risk. Despite the poor record for the Twins against LHP currently, they have some dangerous RHBs lurking.

Michael Fulmer still may not be as good as his ERA and may be a tough sell on FanDuel for more than $9K, which seems fairly accurate. However, there may be some value for exactly $8K in Oakland, against an offense that is striking out a lot more this year.

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

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