Advanced Stats - Pitching: Friday, May 6th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-05-07 03:02:11

This is what we’ve been waiting for all week. Look at all these amazing arms on the mound Friday night. The question isn’t can we find enough pitchers who are worth using for the first time this week, but how do we cut down? Just look at the strikeout rates on today’s board! As always on Fridays, the rambling is kept to a minimum with 14 games to get through.

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+.

Danny Salazar has struck out at least seven in four of five starts. Aside from one ugly outing with four walks and three strikeouts, he’s been as good as expected with a -6.0 Hard-Soft% which is in sharp contrast to his normal contact profile and he’s allowed just one HR. The high walk rate is a bit of a concern, but his Zone% and velocity are in line, so it’s not a situation as with Hamels below. His strikeout rate is 27.7% at home since last season and the Royals have been striking out at nearly an average this season and are the coldest bunch of bats in baseball with a 1.7 HR/FB and -2.6 Hard-Soft% over the last week.

Drew Pomeranz is having a bit of a breakout this year. His last outing was his worst mark in strikeouts (5) and SwStr% (7.1). He’s also walked 11% of the batters he’s faced, but has struck out 30.5% throwing his knuckle-curve 41.5% of the time. The contact has been a little worse than you’d like (20.3 Hard-Soft%), but this is a version of Pomeranz anyone would have signed up for last month. I mean, I’m trying to find something else to say, but keep staring at that K%. The Mets are a tough offense, but strike out 23.5% against LHP with the tough run environment being a bit of a neutralizer.

Kenta Maeda allowed his second through fifth major league runs in his last start, but still struck out five with just one walk and completed six innings for the fifth straight time to start his major league career. We knew he couldn’t keep every fly ball in the park or strand every base runner. This has been a quality pitcher, who has exceeded expectations, throwing five different pitches at least 9% of the time and locating them all well even if he doesn’t average over 90 mph. Contact made against him has been weak as well (22.5 Hard%). He’s been consistent in these things too with a Hard% below 30 in four of five starts and double digit SwStr% in all of them. His 83.1 mph aEV is second lowest on the board. Facing the Blue Jays in Toronto is no easy task, but much lesser pitchers than him had shut them down in recent days before a big breakout inning last night and they’re striking out about a quarter of the time against RHPs.

Madison Bumgarner has righted the ship over his last few starts, striking out at least seven in each of his last five starts. His velocity has returned a bit over the last few starts, but still remains down well over a mph. It hasn’t affected his end line much, though the SwStr% is down a bit so we’ll have to watch that. The Rockies, after their amazing outburst last night, have been average on the road and hit LHP well (35.2 Hard%, 27.1 HR/FB), but with a 24.9 K%. Bumgarner has a 30.1 K% at home since last season with a reduced 8.7 HR/FB in a big park.

Noah Syndergaard in addition to all of the wonderful numbers you see here, has an 82.6 mph aEV that’s lowest on today’s board. This one is easy. I’ll stop talking at let you gaze at all the wonderful numbers next to his name today and notice that he has one of the top matchups as well.

Rich Hill hasn’t been excellent peripherally in all of his starts this year, but has struck out at least eight in half of them and maintained overall excellence that many people rightfully questioned if he could from last September. The walk rate has doubled, the strikeout rate is still a little high for his SwStr%, so no he’s probably not an elite LHP in the mold of Kershaw or Sale, but he’s now carried a double digit SwStr% with a 50% ground ball rate through 10 starts over two starts and there’s more value than the DFS pricing algorithms are crediting him for in that. While I get that he’s facing the Orioles in Baltimore with a higher hard contact rate (34.2%) than you’d like, he’s also generating a high weak contact rate (25.0%) with a solid 86.4 mph aEV. Additionally, Baltimore has been pretty average vs LHP and over the last week with Sabathia completely shutting them down a couple of days ago.

Rick Porcello has produced at an elite level through the first month or so of the season. While not all of the things he’s doing are expected to continue, and we’ll cover them below, he’s been a quality pitcher this year, striking out at least six and finishing six innings in every start and not even allowing a HR in his last two starts. You’re probably hesitant of rostering a pitcher in Yankee Stadium with a HR rate hovering around 15% of fly balls since he was traded to Boston and his GB/FB ratio dropped below 1.5, but this doesn’t seem like those Yankees. They still have a few guys who can pop you from the left side, but their 12.4 HR/FB vs RHP/12.1 HR/FB at home are pretty pedestrian for that park and their 25.4 Hard% vs RHP is laughable. Though in a park that plays much tougher on LHP, he easily handled this lineup at Fenway last week.

Ricky Nolasco is not a name I was expecting to see so much love for in the numbers today, but his 19.2 K-BB% is a bit crazy and ties a career best from 2009…..when he had a 5.06 ERA despite much lower estimators in 185 innings. This is what he does. He’s a rare breed who has pitched well below his peripherals throughout his career with the main culprits being a .314 career BABIP and inability to strand runners (68.4 LOB%) and with over 1.5K major league innings, it’s something we can probably believe in. That might not mean such great underlying rates can’t be useful in a daily fantasy sense where strikeout are of about equal value to runs and excellent control means longer outings and potentially less messy blowup situations. He’s allowed at least four runs in three of his five starts, but has at least started the seventh inning in four. The White Sox are neutral city.

Taijuan Walker has sacrificed some of his strikeouts for more control or at least it seems that way even if you don’t see it yet because he had his most amazing performance against these Astros two starts ago, striking out a season high 11 of 27 batters. In his other four starts, he’s struck out 14 of 95 batters, but has only walked three with one HR overall. Walks seemed to be a problem he solved last year, while hard contact in the air appears to be the one he’s working on now (13.4 Hard-Soft%, 13.0 HR/FB last season). His GB/FB has gone from 0.99 to 2.14. While this portrays a quality pitcher, it might be a different quality pitcher than you think you are getting. Houston is a powerful (16.1 HR/FB & Hard-Soft% vs RHP) and difficult offense at home (18.3 Hard-Soft%, 13.8 HR/FB), but they should keep his strikeout rate above average (26.5 K% vs RHP) and his new ground ball profile could limit the damage in the air.

Wei-Yin Chen has pitched into the 7th inning at a reduced velocity and SwStr% in each of the four starts since he missed one with an elbow issue. Giant red flags with loud sirens! Holy cow, look at the Phillies though! A 29.5 K% and 0.7 Hard-Soft% vs LHP and a -0.7 Hard-Soft% overall this last week. Do you even need all of your elbow ligaments attached or to be left-handed to beat the Phillies using your left arm to throw the baseball?

Zack Greinke has suffered through some indignities, but all at home and with underlying numbers not all that different than last year (SwStr%, batted ball and contact profile). Anyone who’s not an ex-player employed by MLB Network or the Arizona organization could see that he was always in for major regression this year towards solid career numbers, taking age into account. His K% should move above average, back to more recent rates with the third highest mark of his career (all in the last three seasons). His velocity is down, but the same place it’s sat the last two Aprils. The Braves are awful. He should have no problem with one of the best matchups on the board in Atlanta.

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)

Carlos Martinez (.202 BABIP – 83.3 LOB% – 11.4 HR/FB) has been good, but not as great as his ERA looks due to the low BABIP and high strand rate quoted. The strikeouts are down to league average, though a drop in walk rate too has offset some of the damage. His ERA is lower than last season despite estimators half a run higher. He’s being hit much harder (20.5 Hard-Soft%) and faces a decent offense. Any other day this week and he likely still makes the cut, but we have the luxury of passing on a not so ideal spot for more than $9K tonight.

Cole Hamels (.299 BABIP – 86.6 LOB% – 20.0 HR/FB)) has his highest SwStr% ever, but his lowest K% since 2009. Why? Probably because he’s throwing so many pitches out of the strike zone and has an 11.8 BB%. None of this has hurt his ERA much because of the high LOB%. He also has the second highest GB% of his career (51.9) and a completely ridiculous -13.6 Hard-Soft%. All of this and it’s the walk rate that’s the most concerning because that’s more in his control than some other things and quicker to stabilize. Also, combined with a drop in velocity (which has happened here too) it can sometimes indicate injury. This was written nearly three weeks ago, but not much has changed.

Vincent Velasquez (.229 BABIP – 80.2 LOB% – 6.5 HR/FB) was traded for a reliever for a reason. His last three starts: 16.1 IP – 8 R (5 ER) – 7 BB – 14 K. That’s not bad, but it’s not worth $9K+. His overall strikeout numbers look amazing, but his SwStr has been 8.4% since that monster outing against the Padres and not a single time in double digits.

Jordan Zimmermann (.267 BABIP – 92.3 LOB% – 2.7 HR/FB) has only had a lower SwStr% in 2010 (31 innings). His 12.1 K-BB% is a career low. He’s been a good pitcher in the past, but never a $10K daily fantasy pitcher. His DK cost is a bit more reasonable $1.5K lower, but still not a great bargain unless you like paying for strand rate and unsustainable home run suppression.

Mat Latos (.228 BABIP – 93.8 LOB% – 7.9 HR/FB) has just a 12.6 K%. These numbers shouldn’t require further exposition.

Yordano Ventura (.203 BABIP – 80.5 LOB% – 8.8 HR/FB) has twice walked six in a start this year and his K% is back below average. What the hell happened here?

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

Michael Pineda continues to have excellent peripherals, including a ridiculous career high 14.3 SwStr% that’s somehow only third best on today’s board. It takes a long time for contact rates to stabilize, much more than a single season in fact, but the hard contact is something that’s been going on for a while and is even worse this year (20.0 Hard-Soft%) and it’s just difficult to keep trotting him out there, hoping for normalcy to kick in. It might be different, as with a couple of the pitchers below, on many other days, but it’s not necessary tonight. Last year, at least he was generating a high rate of ground balls, even if they were hit hard. This year, he’s already allowed seven HRs with a 1.06 GB/FB closer to his career rate. He also has the toughest matchup on the board against an offense that has mauled RHP and knocked him out after five innings with just three Ks (three BBs) in his last start (although he only allowed two runs).

Chris Archer looked to have figured it out two starts back in double digit strikeout, no walk performance, but was right back to previous problems with four and four in his last start. He allowed just one hit, but you guess it: Home Run. Although he has allowed seven HRs now, he’s only allowed more than one once. He’s allowed at least one-third hard contact in each start however, with a 28.4 LD%. It’s tough to say he doesn’t deserve the sky high BABIP with the high walk rate compounding the issue. As with Martinez above, I’d probably lean towards pushing the issue any other day this week, but it’s unnecessary risk tonight.

Francisco Liriano didn’t walk a single batter in his last start, but still has a 13.5 BB%. I don’t know if his hamstring has healed or if the lower K% over the last month is due to the hamstring issue, but he hasn’t struck out more than six since his first start against these Cardinals and it’s a difficult spot to test him in for $9K. It was just Cincinnati he pitched well against at home in his last start and he’s looked bad against that same team and the Padres on the road.

Marcus Stroman is doing basically what Aaron Sanchez is, but not as good, yet consistently runs for about $2K higher. Both of these guys focus on generating ground balls at home over strikeouts. It’s worked well enough, as he hasn’t allowed a HR in Toronto since returning from injury late last season, but throwing your sinker 50% of the time isn’t going to generate swings and misses, nor does he throw it nearly as hard as Sanchez, generating more normal contact (27.1 Hard%). A 59.4 GB% is tremendous when you have a strong defense behind you (not .208 BABIP tremendous though), but it’s tough to generate enough fantasy points at a higher than average cost.

Ubaldo Jimenez

Chad Bettis hasn’t really been all that bad, but costs a bit more than expected.

Tyler Cravy has shown some minor league strikeout proficiency on occasion, but struggles with the issues that keeps all pitchers of these types floating around the minor leagues for a long time. He struggles with control and has an ERA with estimators well over four in just under 50 major league innings. It’s not that he absolutely can’t turn into something, but at nearly 27 years old, it’s very unlikely that he’s more than swing man, if that.

Cory Rasmus

Doug Fister

Aaron Blair is a prospect of some note, but his K% dropped below 20% last year in Double and Triple A. He’s struck out just four, walking five with a 90 mph fastball in two starts, albeit against tough offenses.

Timothy Adleman is a guy. Definitely a guy. That we can say about him because he has a Fangraphs player page with numbers underneath them. Although, aside from stating the fact that he’s 28 years old, throws right handed and was the 718th pick in 2010, it’s one of the few profiles that’s completely devoid of words and articles underneath that information on his page. That generally doesn’t suggest a great future.

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.

Madison Bumgarner has seen nearly a two point drop from his career high 12.5 SwStr% last year, but is still above his career mark of 10.4% and has been at 9.8% or above in five of six starts. It had increased every season since 2012 up until now. Maybe we shouldn’t expect a new career high K%, which is what this would be, but his normal range around 24% should be in no danger.

Rich Hill has been able to consistently sustain a nearly 3.0 K/SwStr through 10 starts split between September and April and the good thing about it is he’s had a SwStr above 9% in every start this season before his last one (5.7%). I’d still expect him to eventually settle into a solid 23-25 K% range.

Rick Porcello has a slightly lower SwStr% than 2015 (8.4), so I’m not buying him sustaining this K% for much longer, but even a 20 K% while potentially reducing the hard contact in the air changes his daily fantasy profile for the positive.

Taijuan Walker has exceeded a 9.0 SwStr% in just that one start against these Astros. As mentioned, he’s doing things differently and while his well above average K% may continue to hold up against them again today, it’s not likely to over the long run.

Zack Greinke should be fine. His SwStr% has been above 8% in each of his last five starts. The one thing I might point out is how good Yasmani Grandal is at pitch framing and how terrible Welington Castillo is. Look at Kyle Hendrick’s first season K and SwStr rates with Castillo and then his first two without him. He might be the worst.

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.

Danny Salazar has just a .197 BABIP with great indicators and Cleveland brand new improved defense, though it’s still unsustainable of course. His 76.9 LOB% hasn’t been affected much, perhaps balanced out by an equally unsustainable 3.6 HR/FB.

Drew Pomeranz has a career .280 BABIP in just 320 innings (I thought he had more), which is close to his .269 so far. He generated some pop ups the last few years in Oakland, but that LD% is not sustainable. He’s also been a guy with a normal HR rate, making the 6.7 HR/FB so far a little sketchy, even for San Diego.

Kenta Maeda has a tremendous profile in the BABIP chart below, so I’m not even going to argue with that, though we know a 92.2 LOB% rate can’t be maintained and the 6.5 HR/FB leans towards some regression as well. The Dodgers would have signed up for an ERA around three.

Rick Porcello – It’s rare we talk about a pitcher here without a large gap between ERA and Estimators, but there are a couple of standout numbers. Look at his FIP. There is a gap there because he still has a 16.7 HR/FB and may continue to fly higher than the league average with a different approach since moving to Boston (although HR rates take several years to stabilize). It hasn’t affected his ERA or other estimators because his BABIP and LOB% (88.0) are so extreme and ripe for regression. As those things happen, I expect his K% to drop much closer to league average as well, meaning I probably buy into his FIP more than other numbers. The thing to realize though, is that’s still a quality pitcher in the AL East and a big improvement over last year.

Taijuan Walker has a 79.1 LOB% and just a 4.8 HR/FB, which is less than half his rate last year. While his new ground ball heavy approach should decrease his HR total overall, it’s not going to have as large an effect on the portion of fly balls that leave the yard.

Zack Greinke is in a more difficult situation where an 11.9 HR/FB might be the norm now, but a .347 BABIP and 66.7 LOB% are certainly not. He’s in a much better park tonight.

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.

Noah Syndergaard has been BABIPed and victimized by a poor defense. I’ve watched it happen in every start because he is event television in the NY/NJ area. Terry Collins has said that they shift less with him on the mound because he throws 100 mph and there are few reliable spray charts for that type of velocity. They need to figure out something, somehow to better place their fielders though, because nearly 35% of the batted balls are sneaking through on a 57.3 GB% with a -2.4 Hard-Soft%. Use an extra infielder or something.

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.

Value Tier One

Rich Hill (4) might be more of a GPP play, but deserves more respect than a $7-8K price. He’s pitching at a higher level than most of the pitchers at a much higher price today. The matchup is not exactly favorable, but potentially less difficult than a lot of players might think. If he even comes close to continuing what he’s done most of his starts since this run began, he might be easily the top value of the night.

Noah Syndergaard (1) has a huge flaw that has been discovered and exploited. Base stealers have been successful over 90% of the time against him. Good luck getting on base. Good luck hitting the ball. He’s had at least a 13.3 SwStr% in four of five starts.

Value Tier Two

Drew Pomeranz is striking out 30.5% of the batters he’s faced through five starts and still costs less than $7K. There’s danger in a double digit walk rate and high rate of hard contact against a high power offense, but he has a 30.5 K% and is less than $7K.

Value Tier Three

Danny Salazar (5) rides the bubble between Tiers Two and Three. Let’s call him 2A. He’s doing some unsustainable things and the walk rate is high, but he’s striking out a ton of hitters and facing an ice cold offense at home. And his $9K cost is more middle of the board than top today.

Zack Greinke (3) should have no trouble dismantling this Atlanta lineup. There are some issues in his new situation that I failed to account for (catcher along with park) that might make the regression heavier than just his ERA estimators last season, but he’s still a quality pitcher in a neutral situation and he only has to deal with the catching portion of his performance detractors in a great spot tonight.

Kenta Maeda (6) has been excellent, but remains below $10K and not rated much higher in terms of value today because he’s in a tough spot in Toronto against a powerful offense finally showing signs of life. That he remains a strong consideration at all at an above average cost speaks to what he’s accomplished already even if some of it is unsustainable. Also remember that the Blue Jays are striking out more often.

Madison Bumgarner (2) is normally money at home and though the Rockies appear to be a more formidable and balanced offense this season, especially against LHP, he’s still likely to prevail here. He is the second highest price on the board though with stuff which may have waned a bit since last season, although he’s still pitching at an All Star caliber level.

Ricky Nolasco is the sneaky pick today. Nobody should be on him and while you should believe in the ERA at this point, the quality peripherals still get you daily fantasy points. Would you pay $7K or less for 7 IP – 3 to 4 ER – 0 BB – 6 to 7 K?

Wei-Yin Chen – I’m not saying he definitely has one. I’m not a doctor, I’m barely a writer, but a popular misconception is that you can’t pitch with a broken Tommy John. The Phillies are so bad against LHP that I’d potentially roster an injured one at a high price against them. Remember that significant decreases in velocity and Zone% frequently signal an injury. Well, Fangraphs shows plate discipline numbers from two different sources. One says his Zone% is down, the other says it’s a career high. I can’t tell you which to believe. He has been able to pitch into the 7th inning in each of his last four, so he should be able to handle the Phillies.

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.

Rick Porcello carries some risk in Yankee Stadium at an increasing price and is most likely not as good as his current ERA even if his SIERA and xFIP agree and it was explained why above. He’s still an improved pitcher in not a terrible spot at what seems more like a near accurate cost.

Taijuan Walker is costly and people probably expect a lot of strikeouts. He should still generate enough today and can meet his price tag in value, but you may want to alter the way you expect him to reach value going forward. The floor might be higher, but the ceiling has lowered.

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

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