Advanced Stats - Pitching: Monday, April 25th

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-04-26 03:27:34

There is so much to get to today and an entirely full week of night baseball. Four of the next five days have at least 12 games on the night slate, which is the most action packed week of daily fantasy baseball I can remember in a long time. Three of today’s pitchers are making their season debuts. This keeps us from having our first full day of 2016 numbers in every box and with about one-third of today’s pitchers making their fifth start, we can start taking these samples at least a little bit more seriously.

Why are the three season debuting pitchers the only cause of empty boxes today? Because 2015 3-Year Park Factors have finally been updated and if you’re a follower, I was tweeting out some of the more interesting changes Sunday afternoon. To recap, in short, it looks like a large majority of the league regressed closer to the middle, leaving fewer real extreme park features. There are still some major anomalies, but it’s becoming more of a neutralized game if that’s your thing.

Finally, we’re adding team defensive numbers to the mix. Since we’re using UZR/150, these numbers are still quite large in some players and pretty far from what they’ll become, but I just felt the need to illustrate how much better the Mets have become up the middle with Walker/Cabrera over Flores/Murphy. And Terry Collins wants Syndergaard to pitch more to contact to go deeper into games. If Syndergaard pitches to contact, he won’t be going deeper into games. Anyhow, now you can see some connections between defense and BABIP. Yup, Cleveland has the best defense in the league.

New season changes to the article were outlined on Opening Day, which you can find here so we won’t repeat those again.

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 pitches in front of the best defense in baseball, which makes this easy for him, but of course you already knew that about Cleveland. As such, he has allowed just three total runs in three starts, walking three in each start and striking out seven twice and nine once. There’s little concern about the 12.5 BB% because he’s never had control issues, but did finally get some hard contact problems in hand last year and that’s continued to improve this year (-5.2 Hard-Soft%, 5.6 HR/FB). The Twins have righted the ship since the start of the season at least a bit and have a formidable, but not frightening offense.

Drew Pomeranz has the second highest SwStr% on today’s board. He also has the second highest SwStr% in the majors among pitchers with at least 15 innings this year. In his last start, Pittsburgh stacked righties against him because he was supposed to have a major problem with them. He’s struck out 20 of the 59 RHBs he’s faced in 2016. He’s cut his fourseam usage in half and is using more curveballs and changeups (both reverse platoon pitches) and has even introduced an occasional cutter. All three pitches are getting a double digit SwStr rate. San Francisco is unlikely to stack up RHBs on him. I don’t even think they have that many in reserve. They are a good offense in a tough park, but have struggled to make quality contact against LHP early (-3.1 Hard-Soft%).

Garrett Richards is fine, but seems to be differently fine. His K% is back to where it was two years ago, but he’s not getting all that weak contact he was so proficient at the last two years (25.2 Hard-Soft%). His line drive have been up, dropping his GB rate below 50% through four starts. He’s struck out at least six, but not more than seven in every start, but also has at least a 40 Hard% in three of four starts. My guess would be weaker contact comes. Kansas City had been striking out a bit more, but is back to just 14% over the last week despite a particularly poor showing against another one of today’s pitchers.

Ian Kennedy has made the Royals look smart so far. He’s pitched into the seventh inning with exactly seven Ks in each of his three starts, allowing a total of three runs. We expected the strikeouts and potentially a reduction in HRs in Kansas City, but he’s only allowed one (in Houston) so far. If you think that’s odd, consider over half of his contact has been in the air (0.5 GB/FB) and only one has been an infield fly. His 85.67 average exit velocity is one of the lower marks on today’s board, though he has allowed 37.5% hard contact, so something’s gotta give. He may surprisingly be in the top spot of the night with the non-Trout portion of the offense not existing yet. It’s not even that their swinging and missing. They have the lowest K% (14.7) in the majors, but also the second lowest Hard% (24.9) and a -1.6 Hard-Soft% vs RHP, so maybe they shouldn’t be making contact so often.

Jaime Garcia does not pitch in a friendly park tonight, but RH HRs are down significantly in Arizona. His 56.4 career GB% makes him one of the better candidates in this park anyway. His 32.9 K% is not real, but this is a guy whose SwStr% fell below double digits for the first time last year. He has historically missed more bats than average and I’m not sure a lot of people know how good a pitcher he is when he’s healthy because he so rarely is. He’s taken the weak ground balls to another level through three starts (-4.4 Hard-Soft%) and with no real platoon split has all the tools to handle an offense with some right handed pop in a tough park.

Kendall Graveman continues do incredibly interesting things. He’s increased an already strong ground ball rate nearly 15 points to an elite one (64.6%), cut down on hard contact (25.0%), and increased his SwStr rate (10.9%) several points, resulting in an above average K%. He’s basically been the equivalent of the Cy Young version of Dallas Keuchel. The Tigers aren’t really a poor offense, but have been struggling with a 20.5 K-BB% vs RHP this year and 3.1 HR/FB over the last week.

Madison Bumgarner has regained some, but a not a lot of his lost velocity over his last two starts and still sits more than a mile and a half per hour from his normal range. We can’t argue with an overall package that has generated at least a 9.8 SwStr% in every start and struck out at least seven in each of his last three with decreasing hard contact in every start, though still at a low of just 29.4%. The five HRs is a bit concerning, but just one in San Francisco and we’re certainly not going to abandon him against the Padres, who have been surprisingly formidable against LHP in not a so small number of opportunities (200 PA). They have a double digit walk rate with a 16.7 HR/FB and 22.0 Hard-Soft%.

Marcus Stroman his more ground balls (61.8%) than strikeouts (13.3 K%, 6.6 SwStr%), so we need to be careful in our expectations, but his career 4.3 Hard-Soft% is pretty close to the White Sox 5.3% vs RHP this year. They are succeeding due to their pitching, not their offense.

Nathan Eovaldi has not been able to keep the runs off the board with some harder than desired contact (35.3 Hard%), but it’s decreased in each start and he didn’t allow a HR in his last start after two in each of his first two. The strikeouts we hoped on with the introduction of a splitter last season have been there with at least seven in all three start (but a high of eight). Texas is a fairly neutral, well balanced lineup up and down in a less power friendly, but more run friendly environment than Yankee Stadium believe it or not.

Noah Syndergaard has a SwStr% in the league average K% range and has the lowest average exit velocity in the league (83.47 mph) on the rare occasions contact is made, which is just 64.1% of the time. He’s a cheat code in a video game right now. It’s not even fair to give him one of the top matchups tonight as well. If the Mets had a defense, he might not ever give up any runs at all.

Raisel Iglesias eased some worries in his last start with his velocity in line with 2015 for the first time this season resulting in a 9.0+ SwStr% and above average K% for just the second time in four starts. He allowed a few too many HRs last year, but generated strikeout at a pace that excited daily fantasy players in the second half of last season. He generates enough weak contact that we hoped he’d turn around the HR problem and has so far this season (7.7 HR/FB). The Mets have a 20.0 HR/FB over the last week, but this is one of the lowest run environments in baseball (though more neutral for HRs) and they will strikeout at an above average rate.

Rick Porcello is still allowing HRs (five in three starts), but has struck out at least seven in each start and has one of the top three matchups tonight with one of the lower exit velocities (85.39 mph). This is great news against a Braves offense with a 3.3 HR/FB vs RHP and not a single HR overall this past week. His 38.8 fly ball rate is a career high pace, but with a 24.5 Hard% not too far from career norms.

Ross Stripling has struggled a bit with control (10.8 BB%), but is keeping the ball on the ground (2.0 GB/FB) and allowing little hard contact (20.8 Hard%). This is backed up by a low 85.83 average exit velocity. He doesn’t miss a lot of bats, but potentially just enough to useful. This works out well because the Marlins have a 6.8 HR/FB and -3.8 Hard-Soft% vs RHP.

Taijuan Walker isn’t doing anything we’d normally expect him to do and that includes walking or striking out batters along with HRs (just one). He’s had a 15.5 HR/FB even at home since last season and that might seem like a dangerous proposition against Houston, which it probably is, but he’s also established an ability to miss bats at above a league average rate before a few starts this season. Now, is he taking a little something off on purpose in order to keep the ball in the park and walk fewer batters? There’s little difference in velocity, but a few more changeups for fastballs so far. The Astros are a fairly neutral matchup in a much tougher park (though, as mentioned, not entirely HR safe from Walker) and have struck out 27.1% of the time vs RHP to go along with their 17.9 HR/FB.

Zack Greinke has the Arizona brass breathing a little easier over his most recent couple of starts. He’s still not entirely rid of the stink of his first start, but otherwise seems to be back to normal, as long as your realize normal was pre-2015 results. This is not really an ideal matchup against a tough Cardinals offense whose RH batters hit RHP well. They’ve been hitting for power too this year (16.3 HR/FB vs RHP). Arizona may not be what it’s been in the past for RH HRs, but is still a hitter friendly run environment and an upgrade (for hitters) over St Louis.

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 (.295 BABIP – 72.3 LOB% – 10.8 HR/FB)

Jordan Zimmerman (.268 BABIP – 100 LOB% – 0 HR/FB) made me look quite stupid for citing his paltry 4.8 SwStr%, resulting in a 13.7 K% and suggested he was in for a rough ride against the Royals. He simply used 15 swings and misses to dispatch eight of 26 opponents on strikes because, well, baseball. There was a little bit of redemption in additionally stating that his ERA estimators above five at that point and actual ERA of zero would probably end up meeting somewhere in the middle and his estimators did drop a run, but still sit at four as he hasn’t allowed a HR or a single runner to score on the back of a BABIP still 26 points below his career rate. Oakland is a marginal opponent, who have been hitting for some power lately and there are plenty of higher upside guys even in his own price range.

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

Cesar Ramos has started 10 major league games since 2009 with most of his 299 innings coming out of the bullpen. He’s started all three of his minor league appearances this year, but has not completed five innings. Expect the bullpen early. I can not currently even find a price for him.

Chris Archer is not yet at the point of hopelessness and his velocity has even been back up near normal in his last two starts, but I can’t in good conscious recommend his league high 40.0 HR/FB with a 46.6 Hard% and the worst average exit velocity (92.38 mph) on today’s board against the Baltimore offense. They’re already responsible for four of the six HRs he’s allowed. Funny thing as I mentioned yesterday too, Tampa Bay has become a more run neutral environment with the largest favorable jump (unfavorable for pitchers) for LH power. I’m not positive why that would be, but do know the Rays pitchers are taught to pitch up in the zone (usually to a lot of success). Perhaps they’ve become more confident in doing this at home, leading to more HRs, but still overall success.

Doug Fister

Jeff Locke

Jorge de la Rosa

Julio Teheran

Kevin Gausman is a someone I like from a talent perspective and actually wish he were pitching for the Rays instead of facing them, but is making his first start off an injury. We don’t know what kind of limits may be imposed upon him even if he does pitch well and his $8.6 DraftKings cost is quite ambitious. There is some K potential here though (Rays 28.1 K% vs RHP).

Tommy Milone

Wei-Yin Chen is actually generating better than normal peripherals with a move to the NL East and was a pitcher I was initially interested in with his new home. However, the velocity is still down around two miles per hour in every start and he’s already missed one with an elbow issue. It seems a bit too risky against the Dodgers.

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 – 19.5 K% – 9.3 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.

Drew Pomeranz has a low of 16.8 SwStr% this year. Doug Fister would give his left arm (he still needs the right on to pitch) for that K%.

Jaime Garcia has historically been a low double digits SwStr% guy with a slightly sub-20 K%, which is surprising with such an excellent framer behind the plate all these years. Maybe this is the year it all works for him, but don’t expect him to keep this up.

Nathan Eovaldi has demonstrated that his arsenal now includes a swing and miss offering, but let’s not get too out of hand with our expectations here.

Rick Porcello – Well, maybe not, but he has been between a 9.5 and 9.9 SwStr% in two of three starts.

ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 4.10 ERA – 4.07 SIERA – 4.00 xFIP – 4.03 FIP)

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

Danny Salazar is more than 100 points below his career BABIP with a 90.4 LOB%. His 5.6 HR/FB is less than half his career rate (11.4).

Drew Pomeranz is stranding 80% of his runners and has only allowed one HR, but there’s not a lot of voodoo going on here. It looks like this might be for real.
Ian Kennedy has a BABIP that’s a little low even for this defense and he won’t continue to suppress HRs at this rate (4.2 HR/FB).

Kendall Graveman has just a .170 BABIP with a 90.9 LOB% so far. Drive the initial number up about a hundred point and the latter down 15 and we still have a quality pitcher.

Nathan Eovaldi has allowed much hard contact with a high line drive rate and porous defense behind him. He and they will both see improvement, which should help his 65.2 LOB%. Expect regression in his 20.0 HR/FB as well, but keep an open mind in Yankee Stadium for potential sub-standard results.

Rick Porcello has a BABIP nearly 90 points below his career rate and while we don’t expect him to sustain a 26.3 HR/FB either, he has been less about ground balls since being traded and does carry a 12.0 HR/FB for his career.

Ross Stripling combines a low BABIP with a low 66.7 LOB%, which becomes a rarer combination as the season goes on, but he hasn’t allowed a HR yet either.

Taijuan Walker has a low, team assisted BABIP, but his 84.3 LOB% is more out of range.

Zack Grienke is moving closer to his expected line, but still struggles to erase his horrid start.

BABIP Chart (2015 LG AVG – .295 BABIP – 21.1 LD% – 9.5 IFFB% – 87.7 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.

Garrett Richards should begin generating some of those weaker ground balls we’re used to eventually, but the Angels aren’t going to hold that BABIP defensively either. They’ve been doing a really great job of converting outs so far.

Jaime Garcia – I did not see this coming and have no idea how he’s stranded just 66.7% with such a low BABIP, no HRs, and such a high strikeout rate. Apparently he’s really bunched his runners so far. His BABIP has been below .270 in what amounts to one full season of work since 2013, but is at .299 for his career.

Marcus Stroman – Elite ground balls and contact rates we are realizing is one way to generate lower than average BABIPs, but we still need to be careful about anything below .260ish. He’s countered the low BABIP with a 64.5 LOB% to keep his ERA in line with estimators. Look for regression in both areas.

Noah Syndergaard – It’s possible the Mets defense is shocked when someone makes contact and is rendered unable to move.

Raisel Iglesias has a high LD%, but a low 23.9 Hard%. His high BABIP looks even more like randomness than most other higher BABIPs.

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, especially on our first day of doing so today. 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

Noah Syndergaard (1) is pitching porn and not even the highest price on the DraftKings board.

Drew Pomeranz (7) faces a tough offense in a pitchers park though. I’m buying into some of this, though I don’t expect him to continue to channel Kershaw. He hasn’t just improved, he’s pitching at a Cy Young level through three starts and it looks like he’s made the necessary adjustments to handle RHBs, though the league doesn’t seem to have caught on yet. He’s half the price of his mound opponent and has pitched better. We know who the top two guys on this board are and they cost more than $10K. I’m not putting him up there yet, but he might have a claim to be a part of the next tier, which would make him tonight’s top value.

Value Tier Two

Rick Porcello (4 – this is me out on a limb) – With all of the other big names and solid pitchers on this board, I think a lot of people will think HRs and pass him by at this price without stopping to consider enough how awful the Braves really are. I don’t know if sleeper is the right term here, but he might fly under the radar among this group tonight and really has a chance to rack up some fantasy points.

Kendall Graveman can be had for the low price of below $6K because he’s not expected to keep channeling Cy Young Dallas Keuchel and the Tigers aren’t going to keep hitting like the Padres, but there’s still some merit to what he’s been doing and some value to be had in that arm.

Value Tier Three

Ross Stripling is another cost discrepancy guy, bumping up into the second tier potentially on DK for $5.6K and borderline unusable for $2K more on FD. Don’t expect too much, but he should be able to navigate the Marlins well enough with weak ground balls and a few strikeouts.

Ian Kennedy (5) is missing even more bats than he ever has so far and has stopped giving up HRs. We don’t expect things to continue at these rates, but I’ve always felt he had a well matched skill set to this park and team. He’s on the road, but not a much different park and faces the absolute worst offense vs RHP so far and coldest in the majors over the last week.

Raisel Iglesias (6) returned some confidence that he can be what he was last year after lower velocity readings and a reduced SwStr%. He’s in a dangerous spot, but still one where he can generate quite a bit of upside. Making his evaluation more difficult is a large price discrepancy costing over $1K more on DraftKings, where he’d drop a bit further on this list.

Danny Salazar (3) is generating tons of swings and misses and now might be pitching in front of a real defense it seems. Minnesota is a marginal opponent and he does cost quite a bit on DraftKings. Bump him up a bit for $1.5K less on FanDuel of course.

Jaime Garcia doesn’t get any higher than this because it is one of the more unfavorable run environments he pitches in tonight. I certainly believe in his ability to pitch well there though tonight.

Madison Bumgarner (2) is always going to be on our go to list, but at the top price on DraftKings, I think we have to be a bit cautious about expectations of complete domination here. He seems improved from his initial outing, but may not be all the way back yet and the RH heavy Padres have not been entirely inept against LHP.

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.

Zack Greinke – I believe he can be worth his price tonight, but there are probably enough options that you don’t need to take the risk in a difficult spot.

Garrett Richards is priced fairly reasonably for a guy with a 24.8 K% and ERA around three, but he is facing the Royals. They’ve struck out more so far this month, but less again over the last week. The cost seems fair, but not too special beyond that in this spot.

Taijuan Walker is generating some uncharacteristic, but solid results. There’s both potential risk and reward at a fairly high price here with a wide range of potential outcomes that overall probably add up to an accurate price tag.

Marcus Stroman has struck out a total of just 15 batters through four starts and is in that $8K price range with several pitchers we expect more strikeouts with a similar overall performance from, I still believe we’ll see enough weak contact to at least come close to paying off his price. Just don’t expect much more. He’s one of our borderline guys today.

Nathan Eovaldi gets bumped to the front of this group on DraftKings ($6.4K), but is probably hands off for $9.1K on FanDuel in one of the largest price discrepancies I’ve ever seen.

—————-

The God (or at least his gift to baseball fans): Noah Syndergaard

The Trust Fund (usable in all formats): Danny Salazar, Jaime Garcia, Madison Bumgarner

I Can’t Believe He Might Be All Format Viable: Ian Kennedy, Drew Pomeranz

The Low Cost Compliment: Kendall Graveman

Under the Radar: Rick Porcello

Difficult To Give Across the Board Analysis (with such a large price discrepancy): Nathan Eovaldi, Raisel Iglesias, Ross Stripling

He’s Here Too: Garrett Richards, Marcus Stroman, Taijuan Walker, Zack Greinke

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

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