Advanced Stats - Pitching: Monday, August 1st

by Matt Trollo (MTro86) Last Updated 2016-08-02 02:22:59

With a small eight game slate tonight, we’re going to do some housekeeping here and hope the trade deadline frenzy doesn’t get too out of hand. We’re now starting the sixth month of the season and have updated the league averages below. The number that probably draws the most interest, league wide HR/FB is down very slightly for the first month this season, but still barely above 13%.

Chris Archer and Danny Duffy are among our featured pitchers today.

Nothing else has moved much at all, though ERA and each of the estimators dropped .05 points each. There’s still a bit of a difference between ERA and xFIP though, likely because of the unexpectedly high HR rate this year.

Don’t forget to check lineups, umpire assignments, line movement, and Kevin’s weather report as they are released later in the day, all of which may change the equation and help you decide between two pitchers of otherwise equal value in a pinch.

Most stats are pulled directly from the Fangraphs.com database. If a stat is used that you are not familiar with and want to learn more about, their glossary does a terrific job of explaining all of the advanced stats used here.

Starting Pitching Main Chart

We’re using Seamheads.com three year park factors. Home team is in bold. Team Def = UZR/150. L2Yrs is a rolling calendar. Hm/Rd xFIP is since the start of the 2015 season. Opp team offensive stats are wRC+.

Chris Archer has been pitching well at home and getting strong results all season long (2.95 ERA, 20.6 K-BB%), but July was his strongest month overall (3.38 ERA, 22.9 K-BB%), despite three starts on the road, including two in Boston and Colorado. His HR rate has been league average over the last two months, but the real change here is that he’s walked a total of five over his last four starts and none for only the third time this year in his last start. Archer is peaking just at the right time for his trade value, but let’s see if we can figure out why. First off, his velocity has been more consistently up over the last month, above 94.5 mph in four of his last six starts (season average is 94.2 mph). He also threw his slider 45% of the time, cutting down both on his fastball and even more on his changeup, cutting it in half to 6.9% more precisely, while the velocity on the slider was also up over a half mile per hour to 88.2 mph. It was actually the fastball that doubled its whiff rate to 11.1% though, according to Brooks Baseball. His O-Swing was 35.3% in July (29.9% for the season), while his Z-Swing rate dropped several points to 59.5%. Now we know what he’s doing and why, how about the fantastic matchup he has at home tonight. The Royals are actually the second worst road offense in baseball now (15.3 K-BB%, 27.3 Hard%) and powerless vs RHP (9.3 HR/FB) while one of the coldest lineups in the majors overall.

Danny Salazar is missing fewer bats over the last month, but he has also walked just a total of six over his last five starts. His 17.0 K-BB% in July is exactly his season rate though, and though he had a 22.5 Hard-Soft%, he also had his highest GB rate of any month this season (54.9%). He did allow four HRs with a .373 BABIP and 64.6 LOB%. He’s in a decent spot tonight, at home against the Twins, who have a 25.1 K% vs RHP and not much power vs RHP.

James Paxton has struck out 15 of his last 47 batters after a stretch of striking out just five of 78. He’s still firing it in at over 97 mph, but has more than doubled the usage of his curveball over his last three starts, against some aggressively RH lineups, striking out just one Astro in the first of those starts, so it’s hard to tell what benefit it’s giving him. His GB rate is right at 50%, though his low 9.7% rate of weak contact is concerning. He’s at home against Boston, who have just an 8.2 K-BB% vs LHP, but have been just an average offense over the last week and enter a very negative run environment tonight, despite what the Mariners have been doing at home offensively.

Kyle Hendricks has struck out seven in each of his last two starts, a mark he’s only hit three other times this season despite an above average strikeout rate and that’s because he’s only gone beyond six innings six times this season (only twice in his last nine starts). He’s been great from a contact perspective with not only a 52.3 GB%, but more weak contact (26.7%) than hard (25.2%). He’s in a pretty marginal spot against the Marlins at Wrigley. They don’t strike out a lot, but have just three batters with any semblance of power vs RHP (9.7 HR/FB).

Marcus Stroman struck out 30 of 136 batters in July (22.1%), while not only maintaining the highest ground ball rate in baseball (60.6%), but increasing it over the last month (66.3%) with his lowest rate of hard contact for any month (25.5%). He faces a Houston team that strikes out a lot (23.9% vs RHP), but does hit the ball hard (33.6% vs RHP), though their no worse than an overall neutral matchup here, if not better.

Stephen Strasburg has been the most consistently dominant pitcher on the board today. He’s struck out at least 10 in eight starts, but no more than 11 and only once in his last six starts, while allowing six ERs and two HRs in that one instance. He’s also come within one out of six innings or better in six of his last seven starts because Dusty’s gonna leave him out there, which is good news for us. His 23.7 K-BB% is fifth in baseball, while his 22.4 Soft% is seventh best. He gets Arizona tonight, who may be a bit stronger from the LH side with some injury returnees last week, but still have a 17.1 K-BB% at home and 16.7 K-BB% vs RHP with several nearly automatic outs. A great park is probably not even enough to save them 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 LOB% – 13.1 HR/FB)

C.C. Sabathia (.288 – 72.7% – 7.8) has allowed seven of his nine HRs over his last seven starts, so you can imagine what his HR/FB was before all this started. Strangely, both his hard and weak contact rates are 25.5% over this period, which are both right around his season numbers. He’s dominating contact and missing a few more bats that you’d think from his K%. It almost feels as if he’s being unfairly persecuted by his estimators with a better story actually being told by his ERA, though I still think he’s maybe accurately priced at best in a pretty good spot due to the tremendous park upgrade for him tonight. Last season, I often called him a great locator that could benefit from a favorable umpire when his estimators suggested better than his ERA. Perhaps I’m not crediting him enough when it’s gone the other way, but his strikeout rate has declined a point and a half while his SwStr% has actually increased by half a point.

Jimmy Nelson (.281 – 75.3% – 13.3) has a 23% unearned run rate. Nearly a quarter of his runs are unearned because his defense is atrocious and it definitely causes him to throw extra pitches, but also makes his ERA look a whole hell of a lot better. Another thing to consider is that although the Padres are still terrible vs RHP (17.9 K-BB%), they’re leaning a bit more left-handed recently and this is a pitcher who still greatly struggles against LHBs.

Adam Conley (.294 – 78.5% – 7.5) had a fantastic July by ERA and while a 5.1 HR/FB is a big part of the reason, a bigger part was an 87.7 LOB%. If you’re looking for some good news, his walk rate has dropped each month to 7.2% last month, but his strikeout rate dipped to just above league average too, while his hard contact rate soared (38.4%). He’s also facing the Cubs tonight, a top offense vs LHP (10.2 BB%, 14.7 HR/FB).

Doug Fister (.264 – 77.1% – 11.3) may not even pitch tonight with his wife potentially going into labor, in which case, Joe Musgrove, a former first round supplemental pick by the Blue Jays in 2011, who has a 20+ K-BB% in 85.1 AA and AAA innings this year, will make his debut against the Blue Jays. You may not be able to use him though, but at least you’ll have Toronto’s stats against RHP here.

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

Danny Duffy was at one time, and for a good part of the season, a tremendous bargain as he started his tenure in the rotation at the minimum cost and rose in price more gradually than a lot of pitchers, but now he’s up there with the top arms. As free agent pitchers generally get large contracts as they are in decline, so may be the case with Duffy this season, even if it’s not immediately apparent on the surface. His velocity is down around a mph or more over each of his last three starts. He’s at 100 innings, but has gone past 135 in each of the last two seasons, so you’d think he should still have something left in the tank, but he’s pitched into the seventh inning in six of his last seven starts after only having done so once previously. His batting average is above .275 with his ISO above .200 on all of his pitches except his slider after two times through the order, which are all above 50 point or more increases. He’s facing the Rays, who have a 25.1 K% at home and 23.8 K% vs LHP, but they’re also one of the better offenses overall vs LHP (17.4 Hard-Soft%), while he has a single digit SwStr% in five straight starts and still struggles with RHBs with 12 of his 13 HRs allowed and a 37.1 Hard%.

Logan Verrett is in a great, maybe the top, run prevention spot tonight, but not a great strikeout one, though he has had at least an average SwStr% in three of his last four starts and doesn’t cost much more than the minimum on DraftKings. It’s still pretty scary that he has an ERA over and is still well below his estimators though.

Eduardo Rodriguez improved to perfectly league average strikeout and walk rates in July, though he didn’t go about it consistently on a start by start basis. He also stranded 91.4% of his runners, but had a 26.4 Soft% while his hard hit rate dropped by over 15 points, now down to a reasonable 30% on the season. He still has just a 29.3 GB% on the season, which you wouldn’t think would be that dangerous in Seattle, but the Mariners have a 17+ HR/FB at home and vs LHP.

Jared Cosart

Jose Berrios has a 27.5 K% at AAA and a comparable 26.7% one through four major league starts, but his walk rate doubled to 16% and he’s returning to the worst spot on the board in Cleveland tonight.

Archie Bradley

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 – 20.1 K% – 9.4 SwStr% – 2.14 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.

James Paxton has a 9+ SwStr% in each of his last three starts. We talked about the increased usage of his curveball starting three starts back, though he struck out just one Astro in that start, but 15 of 47 since. The interesting thing is that he had a 13.0 SwStr% in that single strikeout start, which makes the pitch selection alteration a bit more interesting.

Stephen Strasburg has ridden on this edge for the majority of his career with his SwStr% what it’s always been throughout his career and a 1.9 point increase above his career K% this year.

ERA Estimators Chart (2015 LG AVG – 4.31 ERA – 4.27 SIERA – 4.21 xFIP – 4.26 FIP)

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

Chris Archer had an ERA in line with his estimators in July, both improved with a lower walk rate, not because he’s throwing more strikes, he’s actually throwing fewer pitches in the strike zone, batters are just swinging at more balls. Looking at his season numbers, he still has a 17.2 HR/FB, though it’s been normalized the last two months (13.4%). This is how regression normally works. You expect a pitcher to normalize going forwards, which he has, not go so far the other way that everything evens out, which is what sometimes happens. If things go normally, his season HR rate continues to slowly drop, but probably never really gets to an overall normalized point on the season because it was so bad over the first two months.

Danny Salazar still has an 80.2 LOB% despite the significant drop in July. His 9.9 HR/FB is also still a career low, though that too has risen in July and he’s now allowed more hard contact this year (34.9%) than any other season, though he also has a career high 49.1 GB%.

Kyle Hendricks is a difficult case to debunk because he’s dominated on contact and the defense behind him has done some amazing things this year, especially in terms of BABIP allowed. There’s always going to be some room for and even an expectation of some regression in cases like this, it’s more difficult to tell how much here.

Marcus Stroman just can’t strand runner (65.4% on the season). His 17.2 HR/FB is less of a concern with a ground ball rate above 60%. In July, just as in June, over a quarter of his fly balls left the yard (26.3%), though he finally had a month with a strand rate above 70%.

BABIP Chart (2016 LG AVG – .298 BABIP – 20.8 LD% – 9.4 IFFB% – 87.3 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.

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.

It’s nice to see Tier Two return today. We’ve missed seeing more than a couple of capable arms reasonably priced. There appear to be several today.

Value Tier One

Chris Archer (1) is pitching his best baseball of the season and tonight just happens to coincide with a great matchup at home, where he’s been good all season. His cost around $9K to $10K on either site still might be too low if we have some confidence he’ll be pitching more often towards his ceiling than his floor here.

Value Tier Two

Marcus Stroman (4) had amazing July that may have flown under the radar due to a pedestrian 3.71 ERA. Nearly 75% of batters either struck out or hit the ball on the ground. The good news for us is that he still has just an average price tag in a fairly neutral spots that might generate a few more strikeouts.

Value Tier Three

Danny Salazar (3) has some concerning flaws, but also still impressive upside along with what looks like better control, although who knows if that control comes at the cost of his upside. None the less, he’s in a decent spot against the Twins at home at a fairly reasonable cost at either $9K or $10.4K.

Stephen Strasburg (2) is drops down here only due to having the highest price tag on the board. He probably carries less risk than the few guys ranked ahead of him at this point, but needs many more points to pay off his price and I think Archer might even have more upside tonight. This is your cash game pitcher though and it still seems so strange trusting him this much.

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.

James Paxton is real speculative play at a below average price tonight. More curveballs has led to more swings and misses even if it didn’t show up immediately in his K%, though it has in his last two starts. The Red Sox are still a juggernaut offense, but have slowed down over the last week and get a significant park downgrade tonight.

Kyle Hendricks (5) has a cost above $9K with an expectation of six innings at best most times. That’s really the biggest issue here, innings.

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

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