2016 AL Starting Pitcher Tiers: August
Welcome to the final American League starting pitcher tiers of the season. The trade deadline deals resulted in several pitchers departing to the National League, with precious few arriving. With only about two months left in the season, potential innings limits are going to play a major role in rest of season value.
Tiers are named for the best characters on the brilliant FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.
Tanaka (The P*nis Monster) & Chip (The Robot)
Chris Sale
Corey Kluber
David Price
So Chris Sale’s skills continued to tumble, as his strikeout and walk rates were at monthly worsts, while his ERA for the month jumped above 4.00 for the first time. His highest average fastball velocity in a single start this season was 94.7 mph, barely above the 94.5 mph he averaged last year. But, alas, given the weak state of the top of the heap in AL pitching, Sale remains here.
After posting ERAs above 4.00 in both April and May, Corey Kluber’s luck finally turned, and he has run a sub-3.00 ERA since. He hasn’t actually pitched any better, but has gotten better results, as his BABIP and HR/FB rates have declined.
David Price also finally enjoyed some better fortune, as his ERA sat below 4.00 for the first time in the month of July. His strikeout rate, though, has collapsed to a barely above league average rate since his elite April.
Jesus Christ
Despite a 2.22 ERA, Carlos Carrasco’s July performance was concerning, as his strikeout rate was just league average, while his walk rate spiked. It all led up to his disastrous first start this month, but I’m betting on his history here.
Adolf Hitler
Dallas Keuchel
Chris Archer
Felix Hernandez
Cole Hamels
Masahiro Tanaka
Michael Pineda
Justin Verlander
Danny Duffy
Yu Darvish
Dallas Keuchel’s May is tarnishing his overall line, but his skills have remained consistently solid. They are a step down from last season, of course, but I like the ZiPS rest of season projection calling for a 3.59 ERA.
Chris Archer finally posted a sub-4.00 ERA month in July, as his walk rate dropped to the best mark of the season. He’s still allowing home runs though, which is odd given his home park. Given his poor overall numbers, he’s a good target at a likely discount.
Felix Hernandez’s control continues to scare me, but he can’t be dropped another tier. If you’re an owner, just cross your fingers.
Gahhh, so much for the fortunes turning in June for Michael Pineda, as he reverted right back to the earlier season form with a 4.80 July ERA. Some of that was a walk rate spike, but mainly a ghastly 19.2% HR/FB rate. I maintain my faith.
It’s official — Danny Duffy has joined one of the top AL SP tiers. Innings don’t seem to be a concern and his strikeout rate is elite. He has maintained his surge in skills, though his fastball velocity has been down a notch compared to a month ago. It’s a mild concern, but obviously hasn’t hurt him at all.
Yu Darvish is back on the tiers after returning from the disabled list and enjoyed an outrageous July with a 38.2% strikeout rate. His walk rate has been fine as well. He remains a risk, of course, coming back from TJ surgery, but he looks like vintage Darvish.
Patti (Josh’s Mom)
Drew Smyly
Sonny Gray
Jake Odorizzi
Taijuan Walker
Jose Quintana
Ian Kennedy
Kevin Gausman
Matt Shoemaker
James Paxton
Marcus Stroman
Marco Estrada
Dylan Bundy
Drew Pomeranz
So both Drew Smyly and Sonny Gray have been dropped a tier. Smyly’s velocity has declined and his strikeouts have disappeared. I was bullish upon Gray’s return from the DL, but his skills are just meh, and without the guarantee of a suppressed BABIP, he’s just nothing special.
Man Kevin Gausman has been Jekyll and Hyde this year. He’s made six starts and allowed zero or one run, while also going three starts where he allowed three homers. His skills are solid overall though and his HR/FB rate should improve from its current inflated 17.6% mark.
After an insane May and June after upping his splitter usage, his Matt Shoemaker’s strikeout rate tumbled in July to just 19.4%. The risk was that hitters would adjust and we may have seen the results of that adjustment. Still, Shoemaker should remain a solid option even without the gaudy strikeout rates of those earlier two months.
James Paxton has maintained his velocity surge to 95+ mph, but since June, it hasn’t actually translated into strikeouts. In fact, he posted just a 16% strikeout rate in July! That’s pretty shocking given that both his curve and changeup sport fantastic SwStk% marks on the year. I think the results will come.
As soon as we collectively give up on Marcus Stroman, he goes and strikes out 13 Astros over seven innings! But his July performance was also excellent, as his strikeout rate jumped above 20%, while his walk rate was microscopic at 2.9%. His fastball velocity hasn’t improved, but he has been throwing his slider more frequently over the last month. It makes sense, since it’s his best secondary pitch. Because there’s an explanation via his pitch selection for his recent success, Stroman jumps back up a tier, which is where he began the season.
I finally caved and moved Marco Estrada up a tier. Obviously he’s not going to maintain a .208 BABIP. Okay, so it’s not a 100% guarantee seeing as he posted a .218 mark last year. But the odds are heavily stacked against him. But with an above average strikeout rate, and a clear ability to limit hits on balls in play, a mid-to-high 3.00 ERA is a good bet (which is much better than his current 4.24 SIERA), which would beat both his ZiPS and Steamer RoS projections. That fits him into this tier.
It seems like forever ago when Dylan Bundy was a top prospect, and now he finally gets his chance in the starting rotation. In four starts so far, he has posted a scintillating 30% strikeout rate, along with above average control, and a 3.30 SIERA. The performance has been driven by an elite changeup that has generated a ton of swings and misses. His high FB% in Camden Yards is dangerous though. One wonders how many innings he’ll be allowed to throw, as he was at just 22 last year and obviously has the injury history. He’s a mixed league starter while in the rotation.
Mike
Jordan Zimmermann
Hisashi Iwakuma
Collin McHugh
Yordano Ventura
Carlos Rodon
Josh Tomlin
Rick Porcello
Nathan Eovaldi
Chris Tillman
Michael Fulmer
Trevor Bauer
Steven Wright
Tyler Skaggs
Blake Snell
I finally dropped Yordano Ventura in my 12-team mixed league as he has been so up and down, both with his velocity and his control and strikeout ability from start to start. He’s now in mixed league streamer territory.
Michael Fulmer’s strikeout rate dropped to its lowest monthly mark in July at just 18.3%, but once again a low BABIP saved him. He’s now just 12 innings away from his total from last season. He’s a near lock to be shut down early or have his starts skipped here and there, which takes a bite out of his rest of season value.
Surprise, surprise, Steven Wright’s good fortune finally reversed and he posted a 6.23 ERA in July. It wasn’t due to any sort of change in underlying skills, but the balls in play suddenly falling for hits. His BABIP, which never jumped above .255 in any one month, surged to .367 in July. He’s still also facing the prospect of some serious HR/FB rate regression. Oh, and although knuckleballers have rubber arms and could seemingly throw 500 innings in a season, Wright is already sitting 13 innings above where he finished last year.
I discussed Tyler Skaggs last week, expressed my optimism, but like Darvish, is a risk coming back from TJ surgery. His fastball velocity was even higher in his second start, which is a great sign.
Santa
Mike Fiers
Sean Manaea
R.A. Dickey
Wade Miley
Ervin Santana
Edinson Volquez
Kyle Gibson
Kendall Graveman
Ricky Nolasco
Tyler Duffey
J.A. Happ
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Aaron Sanchez?
Looks like he only has 1 more start, than moving to bullpen.
Since it now looks like Sanchez is staying in the rotation (albeit a 6-man one), where would you put him?
Prob the 3rd tier, but that assume he remains in the rotation the rest of the season. I doubt he does, so in terms of value earned over the rest of the season, I’d be he fits in better with the 4th tier.
I’m surprised Happ is so low. He led baseball if I remember correctly in K% in July and looks more like 2nd half of last year Happ than old Happ. I think he’ll be fantastic down the stretch.
He was actually not even on the tiers last month, I believe, so I decided to add him this time around. Comments would have been crazier if he didn’t even appear! I look at the 4.00+ SIERA and tough ballpark and don’t want to touch him.
I think perhaps you protestest a bit too much. Not saying he’s Chris Sale or Corey Kluber, but to have Happ ranked behind guys like Mike Fiers (yuck), Wade Miley (!), Steven Wright (not the funny one), Carlos Rodon (he’s been…something), Nate Eovaldi (bleeech), etc, etc is…interesting.
By interesting I think you mean wrong.
To be fair, I felt the same way when the Jays signed him. (JA Happ? Yuck! IMPLOSION IMMINENT.)
But after 2/3 of a season I can admit I was wrong on that one. he may turn into a pumpkin yet, but good start after good start makes me think we should reconsider our Bayesian priors…
Liriano? Santa Tier or reason to think new team/league and working with Martin will imporve his outlook RoS?
He was terrible in a pitcher’s park in the NL, I can’t imagine he turns things around moving to the AL and in one of the best hitter’s parks in baseball.
I know Salazar is injured, but it’s not like he’s out for the season or something.
This is his second time on the DL with an elbow issue, I think there’s a good chance he’s out for the season. Even if he returns, he’ll only make a couple of starts I’m guessing.
So if Salazar was a FA, you wouldn’t pick him up.
I don’t believe you. Or you’re not doing it right.
The league leader in ERA doesn’t make any tier????
I assume you’re referring to Aaron Sanchez, see my comment above. He’s moving to the bullpen!
This list is all name brands. What’s the point of having a list if it’s essentially the same as it would have been in March? We’ve had 4 months of baseball.
Examples of players not moving that should have?
Obviously, this is a skewed way to look at it, but I play this imaginary stat-based game you may have heard of. I am anchored by Sale/Kluber/Price and the competition has Happ/Estrada/Quintana and I am breathing his fumes. Yes, that’s a skewed way of looking at it, and time’s arrow points toward the future not the past, but its a little humorous in light of these rankings
I’m not sure I understand. These rankings are 100% forward looking. What a pitcher has done up until this point has no bearing, other than to affect his future projection. ERA also has no influence, only the underlying skills.
David Price, whose FIP is his worst in a season since 2011 and whose hard-hit% has spiked
Carrasco, who has been injured and has a poor FIP and his K/BB has compressed, HR spiked, hard hit% also way up, velo down on his fastball reducing differential with his change
Rinse/repeat everything just said for Carrasco for Keuchel, Hamels. Same for Felix except even worse velo decline, peripherals, results, and facial hair. I wouldn’t have any of those three above Verlander.
ERA shouldn’t have no influence, just less influence. [E]RA says what happened. If you’re a FIP underperformer because you play in a bandbox in front of a bad defense, that’s not changing this season. Meanwhile most of the guys I put issue with are showing declining skills and peripherals and yet they maintain up top on name value alone.
Why are you using FIP? It assumes HR/FB rate is all skill, which it’s not. xFIP is a much better predictor of future performance, and SIERA is even better. I don’t even look at FIP because it uses actual HR/FB rate, which is not predictive of future performance.
I posted multiple predictive stats and trends and you cherrypicked the one you like least, which is still trending negative.
OK, so David Price’s SIERA is his worst since 2010 and has been trending poorly since 2014. This is not to say he’s a bad pitcher, but maybe he hasn’t pitched and won’t pitch like a top-3 AL option. And what about the others?
Carrasco’s SIERA is a full point (!) worse than last year, along with everything I already said.
Hamels too.
Keuchel too.
Felix too.
So to review, you dismissed me for using FIP when SIERA says exactly the same thing. Thanks.
I get that its forward looking. I was simply saying that the delta between your future predictions/rankings and the last couple of months of “traditional stat category” results feels larger than normal and it was starkly apparent to me in the context of Rotisserie because of the particular players involved
Sonny Gray seems like an egregious example of this. I have a hard time picking him over anybody in the lower “Mike” tier.
Why? Since returning from the DL, he has posted a 3.93 SIERA, which fits with the rest in that tier. While I haven’t checked every pitcher in the Mike tier, I believe all are above a 4.00 SIERA.
:Hey, at least Mike finally moved Dickey down after years or arguing with commenters about it and Dickey getting the same results.
Baby steps. Mike can only be wrong about once a year.
never forget
What is keeping Quintana from jumping up a tier?
Better skills and a true indication that his career best strikeout rate is sustainable. 3.86 SIERA worst of his career since his debut season and career worst SwStk%.A ridiculous LOB% is fooling everyone into thinking he’s much better than he is.
Any additional thoughts on Tomlin? His peripherals are ugly (aside from the walk rate). He doesn’t throw very hard. I took a deeper dive a month ago. he pounds the zone and routinely gets ahead of the count. His average exit velocity is below league average. He also may have some deceptiveness with the cutter and curve release points. So I’m wondering what you think of him going forward? What puts him ahead of say Happ?
The honest answer is that’s simply where Tomlin has been and I just added Happ back to the tiers. Splitting hairs between the bottom tiers isn’t beneficial. If I projected these players going forward, they’ll all be worth with within a buck or two of each other, which is to say they are all virtually interchangeable. The tiers make them appear more different than they are. Which is why I never create tiers for my own leagues! The actual dollar value projections are far more meaningful, but during the season, it’s impossible to calculate those without coming up with new projections.
Thanks. I’ll definitely look into dollar values this year as opposed to tiers. Or maybe a system which incorporates both.
I believe Detroit said they are not limiting Fulmer’s innings, for better or for worse.
Finally, as always, LOL @ Pineda
Pineda owns the 9th best SIERA in baseball and has posted a 3.68 ERA, 31.1 K% and 1.11 WHIP since the beginning of June. What are you LOLing about?
His home run addiction, year-over-year increase in hard hit%, home park…
HR/FB rate takes 400 fly balls to stabilize. Pineda is at 112 for the year and only 549 for his entire career.
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/sample-size/
Thoughts on where Berrios slots in here now that he’s been called up again? (and assuming he stays up)
Secondary stuff needs to improve to maintain such a lofty strikeout rate. I’d toss him in the Mike tier as he’s clearly a step up from the bottom dwellers.
I think Porcello is being underrated here.
Whether your league uses Wins or Quality Starts, he’s immensely helpful. He’s a QS machine, behind only Verlander and Sanchez in the AL. When you throw QS that often with an offense like Boston’s behind you, Wins should follow.
He’s 15th in the AL in Ks due in large part to the number of innings he pitches making up for what he lacks in K%. And even that is respectable (he’s 23rd, ahead of Tanaka and Stroman, for example).
Having him a tier below some of the guys ahead seems, dare I say, silly? Would you really pick Smyly, Gray, or Kennedy over Porcello for the rest of the season?
These are forward looking rankings, so his QS accrued so far are meaningless. His SwStk% is at its lowest mark since 2011, suggesting he won’t sustain his career high strikeout rate. So a SIERA near 4.00 (worse than current assuming a decline in strikeout rate) with a mediocre, at best, strikeout rate, just isn’t that exciting and why he is where he is.
Let’s look at the six pitchers I mentioned – Porcello, Tanaka, Stroman, Smyly, Gray, & Kennedy
Porcello ranks:
SIERA – 2nd
xFIP – 3rd
FIP – 2nd
K% – 3rd
BB% – 1st
K%-BB% – 3rd
K/BB – 1st
IP – 1st
WAR – 2nd
Hard % – 1st
Soft % – 2nd
O-Swing % – 2nd
Z-Swing % – 1st
F-Strike % – 1st
Zone % – 1st
And that ignores all the results-based stats that have actually contributed to the majority of fantasy leagues this season, where Porcello is ranked 1st (W, QS, ERA, WHIP) or 2nd (Ks).
In addition, Porcello has absolutely no health concerns to speak of and pitches in front of the best offense in baseball, which will make a difference in getting Wins. This is obvious when you see that he has about the same number of wins as the two next best guys on that list.
All of that is completely undone by a lower SwStk%? Really?
Fine, I’ll rephrase the question. Porcello is exactly where he should be…why are those other guys a full tier (or more) above him?
Nah, he’s fine.
AL Pitchers by SIERA with their ESPN (standard 6×6) SP ranking if in the top 50:
Danny Duffy (12)
Michael Pineda
David Price (23)
Corey Kluber (9)
Marcus Stroman
Justin Verlander (11)
Chris Sale (7)
Chris Archer
Aaron Sanchez (20)
Drew Pomeranz (34)
Kevin Gausman
Matt Shoemaker (43)
Danny Salazar (38)
Dallas Keuchel
Jose Quintana (17)
Rick Porcello (10)
Masahiro Tanaka (27)
Collin McHugh
Drew Smyly
Ian Kennedy
Jake Odorizzi (42)
Cole Hamels (28)
Josh Tomlin (19)
Marco Estrada (26)
JA Happ (24)
Not a great correlation.
The Blue Jays have a top five defense according to UZR and DRS. This might partially explain how guys like JA Happ have outperformed their SIERA.
this was a great discussion. Thanks for responding to comments Mike
Hector Santiago doesn’t even rate a mention?
Verlander leads the AL in WAR the past calendar year, is 3rd this year in K’s, top 5 in WHIP, plays on a high powered offense(which should lead to wins), has the highest swinging strike percentage of his career and is back sitting at 94 and touching 98-99 yet you have him 12th. You hated Verlander when he was in his prime and I can see that you still do. There is nothing that points to him being that low. Like I said he has led the freaking league in WAR for 365 days!
Also in the past year Verlander is 3rd in ERA and 3rd in SIERRA(the stat that you like to cite so much). So again other than your hatred for him, what reason do you have to have him be near the bottom of your 3rd tier? The way he has been pitching he should be at the top!
I think you’re misunderstanding what tiers are supposed to represent. The idea is everyone in the tier is interchangeable and similar values. There is no ranking within the tier. Verlander isn’t ranked 12th, he’s ranked in the 3rd tier.
So you would have no problem trading Verlander for Pineda or Keuchel?
Come on man.
They’re in the same tier, hence similar expected rest of season value. How would I improve my team by making such a switch? Pineda has nearly the same number of strikeouts and a much better SIERA. Keuchel is a notch below on both fronts, so I’d prefer Verlander.
Thanks for clarifying that Mike and sorry for kinda jumping down your throat, it just that being a Verlander fan I’ve had to hear so much crap about him the past few years from people that now that he pitching good I like to make sure I point it out and throw it in people’s faces.