2016 AL Starting Pitcher Tiers: July

It’s that time of year again, American League starting pitcher tier update time! I still pay no attention to ERA, as it’s not a metric I use for evaluation and ranking pitchers for rest of season performance. Player movement between tiers will only occur when there’s a change in underlying skill, pitch mix, or velocity. Injured pitchers with non-arm injuries expected back relatively soon will remain in the tier they had been. Pitchers with arm-related injuries with up-in-the-air return dates have been removed. I just can’t speculate on that kind of stuff.

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 I guess this whole pitching to contact and inducing soft contact thing isn’t actually a winning strategy after all, eh? In five June starts, Sale’s luck has continued to turn in the opposite direction, as he posted a 3.93 ERA, inflated by a .304 BABIP and 20.6% HR/FB rate. Given that his velocity remains down and his strikeout rate hasn’t recovered, his lead over the next tier has disappeared. As a result, I have decided to merge the two together, as Sale no longer gets to enjoy a tier all to himself.

Kluber continues to be Kluber and he is actually benefiting from some excellent defense for a change. While his BABIP isn’t going to remain as low as it stands, any regression is going to be offset by a rebound in LOB%.

Since making his May 7th start, when Price’s ERA stood at a bloated 6.75, his luck turned around and his results fell back in line with expectations. Before his last clunker of a start, he had posted a 2.47 ERA in eight starts, despite very similar underlying skills during each time period. His ERA will continue to fall.

Jesus Christ

Carlos Carrasco

Carrasco remains in a tier by himself, a notch below the top guns. His velocity is up since the beginning of the year and now in line with last season, which is a good sign. His strikeout rate is down a bit though, which is a mild concern, but he’s still generating tons of swinging strikes.

Adolf Hitler

Dallas Keuchel
Chris Archer
Felix Hernandez
Cole Hamels
Masahiro Tanaka
Danny Salazar
Michael Pineda
Justin Verlander
Rich Hill
Drew Smyly
Sonny Gray

Since dropping Keuchel a tier in the last update, his results haven’t gotten any better, as he has posted a 4.83 ERA; however, that performance hid fantastic skills that led to a 2.78 SIERA. This time a .352 BABIP and 26.3% HR/FB rate ruined the potential for a rebound during the month. I’m tempted to move him back up and scream “BUY LOW”, but unfortunately his velocity remains down and his highest game velocity this season hasn’t even reached what he averaged all of last year. I just wonder if he’s at a velocity level where the BABIP and HR/FB rate rules get thrown out.

Archer is another preseason top tier pitcher who has been dropped in the tiers and still haven’t recovered. He posted a 4.78 ERA since my last update, but similarly suffered from a high BABIP and HR/FB rate and is also dealing with decreased fastball velocity. At this point, his cost should be getting cheaper and cheaper, so he seems like a worthy gamble for those able to take a pitching risk.

I considered moving Hamels up to join lonely Carrasco, but upon a deeper dive, decided against it. His velocity has rebounded and looks good now, but his walk rate remains elevated and he continues to rely on a suppressed BABIP and ridiculously high LOB%. In fact, his LOB% is second highest in baseball and highest in the AL.

So after refusing to drop Pineda a tier, he has finally, FINALLY, begun to reward my faith. His June ERA sits at a tidy 3.00, his BABIP is under .300 and his HR/FB rate is about league average. Oh, and he owns a 37/5 K/BB ratio in 30 innings. His ERA should continue to plummet and remind patient fantasy owners why focusing on underlying skills and SIERA is a far superior way to evaluate the rest of season prospects of pitchers than ERA.

Since his May 10th start, Smyly has posted a gruesome 7.38 ERA and allowed 14 homers in just nine games. BUT, he also owns a 53/12 K/BB ratio in 50 innings, and he has been brutalized by an insane .370 BABIP and 19.4% HR/FB rate. His SIERA over that span sits at just 3.90, resulting in a crazy ERA-SIERA differential. He continues to be a near automatic weekly start in my shallow 12-team local league and sooner or later will pull a Pineda where his ERA will begin to catch up with his excellent skills. And yeah, all those fly balls aren’t helping his gopheritis, but at the every least, they should suppress his BABIP, which hasn’t happened. He’s an elite buy low.

Gray has been much better since returning from injury, and I made the case for him as a buy last week, given his improved control and velocity. He jumps back up a tier.

Patti (Josh’s Mom)

Jake Odorizzi
Taijuan Walker
Jose Quintana
Ian Kennedy
Kevin Gausman
Matt Moore
Aaron Sanchez
Danny Duffy
Matt Shoemaker
James Paxton

Let’s discuss Quintana, shall we? Since my last update, he has posted a 5.51 ERA over five starts, as his strikeout rate declined like I figured it would. And hey, that 2.9% HR/FB rate he posted through the end of May was 13.6% in June. Regression!

Walker’s skills are nearly identical to last year, but he has shaved more than a run off his ERA. That’s pretty surprising given his inflated 17.3% HR/FB rate, but that has been offset by a .266 BABIP. It’s mighty interesting to see the divide between the ZiPS and Steamer RoS ERA projections of 4.55 and 3.69, respectively, despite forecasts for nearly the same strikeout and walk rates. I’m going to side with Steamer.

It’s hard to know how to rank Sanchez knowing he has a hard innings cap. I would say that in the innings he will give you, they will probably be a bit higher quality than the rest of those in this tier, but the innings issue really hampers his rest of season value. He could probably increase that strikeout rate a bit further if he threw his curve ball even more. The pitch even generates a ton of grounders!

Duffy jumps a tier thanks to sustaining his relief velocity as a starter, getting tons of swings and misses, and throwing more strikes than ever before. He’s a fly ball pitcher on a team where that’s actually a good thing, given his defensive support and home park.

What has driven Shoemaker’s surge that pushes him up two tiers? Throwing his splitter like crazy! In his first six starts, he threw the pitch 19.1% of the time, generated a 9.1% SwStk% and punched out just 13.85 of batters, en route to an ugly 9.12 ERA. Since then over nine starts, he has thrown the splitter a whopping 40.9% of the time, generated a 16.6% SwStk% and posting a 29.8% strikeout rate, en route to a 2.15 ERA. We have a clear explanation for his performance spike, though one wonders how long he can continue to throw that splitter so frequently until the league adjusts.

It’s been six starts and Paxton continues to throw in the high 90s, while throwing more strikes than ever before. This is a legit breakout.

Mike

Marcus Stroman
Jordan Zimmermann
Hisashi Iwakuma
Collin McHugh
Yordano Ventura
Carlos Rodon
Josh Tomlin
Jesse Hahn
Rick Porcello
Nathan Eovaldi
Chris Tillman
Michael Fulmer
Marco Estrada
Trevor Bauer
Steven Wright
Lance McCullers

I’m slowly losing faith in Stroman and he drops a tier. I figured he’d enjoy a better strikeout rate this year, but instead that rate has declined slightly from an already low point. The seeds are still there and several of his pitches have generated SwStk% marks over 10%, but perhaps he needs to consolidate his repertoire. His cutter has failed to induce swings and misses or ground balls, so he needs to start throwing it less.

I dropped Zimmerman a tier last update when he sported a shiny 2.52 ERA. Since then, the regression dragons attacked, and his June ERA ballooned to 6.52. His BABIP jumped above .300 and he was suddenly unable to strand any baserunners, even though he continued to be stingy with the home run. There’s little chance he returns to his former tier status, and is at greater risk of dropping another tier.

Ventura remains an enigma and I badly wanted to jump him a tier. But his velocity has been erratic, though on a clear uptrend since the beginning of the year, while his control has also been there and not been there. He’s a good guy to speculate on if you’re in desperate need of pitching and want the upside play.

Santa

Mike Fiers
Sean Manaea
R.A. Dickey
Wade Miley
Ervin Santana
Edinson Volquez
Kyle Gibson
Kendall Graveman
Ricky Nolasco
Tyler Duffey
Daniel Mengden