2016 AL Starting Pitcher Tiers: June
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.
Tiers are named for the best characters on the brilliant FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.
Tanaka (The P*nis Monster)
Last rankings update, I voiced my concern that Sale was supposedly choosing to alter his approach to more of a pitch to contact one. Riiiight, like a consensus top five pitcher in baseball needed to change things up. In the starts since the tier update, Sale’s strikeout rate has been at a more Sale-like 27.1%, though his ERA during the time period was at 3.06. Why the jump? Luck neutralization of course! He remains top dog.
Chip (The Robot)
Kluber’s fastball velocity is no longer a concern as it has steadily trended upward through the season. Of course, now he’s struggling to strand baserunners, which is why his ERA sits above 4.00, despite a 3.36 SIERA. And look at what a little decent defense did for his supposed “hittability”! Last year his BABIP was a league average .297, and this year it’s been similar at .294. Either he learned overnight how to get batters to hit ’em where his fielders are, or he’s just gotten better defensive support and his fortunes turned for the better. I’m going to go with the latter. As usual, excellent acquisition target if you can pry him away at less than a top starter price.
Price’s ERA was at 6.14 during my last tier update, which is crazy, especially given a 2.68 SIERA. His SIERA has since risen due to a skills decline, but ERA has dropped below 4.00 in the last month. The window to buy him at a potential discount is going to quickly close.
Jesus Christ
The state of American League pitching just ain’t very good. This tier began the season with four pitchers. It’s down to one. I considered simply eliminating a tier and merging this with the next, but I think there’s a clear gap between Carrasco and anyone else. He is expected to come off the DL to make tonight’s start and should quickly validate his spot near the top of the AL rankings.
Adolf Hitler
Dallas Keuchel
Chris Archer
Felix Hernandez
Cole Hamels
Masahiro Tanaka
Danny Salazar
Michael Pineda
Justin Verlander
Rich Hill
Drew Smyly
Yu Darvish
Welcome Dallas Keuchel and Chris Archer! I stubbornly left you two in the same tier as my preseason rankings, but there has clearly been some skills degradation. Keuchel’s velocity has jumped since opening the year, but it remains down a mile per hour below last season. I’d bet he posted a sub-4.00 ERA the rest of the way, but that won’t make him any better than the rest of this group. Archer’s control hasn’t improved, but he still has the strong strikeout rate and I’m not going any lower on him just yet. Plus, a lot of this has just been bad luck — his HR/FB rate isn’t going to remain above 20%.
Yeah, Felix is injured, but I don’t want to keep moving pitchers up and down to handle potentially short DL-stints. He was already dropped a tier last update and his skills haven’t come all the way back to vintage Felix levels.
Masahiro Tanaka’s strikeout rate is down, but he’s generating significantly more ground balls. I’d prefer the strikeouts. But hey, at least he’s healthy!
I wish I could believe in this apparent performance surge for Danny Salazar, but alas, I cannot. It’s all about that big LOB% and tiny HR/FB rate, but check out that bloated walk rate. All in all, his SIERA is actually up from last year. Still good, but in no way worthy of a tier promotion.
I’m ready for the pitchforks. Michael Pineda remains in the same tier he opened the season in. 6.92 ERA and all. Unless he’s injured, I need to see some evidence that he’s going to continue to allow an inflated BABIP and HR/FB rate and post a suppressed LOB%. This is the Pineda challenge. While his LD% is a touch high and he’s induced just one pop-up all year, that doesn’t justify any BABIP level. If his BABIP was .700, surely you would expect better, right?! Besides, those rates should improve, because he’s been better in the past.
Justin Verlander since last update — 31% strikeout rate, 6.3% walk rate, 2.95 SIERA.
This is essentially as high as Rich Hill will find himself in these rankings, regardless of his performance. It’s going to be an innings/injury question all season long, so just enjoy the ride for those brave souls who bought him on draft day!
Step off the ledge, Drew Smyly owners, I feel your pain. The skills have definitely been down over the last month, but his velocity is fine and he’s still generating swings and misses. He’ll get that ERA back below 4.00 soon enough.
Welcome back Yu Darvish! I have cautiously assigned him to this tier, as his first start velocity surge is a big positive. However, TJ surgery returnees typically struggle with control, which is something Darvish has battled in the past. So there is definitely lots of risk here.
Patti (Josh’s Mom)
Marcus Stroman
Jake Odorizzi
Taijuan Walker
Jose Quintana
Ian Kennedy
Kevin Gausman
Matt Moore
Aaron Sanchez
Sonny Gray
Jose Quintana continues to dazzle, but this time, it was the 3.1% HR/FB rate he has posted in the last month. He has allowed just two homers all season for a microscopic 2.9% mark. That’s going up.
Ian Kennedy is a perfect example of how important defensive support is. After two straight seasons of a .300+ BABIP, that mark has fallen to just .260, thanks to the league’s best defense.
Kevin Gausman has continued to impress, as his splitter has been elite. I worry about his innings and injury history, but he should keep performing.
I still expect Matt Moore to rebound, as his velocity is good and he’s getting the whiffs. Career highs in both BABIP and HR/FB rate are killing him.
I’m an Aaron Sanchez fan, but still worry those control issues of the past could creep back up. More importantly, how many innings is he going to throw this year after about 100 last season?
I dropped Sonny Gray a tier, not sure what to do with him. When will he be back and was his injury the explanation for his struggles?
Mike
Jordan Zimmermann
Hisashi Iwakuma
Collin McHugh
Yordano Ventura
Carlos Rodon
Josh Tomlin
Jesse Hahn
Rick Porcello
Nathan Eovaldi
Nate Karns
Chris Tillman
Mike Fiers
Danny Duffy
Michael Fulmer
I urged you to sell Jordan Zimmermann in my last tier update, and since, he has posted an ugly 4.88 ERA, as his great fortune finally disappeared. He actually drops a tier thanks to his puny strikeout rate and 4.36 SIERA. His next good start, SELL, SELL, SELL!
Yordano Ventura continues to stink, BUT! There’s some good news — his velocity, which was down all season spiked in his May 17th start and his top three velocity games have now come in his last three starts. I was worried that a complete loss of control and velocity decline screamed injury, but now I’m slightly less concerned. He was dropped in my 12-team mixed league and I even picked him up. We’ll see how that turns out, as we know the upside is high.
Aaaaand look at that, Nathan Eovaldi is no longer “hittable”, as his BABIP has dropped below the league average to .290. He has sustained his ground ball rate surge from last year and the strikeouts are up. I thought about moving him up a tier for the second straight update, but he couldn’t sustain that April strikeout rate surge in May.
Guess what. Chris Tillman has reverted back to the weak pitcher he had been. Since the last update, his SIERA jumped to 4.57 after a strikeout rate and skills surge in April. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and keep him here since he still maintained a 20%+ strikeout rate in May, which is still well above his last two seasons.
Mike Fiers’ good game last night may allow him to keep his rotation spot for the time being and his ERA should continue to improve given respectable skills. I’d like to know where the strikeouts went though, which is why he did drop a tier.
Santa
Sean Manaea
R.A. Dickey
Marco Estrada
Wade Miley
Ervin Santana
Edinson Volquez
Kyle Gibson
Kendall Graveman
Trevor Bauer
Ricky Nolasco
Nicholas Tropeano
Eduardo Rodriguez
Steven Wright
Tyler Duffey
Matt Shoemaker
Despite big strikeout rates in the minors, Sean Manaea hasn’t really fooled Major League hitters yet. While he did whiff eight last night, his SwStk% heading into the game was a pedestrian 8.0%, primarily due to a weak fastball.
Marco Estrada is doing it again, but even better! His BABIP has dropped even further to .207, which is somewhat supported by a low line drive rate and high fly ball and pop-up rates. He’s basically the new Chris Young.
Nicholas Tropeano never had such control issues in the minors, so this is surprising. His fly ball rate is scary as well. But I love the SwStk%!
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.
Don’t be shy… Bump up Elite-ovaldi
Re: Ventura’s velocity spike – is there any data out there to support the position that a mid-season increase in a SP’s velocity is something that can be trusted?
I remember trading for Verlander in 2014 after he saw a velocity spike for a couple of outings after a slow start to the season. His velocity decline started in 2013 and continued into 2014, but over the course of three outings his velocity increased to over 94 MPH on his fastball. That is where it sat in 2012, which was his last dominant season. However, the trade did not work for me as Verlander continued to struggle and his velocity dipped closer to 92 MPH.
The point of this anecdotal story is that Verlander’s velocity spike may have been attributed to him putting more max-effort into his pitches rather than an actual increase in arm strength. It seems logical to think that a struggling pitcher might try to exert more effort on his pitches after seeing a decline in velocity coincide with a decline in effectiveness. However, this does not seem like a viable indicator of improved performance because the increased effort is likely to cause increased variability in release points (decreasing command) and is not sustainable long-term.
Where’s Clay Buchholz and Joe Kelly?!?!?!
Lol jk
Quintana, com’on now.
Lance McCullers somewhere in Mike?
Wow, not sure how I missed him. Actually, I do know how. Browsed through all the pitchers sorted by SIERA and glossed over the bad dudes. McCullers can’t throw strikes, and his velocity is down. I’d think he’s in the Mike tier, but real risk.
Steven Wright has been pretty great for me so far, everyone says there’s some regression coming. What’s the right time to consider trading or dropping him? Should I consider this his high point in terms of value?
While knuckleballers don’t follow the traditional rules, he’s going to allow more hits and certainly more homers. His value is at its peak now and I’d trade him for sure.
Besides Bucholtz, who else is in the “Maggie the ex-gf” tier?
Pod – JA Happ obviously doesn’t sort well according to K-BB%, but he belongs somewhere right?
I initially had a last tier of a group of pitchers, but decided to just delete them. They were there last update, but these guys all have SIERA marks well above 4.00 and I’d rather own a middle reliever in AL-Only leagues.
Happ owns a 4.70 SIERA, he doesn’t sort well on anything, except BABIP and LOB%. I wouldn’t touch him.
Man, everything I’ve read suggests that JA Happ sucks and I should just bank my winnings and move on…but it is really hard to do…
This is me Can’ting. I simply don’t understand the Jose Quintana and Michael Pineda rankings. Three years of reading this site and this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to write a negative comment.
Three years of consistency from Quintana and good production this year. Pineda has been a firestorm of suck and you have him ranked a tier above.
Makes no sense to me.
I hope the author would elaborate more.
Gotta look beyond ERA! Actually, don’t look at ERA at all.
I hate the Sox, but that one caught my attention as well… and I don’t pay attention to ERA.
Let’s make this easier. This was my preseason Quintana projection:
200 IP, 3.67 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 13 wins, 20.5% K%, 171 K
That ERA is actually below his career SIERA and right in line with his 2012-2014 SIERA marks. The WHIP just below his 2015 mark. A career high in wins. A strikeout rate higher than his career average, which included the spike from this year.
Do you disagree with the projection? It’s what put him into his current ranking to begin with, and he hasn’t moved at all on the ranking list.
He has beaten his SIERA thanks to a suppressed HR/FB rate. But in a home run friendly park, I need to see evidence this is a skill he possesses, rather than just 2 seasons of good fortune.
What about FIP, where Quintana is lapping Pineda? Or SIERA (as you comment on below), where the two pitchers are tied?
Besides, surely on the scale of 3-4 years (especially with the same team) ERA carries some information with respect to a pitcher’s ability to prevent runs…
Despite the cheap talk, methinks if someone threw down $1000 on Quintana versus Pineda with respect to ERA rest of season (or some other outcome metric, WPA perhaps), you’d balk at taking that—even though you have Pineda not only ranked higher, but in a higher tier entirely.
Why are you using FIP? It assumes HR/FB is 100% skill, which it isn’t. I use SIERA instead. Just because the two are tied SIERA doesn’t equate to equal fantasy value. It’s all in the WHIP. I had Pineda projected for a 1.12 mark, which is significantly more valuable than the 1.26 mark for Quintana, more than making up for the fewer projected innings.
Remember, this list is total fantasy value, not just ERA! There’s more to fantasy value than ERA. I think you also misunderstand tiers. Even being a tier different, that still might equate to just a couple of bucks difference in value. It’s why I’d rather just straight dollar values than an arbitrary cutoff of tiers.
I used FIP and SIERA because you apparently opposed ERA as a measure of a man.
How are you projecting WHIP? Without communicating that, arguments are doomed to be circular (i.e. “I have Pineda higher than Quintana because I project his stats to be better”). How could one argue against it?
I only use SIERA, it’s far better than FIP. I was quoting my preseason projections, as I forecast all underlying metrics and Excel then calculates an ERA and WHIP from there, based on my BABIP and HR/FB rate projections, among the other skill rates.
Thank you very much for responding and expanding. While I don’t agree still, I understand why you have them ranked as you do.
And, no, I do not look at ERA.
Two follow up questions:
1) I agree Siera is important but why doesn’t FG have it listed in the top section of player profiles? Seems like it should be treated up there with FIP, etc. Can you prompt them?
2) When you’re doing your rankings, are you making any manual adjustments based on aproach changes (i.e. different mechanics, drop in velo, new pitch mix, etc)?
Ha, wish I had that type of power, but not sure why FIP taken precedence over SIERA.
Yes, that’s exactly the type of changes that would drive a rankings move. All about the process.
Hey Mike, no Jhoulys Chacin? Pitched pretty well, good park.
This is a shitty list.
Welp. You selected a very apt user name.
Yes, I was a Quintana skeptic too, but it’s time to move him up a tier.
I know Fangraphs ain’t Rotographs, but it’s funny that a month after Dave Cameron’s article on Jose Quintana (“The White Sox Have Two Aces”) — a month in which Quintana continued to kick arse — he still gets no respect in ranking lists like this.
Check his SIERA. Same pitcher he always is, just with much better luck. What has changed? Strikeout rate jump looks to be a fluke, SwStk% actually down from last year and below career average.
For whatever it’s worth, I appreciate that you look at things like BAA, strand rate, and SwStk% as you formulate your rankings. Obviously not everyone will agree with every ranking, but I like that you just don’t provide an ordinal ranking sorted by ERA. (And looking at the FIP/xFIP/SIERA divergence with ERA can provide some good buy low/sell high opportunities.)
Early thoughts on Fulmer? Was trying to decided between Fulmer and Eovaldi last night and went with the former due to higher swk%, better park, and higher upside.
He’s been fantastic so far, with lots of good in his statistical profile. Only concern is he’s still a rookie who could get adjusted to, but he’s clearly the sexier choice. I’d prob choose Fulmer in a shallower league where I need the upside, but maybe Eovaldi is a touch safer for a deep league. It’s not an obvious choice though, but can see both sides.
Maybe this is an Eno question, but I was reading that his arsenal has actually improved in the majors (according to Tigers fans). Meaning, he has actually improved on the fly (unlikely) or the Tigers limited his pitches usage in the minors, much like the Pirates do with their young pitchers. Do you think there is any truth to this? So far reports on his change up and cutter are positive when everyone just thought he had a slider.
No idea! I have limited knowledge of minor leaguers outside the stats and what I read on this very site.
Censoring anatomically correct words? F*cep*lm.