Yesterday, I wrote about some pitchers at the top of my two-month pERA ranking. Today, I am going to examining some starting pitchers (min 5 starts) who are the other end of the spectrum. These pitchers have struggled and I will try to determine why.

Note: For reference, here are the articles in which I created the framework for the metric (full list).

Rich Hill (#165, 6.01 pERA): Hill throws two pitches and both have taken a significant step backward. Starting with his fastball, it’s 1.5 mph slower. This move is not a game changer, but for a pitcher with just one other pitch, any fastball degradation could kill his overall value.

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As we get deep into a baseball season, it’s hard to keep up with everything going on day-to-day and when you step back and take a look, there will be several surprises or at least interesting tidbits that may change your outlook on a player for better or worse. Here are 20 hitting tidbits you may not have realized:

Did You Know…

• Alex Avila has nine home runs in 134 PA, trailing only Salvador Perez and Austin Hedges (11 each), who have done their damage in 220 and 185 PA, respectively
• Yadier Molina has 11 HR+SB (6 and 5) in 209 PA, tying his 2016 total done in 581 PA
• None of Anthony Rizzo, Miguel Cabrera, Wil Myers, Jose Abreu, Eric Hosmer, Chris Davis, Hanley Ramirez, or Edwin Encarnacion are among the top 10 fantasy 1B…

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The players you sit… those are the ones that get ya.

AGENDA

1. Man See Ya
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. Hitters to Use
5. SaberSim Says…
6. TDG Invitational Returns!

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In my introductory article on streaky hitters, I used Anthony Rendon as a narrative hook. I wish I had waited a couple of weeks so I could have used Scooter Gennett instead. Gennett hadn’t hit a home run since April 11 before he smashed four on Tuesday, and based on my criteria, Gennett has now officially snapped the cold streak he had been on since May 12 which featured just one hit over his most recent seven games. More to the point, now that I’ve defined what I consider a streaky hitter to be, I wanted to look at some multi-year trends to see if I could identify certain hitters as consistently streaky or not streaky and hopefully pinpoint some specific skills that lead to those tendencies.

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THIS. IS. INCREDIBLE. @Orioles‘ fan has mimicked every stretch of the opposing teams pitcher for at least … 12 YEARS!! pic.twitter.com/6xC8A4onjy

— Cut4 (@Cut4) June 8, 2017

I can’t even commit to a work out for a full month…

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On Tuesday, Tony Watson blew his third straight save opportunity, letting a two-run lead against the Orioles slip away with a Jonathan Schoop home run. On Wednesday afternoon, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle asserted that Watson was still his closer. Just hours later, Watson botched his fourth consecutive save, and this time it was a Trey Mancini two-run homer that did him in.

After Wednesday’s game, Hurdle took responsibility for the loss, telling reporters, “I make decisions. When they don’t work out, they’re on me.” Whether that means Hurdle intends to make a different decision the next time the Pirates need a closer is unclear, but it can only be a matter of time before Watson is replaced. Since May 9, the lefty has a 7.71 ERA with five blown saves in eight chances over 14 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

This past year, I created an ERA estimator which utilizes each pitch’s groundball and swinging strike rate and combines them for an overall pitcher ERA estimator (pERA). It’s time for a 2017 update. Today, I will go over some of the starters (min 5 starts) which stand out near the list’s top (full list).

Dallas Keuchel (#1, 2.14 pERA): Even though I expected Keuchel to be somewhere near the top of the list, I didn’t expect him to have the top spot. Two changes to his pitch repertoire have reversed his fortunes.

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David Price and James Paxton are back from DL, but Masahiro Tanaka has the 2nd-worst ERA among qualified starters (6.24), Matt Harvey aka The Dark Knight isn’t far behind at 5.43, and stable assets like Julio Teheran and Jose Quintana (the righty/lefty version of one another) have been buried in a heap of home runs. Even as we get some studs back, pitching remains a landmine-riddled hellscape. We’re on pace for the 2nd-most starts of 5+ ER since 2009 with 322 already. There were 937 all of last year.

Sitting around and complaining won’t do us any good, though. We have to remain diligent on the waiver wire and trade block to counterbalance the blowup starts that are seemingly impossible to avoid for more than a few days at a time regardless of who makes up your pitching staff. Today, I have three AL arms I’m looking as potential long-term* pickups. I tried to span shallow to deep league availability, too. I’ll have NL arms tomorrow next week.

*long-term at this point is a month to six weeks (speaking of which, there will be a new SP Update in a couple weeks)

Sean Manaea

Manaea walked five in his first start off the DL, but has been sharp ever since including a brilliant three-start run. He faced both Cleveland and New York on the road as well as hosting a red-hot Toronto offense, allowing a combined three runs against them. He has a 2.70 ERA and 0.93 WHIP with 34 strikeouts in 30 innings since returning. Over the five starts, he has a swinging strike rate below 14% just once (9% v. BOS) and a filthy 18% rate in his last two starts.

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Last week, I examined a list of hitters who were near the top of the league in exit velocity, while also lagging behind their peers in terms of expected results on their batted balls. For reference, I showed the following chart to explain how batters have performed during 2017 (updated for current games over the past week):

I didn’t do well at explaining this chart, last week. To reiterate, at the footer of the table you can see see that there are currently 395 players with over 30 balls in play in 2017. The numbers shown in each z-score row, display the average metrics for all players with exit velocities in excess of that performance level. For example, those with an exit velocity z-score in excess of 2 have average an exit velocity of 93.96, with an expected OBA of .406 (on same scale as wOBA). Please let me know if any confusion surrounds this chart.

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None of my readers made the most heroic pick of the season last night, not that I’ve said one word about the guy. Let’s correct that…

AGENDA

1. Great American Scooters
2. Weather Reports
3. Pitchers to Use and Abuse
4. SaberSim Says…
5. TDG Invitational Returns!

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