2021 Pod vs Steamer — ERA Upside, A Review

Last week, I reviewed my hitter Pod Projections vs Steamer projections comparisons. Let’s now move along to the starting pitchers and ERA. As a reminder from my original post:

Though Steamer is the best pitching projection system out there, it struggles on pitchers that have shown consistent BABIP and HR/FB rate suppression skills and deficiencies, as what usually works for the majority of pitchers — projecting a heavy dose of regression to the MLB mean — means it misses on those uncommon exceptions. I use Statcast’s xBABIP now for my projections, so I’m not afraid to forecast a mark that strays from the league average. However, I certainly still include some regression as we don’t always have enough batted balls in a pitcher’s history for that mark to stabilize.

This. Was. Ugly. The Pod Projections were closer on ERA for just two of the eight starting pitchers. Though, one of those Steamer wins only recorded 21.2 innings. Surprisingly, given the injury curse bestowed upon the players that end up on my many lists, seven of the eight actually recorded at least 100 innings. So while injuries certainly reared their ugly heads, they didn’t have as much of an effect as on the players appearing on my other lists.

I couldn’t be right on Kenta Maeda two seasons in a row, as Steamer had been consistently bearish on him compared to Pod. I was right in 2020, wrong in 2021. Incredibly, I noted that Steamer oddly projected a career low strikeout rate, after he posted a career high mark, and he just notched one, with a mark just below his 2016 debut. Really though, his poor and disappointing season was far more a product of bad fortune than it was a loss of strong skills. His BABIP shot up to the second highest mark of his career and well above his career average. Furthermore, his LOB% fell to a career low, the first time it sat below 70%. This is why projecting pitcher ratios is so hard — a lot of their surface results are out of their control and in the hands of their defense and bullpen.

Now with Maeda needing Tommy John surgery, which suggests he may have been pitching injured for some or all of the season, affecting his results, it’s anyone’s guess what kind of pitcher he’ll be when he returns.

No projection system was buying Zach Plesac’s 2020 as any sort of real, but Steamer was the most pessimistic of the bunch. I projected heavy regression myself, but acknowledged a pitch mix change in 2020, driven by more changeups and sliders and less fastballs, along with increased effectiveness of the former two, led to the breakout. Since he wasn’t relying on a velocity spike we need to see maintained and had clear evidence of a change, I figured he would hold onto some of those gains. Instead, his strikeout plummeted even lower than his 2019 debut, and actually hit the worst mark of his entire professional career. It was like 2020 literally never happened. I don’t think even the bears expected this much regression! It’s anyone’s guess what his strikeout rate will look like in 2021.

Shohei Ohtani was the first I got right, and one of only two. He was a real crapshoot though, as he had thrown just 53.1 MLB innings heading into the season and just 1.2 innings in 2020 after recovering from Tommy John surgery. But a healthy Ohtani was still supposed to be real good. He was. And he didn’t miss a beat, picking up right where he left off during his 2018 debut. As good as he was, I would still be nervous to pay a whole lot for him as a pitcher, if your league splits him into two players. He already only starts like once a week, and has far more chances to injure himself than the typical starting pitcher.

I was intrigued by Ryan Yarbrough’s jump in SwStk% in 2020 and thought there was some hidden strikeout rate upside, but Steamer’s crystal ball worked far better than mine, as it projected a career worst mark…which came true. Steamer’s ERA projection was calling for what would have easily been a career worst, and that even proved not bearish enough! A 4.45 SIERA suggests he pitched better than his ERA, but with the low strikeout rate, he still wouldn’t have delivered much fantasy value.

I was just barely closer on Jameson Taillon’s ERA, which is surprising given that his strikeout rate jumped to a career high. He was actually a big question mark after missing the 2020 season recovering from TJ surgery, so moving to a hitter friendly venue in the AL for the first time meant lots of guesswork. Part of the reason Taillon didn’t enjoy better results is because he suddenly became an extreme fly ball pitcher, essentially revering his ground ball and fly ball rates. That resulted in lots of homers and by far the highest HR/9 of his career, even though his HR/FB rate was right in line with his career average.

Another season, another Stephen Strasburg injury. He has now thrown just 26.2 innings these past two seasons. It’s quite clear that this is no longer the same pitcher as his fastball velocity is down to just 91.8 MPH since 2020, after never averaging below 94 MPH. He also struggled with his control this year, walking a whopping 14.7% of the batters he faced, which is quite uncharacteristic for him. In 2022, he’ll be returning from neurogenic thoracic outlet surgery, and if that’s the same as regular old thoracic outlet surgery, that’s going to be difficult to fully come back from. Historically for the small number of returnees from the syndrome and surgery, the results haven’t been pretty.

Kyle Hendricks breaks Steamer every year, but finally, the system was triumphant. Actually, this time even Steamer aimed too low at Hendricks’ ERA, which isn’t something I ever expected to type. What’s amazing is my ERA projection actually represented the highest since 2015 and second highest of his career, and yet it still proved far too optimistic. His changeup was to blame for his tumbling strikeout rate, which hit its lowest mark since his 2014 debut. He posted the lowest SwStk% with the pitch of his career, so you have to wonder if his lack of fastball velocity is finally catching up with him and hitters have adjusted. In addition, he posted the highest BABIP of his career at .299 and highest HR/FB rate of his career.

This is only the second time his ERA finished above his SIERA, though just barely this time. Since he was always difficult to explain during his string of strong performances, it’ll be hard to project a major rebound here. You’ll have to bet on his strikeout rate rebounding back to 20% and him regaining his BABIP suppression skills, and sometimes high LOB% skills. That’s a lot to ask from a guy who averages just 87.5 MPH with his sinker.

For the second season in a row, Mike Minor posted an ERA over 5.00, despite a SIERA of exactly 4.20. He posted his highest BABIP since 2014 and a second straight sub-70% LOB%. While his velocity is something that needs monitoring, I don’t see any reason to expect anything worse than a low-4.00 ERA, giving him value in AL-Only, and possibly deeper mixed, leagues again.