AL Starting Pitcher Z-Contact% Regressers
Last week, I discussed the American League starting pitchers that have improved their Z-Contact% the most. Let’s now check in on the pitchers whose Z-Contact% has risen the most.
| Name | 2017 K% | 2016 K% | 2017 Z-Contact% | 2016 Z-Contact% | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Cobb | 17.5% | 15.4% | 93.4% | 88.1% | 5.3% |
| Andrew Triggs | 14.3% | 23.1% | 91.1% | 86.7% | 4.4% |
| Justin Verlander | 22.2% | 28.1% | 86.5% | 82.8% | 3.7% |
| Jose Quintana | 19.4% | 21.6% | 92.6% | 89.2% | 3.4% |
| Phil Hughes | 14.4% | 13.1% | 93.2% | 89.9% | 3.3% |
| Carlos Carrasco | 27.0% | 25.0% | 89.9% | 86.7% | 3.2% |
| Derek Holland | 19.8% | 14.5% | 90.9% | 87.7% | 3.2% |
| Danny Duffy | 18.6% | 25.7% | 84.5% | 81.3% | 3.2% |
| Jesse Hahn | 22.1% | 11.3% | 92.1% | 89.2% | 2.9% |
| Group Average | 19.4% | 19.7% | 90.4% | 86.8% | 3.6% |
Alex Cobb missed all of 2015 and the majority of 2016 as he recovered from Tommy John surgery and while his velocity has been fine, his Z-Contact% is sitting at a career worst mark. Oddly, he has counteracted the lack of misses inside the zone with a career best O-Contact%! I can’t explain that. His velocity being back is a good sign, but his changeup has generated the whiffs it has in the past. He’s not going to pitch a whole lot of innings, but he should be better moving forward despite the current ugly Z-Contact%.
Andrew Triggs was a popular sleeper pick this year and deservedly so, but his stuff hasn’t fooled as many this year. His fastball velocity is way down, dropping around two miles per hour, while both his slider (cutter) and changeup have been less whifferific. You wouldn’t know that he was struggling thanks to a .214 BABIP, but the hits are going to start falling unless the velocity picks up.
At age 33, Justin Verlander posted the highest strikeout rate of his career last season and his Z-Contact% was the second lowest of his career. This year he’s back to where he had been before, even with his fastball velocity up to its highest mark in years. Only his slider has generated a double digit SwStk%, compared to last year when his fastball and changeup also were in the low teens. Weirdly, he has yet to induce a pop-up after inducing 31 of them last year and almost one per game started through his career. He’s not the ideal buy low target.
I would guess that Jose Quintana’s 10 strikeout performance yesterday was fueled by some swings and misses on pitches inside the zone, so his Z-Contact% probably dropped closer to his 2016 mark. I’ve always been pessimistic here because he owns no standout pitches and his SwStk% were always below average. Heading into yesterday’s game, his pitches were more pathetic than ever, with his high SwStk% sitting at just 7.1% from his curve ball! I still don’t want to own him at his perceived value.
This is my comment on Phil Hughes.
Carlos Carrasco’s Z-Contact% stands at its highest since his 2009 debut. Like Cobb, he has offset the increase in in-zone whiffs by pushing his O-Contact% down to a career best mark. His fastball velocity is down a bit and there’s seemingly always concern of injury. But everything looks decent at the moment.
Derek Holland is doing the same as Cobb and Carrasco and he’s upped the usage of his excellent slider at the expense of his fastball. That’s a good pitch mix change, but he’s still unownable outside of AL-Only leagues due to his home park and middling, at best, skills.
There are all kinds of warning signs for Danny Duffy, as the velocity sits at a career low, his strike percentage has dropped back to his pre-2016 levels, and both his called and foul strikes induced have dropped to career lows. The one piece of good news is his swinging strike rate is at a career best. I loved Duffy last year when he enjoyed a velocity spike in the rotation and regularly hitting the upper 90s. His peak so far this year is just 95.5, which is equivalent to sub-95 adjusted for the new measuring type. He’s a clear sell high.
Jesse Hahn’s 2016 velocity spike has mostly been sustained, which is good news, and his SwStk% is up as a result, along with his strikeout rate. His curve has been amazing, generating a 24.6% SwStk%, which is even better than his surprise 2014 debut. The ground balls are gone though, so we’re left with an overall meh bundle of skills. He’s fine in deep mixed or AL-Only, but don’t let that shiny ERA fool you into thinking he’s a shallow mixed league option.
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.
Thoughts on Urias this year? Posted a strong 82% Z-Contact% last year and appears to have a permanent spot in the Dodgers rotation.
Control has deserted him at Triple-A and he probably won’t go deep into games, limiting his win potential. He’s rostertable in 12-team mixed leagues, of course, but I think Steamer’s ERA projection is far too optimistic.
If Jesse Hahn is available in your NL-only league, I want in that league. 🙂
Did you miss the news? He was traded back to the Padres!
Do you keep track of the results of these articles? Do you actually find it successful or actionable to break down pitcher performances on such a granular level?
I always go back to my preseason articles and at times I’ve gone back to my in-season articles. Now with the splits leaderboard, it will be a lot easier to check the results of these types of posts. I wonder the same thing too, are these early metrics a precursor for the rest of the season or should we continue to just trust the projections.
Cool. Would like to see the results if you start looking into them. I like the information, but I always find it hard to actually take action on one very specific stat or another.
Agreed, I’m the one writing these articles and I don’t even take action!
Jesse Hahn!
Just a thought, but this appears to be using non pfx numbers. So for example, on Carrasco, in 2016 his z-contact from non-pfx was 86.7% but with pfx data was 87.1%. Similarly, in 2017 his non-pfx z-contact% was 89.9% like you mention. However, looking at pfx data it drops to 87.6%. So the 3.2% increase your are seeing on him could be argued is closer to .5%
Yeah, I noticed discrepancies between the BIS and PITCHf/x data too, no idea what’s causing that. But I’ve always been told here to use the BIS data, not the PITCHf/x, so that’s what my analysis is always based on.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always used the PFX numbers because the other plate discipline stats don’t add up. If you use a little algebra with plate discipline stats, you can find the chance of a called strike, swinging strike, ball, foul, or BIP. For the PFX numbers, these always add up to 100%. For the other set, they do not.
That’s interesting, I had no idea the numbers didn’t add up! How are you calculating the different strike type rates from the PFX plate discipline numbers? I always had to go to Baseball-Reference.com to get those rates.
Called strike = Zone*(1-Zswing)
Swinging strike = [Zone*Zswing*(1-Zcontact)+(1-Zone)*Oswing*(1-Ocontact)]
Fouls are trickier, as you have to calculate total # of contacted balls and then subtract # of each batted ball type to get fouls.
Bad umpiring could change these slightly, but I also account for that when projecting K and BB rates.
Have you ever compared these calculations to the rates on Baseball-Reference.com? Here is Clayton Kershaw’s link
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kershcl01-pitch.shtml#pitching_pitches::none
I always only looked at SwStrk% under Plate Discipline and used Pitch F/X Plate Discipline for everything else, because I thought I remembered Dave or Jeff saying PFX #s were more accurate. Lo and behold, someone asked this exact thing in Dave’s chat yesterday:
Noah: Can you help explain the difference between the “pitchF/X” stats and the unspecified ones? For example, every player card has a “PitchF/X Plate Discipline” leaderboard along with one just labeled “Plate Discipline.” How are the two different? Is one particularly reliable?
Dave Cameron: The PITCHF/x tab is the tracking data we get from BAM, which is now powered by Statcast. The non-labeled ones are manually recorded by the stringers from BIS. In general, I use the PITCHf/x (now Statcast) ones.
Funny that I have always used the opposite. I know I’ve heard that the computer sometimes gets confused and that’s why using the BIS data (Baseball Info Solutions by stringers) would be more accurate.
In my experience, the pitch classifications seems to be more accurate with the non-PFX data. Probably because there’s a human behind it.
Hahn is currently available in my AL-Only league. Would you take him over Nolasco, Miranda, Skaggs, or Triggs?
Wow, how is Hahn still available?! Definitely over Nolasco and Miranda, certainly not over Skaggs or Triggs.
What are the chances that Duffy’s strikeouts resurface a bit with his increased usage of everything other than his four-seamer? His slider usage is bordering on Bumgarner-esque levels, and he’s going to his changeup and two-seamer more than ever. I get the feeling that maybe he knows his fastball is slower and he’s trying to cover it up with his breaking stuff?
Well swinging strikes aren’t the problem. He’s generating them at a career best rate, which is a positive sign. For whatever reason, he’s getting fewer foul and called strikes. Perhaps what used to be foul and call strikes are simply moved into the swinging bucket. But one of the issues is just fewer strikes thrown. It makes last year look like the outlier, as opposed to a new level of skill with which to rebound to.