When examining leaderboards over a small sample (say, the last two weeks or maybe a month), you find a mixture of high-end players and surprising ones. If you are looking for late-season adds, those high-end arms aren’t likely available, but what about some of the unexpected names? We’ll look at players rostered in less than 80% in Online Championships to identify and examine pitchers in these deeper, 12-team leagues.

This isn’t intended to be a deep dive into these pitchers because we have limited time for the rest of the season. Success can occur with strong skills, luck, or a mix of both. What have they been doing? Is it sustainable? How do we feel about the upcoming matchups? We’ll examine five starting pitchers who have performed well since August to see if they can be reliable down the stretch.

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Since July, several fantasy-relevant hitters have been barreling the ball less often. Some have been recovering and returning from injuries. With others, the power seems to have just disappeared recently.

The table below shows the hitters with a three-percentage point drop in their barrels per plate appearance since July, minimum 50 PA.

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One way to identify potential pitch mix changes is to compare monthly fastball (four-seamer and sinker) usage splits to season-long averages. That helps identify which pitchers have been increasing or decreasing their fastball usage, typically in favor of other offerings.

The chart below shows the pitchers who averaged a lower fastball usage in July and August compared to their season-long average by 5 or more percentage points.

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Plenty of hitters increased their barrel rate per plate appearance by 3 points or more since July 1, even if we limit ourselves to hitters with 50+ plate appearances. Unsurprisingly, these hitters with higher barrel rates have improved their 90th-percentile exit velocity (EV90) and expected batting average (xBA).

The top barrel rate risers include Andrés Chaparro, Christian Yelich, Coby Mayo, Drew Gilbert, Heriberto Hernández, Lane Thomas, Luis García Jr., Luis Robert Jr., Mike Yastrzemski, Rhys Hoskins, Samuel Basallo, Spencer Jones, Tim Tawa, and Tyrone Taylor.

The chart below the barrel rate difference in the rightmost column. The first three columns are numbers since July 1; the next three are the numbers from before July.

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It’s been around two weeks since the MLB Trade Deadline. That’s a sample of 2-3 starts for these starting pitchers with their new teams. Though we’re dealing with a small sample, it’s enough to look and see if these players could be making pitch mix adjustments with their new teams.

We’ll examine pitch mix changes and whether it’s helpful to their arsenal moving forward. As with anything fantasy baseball-related, we want to rely more heavily on the larger sample than recent changes. However, the pitch mix adjustments with their new teams could be a signal of future changes in their arsenal. Let’s cover five starting pitchers who have been changing their pitch mix with their new teams.

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We’ve previously discussed pitchers with better or worse stuff and command. Among pitchers with 10 innings pitched, here’s a look at the notable players who increased their Pitching+ since July 1. Stuff+ and Location+ are included because they guide us toward a deeper look into how or why the player is succeeding or struggling.

The visual below shows the pitchers with a 5-point increase in their Pitching+ since July 1.

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When scanning the starting pitchers who have been performing well on player raters, we often find high-end players mixed with late-round picks or waiver wire options. Whenever we find pitchers performing well or struggling, the first question should be why. Often, breakout performances involve a mixture of luck and skill.

Meanwhile, there could have been a pitch mix change or an actionable adjustment in their profile, which includes their stuff and command grades. Today we’ll look at four starting pitchers having recent success, dive into what could be driving that success, and examine whether it’s sustainable moving forward.

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We previously covered several starting pitchers who changed their arm angle in June and July. Let’s follow that up with a few other starting pitchers who have been throwing from different arm angles this season. Arm angles can impact pitch movement profiles, depending on the pitch type.

Besides one near-elite starting pitcher, we’ll examine a few players who have been performing well while showing different arm angles. How have those arm angles impacted pitch movement and usage? Why does it matter?

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We covered several starting pitchers that have been throwing more fastballs (sinkers and four-seamers) in June and July. Pitch mix changes intrigue me because they can be a concerted effort to make changes or a noisy small sample. Sometimes pitchers command a pitch better, or it’s just the normal fluctuation of pitches across their arsenal, with some thrown more often than others. Let’s examine four more starting pitchers who have been throwing more fastballs in June and July.

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One area that I like to examine for pitchers is their arm angle, which consists of their vertical and horizontal release points. Arm angle is a quick way to see whether a pitcher might have different vertical and horizontal release points that could impact movement. Arm angle tends to correlate best with vertical movement whether it’s without gravity (0.225) or with gravity (-0.258). I tend to look at pitch movement without gravity as induced vertical break, especially on four-seam fastballs. There’s an inverse relationship between arm angle and vertical movement with gravity. That indicates that pitchers with high arm angles can throw pitches with greater downward movement.

I’m working on a way to find correlations between arm angle and horizontal movement since different sites list horizontal movement differently. For instance, Baseball Savant shows inch values with the words arm and glove after the number value. Meanwhile, other sites have negative or positive values, indicating glove- or arm-side movement. My guess would be that arm angle correlates similarly or slightly worse without bucketing by handedness and pitch types. That said, it’s still not that strong of a correlation to vertical movement. 

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