Yesterday, I discussed the early fly ball & line drive exit velocity surgers. Today, let’s dive into the decliners. Explanations for such a dramatic drop in exit velocity ranges from a small sample cold streak, playing through injury, or good old deterioration of power skills. If only we knew which of those explanations applied to each player!
Exit velocity is an underlying skill that drives results. I like analyzing underlying skills. So let’s check in on the average fly ball and line drive exit velocity (FB/LD EV) surgers. Though the metric didn’t make it into my newest version of xHR/FB rate, it still correlates with offensive output and power.
It’s still far too early to analyze a lot of the metrics we typically use to evaluate players. But underlying skills like SwStk% are meaningful more quickly than strikeout rate because the denominator increases faster. So let’s peruse the American League starting pitcher SwStk% leaderboard and discuss.
Welcome to the first 2018 edition of the deep league waiver wire! This is where I recommend two players with ownership rates that don’t exceed 10% in CBS leagues. These recommendations are geared toward deep leaguers, which is mostly mono leagues (AL-Only or NL-Only). But, sometimes I feel they are worthy of shallower league consideration, and I’ll note when that happens.
Yesterday, I discussed the starting pitchers who have experienced the largest spikes in ground ball rate. In the era of the fly ball and home run, it’s more important than ever to induce the batted ball type that cannot leave the park — the grounder. Today, let’s dive into the starting pitchers who have seen their GB% dive compared to last year. Remember we’re still dealing with tiny samples here, so it’s likely the majority of pitchers regress toward their career average. But that won’t always be the case, so it’s worth trying to catch the batted ball type distribution changers early.
Though the leaguewide HR/FB rate is down (likely due in part to the cold weather), it’s clear that this fly ball revolution is here to stay. That’s bad news for fly ball pitchers, because now more of their fly balls are going to jump over the wall for a home run. The best way to keep your HR/9 rate in check is by inducing grounders. So let’s check in on the early starting pitcher ground ball rate surgers.
It’s still way too early to be analyzing anything. Heck, after Tuesday’s games, the league leader in plate appearances sits at just 33! That said, batted ball type distribution does stabilize relatively quickly, compared to other metrics. So even though we’re still not even halfway toward our 80 balls in play stabilization point, it’s worth checking in on batter fly ball rates. Perhaps we’ll get an early indication of which hitters have joined the fly ball revolution and are poised for a home run surge.
Yesterday, I took an early dive into leaguewide statistical trends on the hitting side. Obviously, it would be silly to evaluate hitters already, but not so for the league as a whole. Today, I switch over to the pitcher side. Since many of the metrics we would normally discuss are the same as for hitters that were discussed yesterday, let’s talk about pitch usage and plate discipline stats. Unlike yesterday when I was able to compare this season to just March/April of the previous four seasons, the Splits Leaderboard doesn’t give me the metrics I need. So rather than make more work for myself, all previous seasons are full season stats. Aside from velocities, it shouldn’t matter.
While it’s going to be a while before we have a large enough sample size to properly evaluate hitters, it’s actually not too early to start acknowledging statistical trends on a leaguewide basis. So let’s dive into a series of ratios, comparing where we stand after just four days into the MLB season, with the March/April numbers going back to 2014.
We’re already four games into the season! We know that fastball velocity stabilizes quite quickly and while it’s too early to all out panic about anything, it’s far more acceptable to panic, or get excited, about a pitcher’s velocity than anything else. Obviously, not every pitcher has thrown a pitch this season yet, and stats are only updated through Saturday’s games as I type this. So this obviously isn’t a comprehensive comparison, but we’ll keep rolling out updates.
