Yesterday, I highlighted and discussed four starting pitchers ranking high on the last 30 day SwStk% leaderboard. Let’s now flip to the other end of the leaderboard — those starters who surprisingly find themselves closer to the bottom.
Pitcher skills change far more frequently than hitters and pitchers can seemingly transform themselves mid-season simply by changing up their pitch mix or adding or losing velocity. So it pays to not only look at a pitcher’s full season line when evaluating his performance and forecasting the rest of the season, but also how he has performed more recently. So with that in mind, let’s discuss some of the most interesting names on the last 30 day SwStk% leaderboard.
We still have a number of teams remaining with new everyday players to discuss, so let’s continue on!
Let’s pick back up with the new starters as games resume after the All-Star break. Consider this a Pirates edition, as three of the four names play their home games at the convergence of three rivers.
Yesterday, I asked you to vote on which group of pitchers you expect to post a better ERA over the rest of the season. One group was composed of the 10 biggest SIERA overperformers, while the other comprised the underperformers. Now let’s poll you on hitters. I’ll follow the same concept and compare two groups of hitters based on xwOBA overperformance and underperformance. We know that xwOBA isn’t perfect. Neither is SIERA. In fact, no estimated/expected/forecasted equation is going to be perfect, because there will always be players that do something we have a difficult time quantifying. Furthermore, there will always be players each year that fall into either end of the extremes for no other reason than complete randomness. So let’s keep that in mind when reviewing these two groups.
Since 2013, I have polled you wonderful readers on which group of pitchers you think will post the better aggregate ERA post all-star break. The two groups were determined based on ERA-SIERA disparity, pitting the overperformers versus the underperformers during the pre-all-star break period.
As we head into the All-Star break and take a moment to catch our breath, let’s continue reviewing new everyday players, or hitters that have recently become regular starters.
As is typically the case when I return from vacation, there are a number of new faces in starting lineups. Since playing time is king, especially in deeper leagues, let’s discuss some of the hitters who have recently become regulars.
Yesterday, I reviewed the hitters who have increased their Barrel% most compared to last year. Now let’s discuss the decliners.
Since 2015, for hitters with at least 200 PAs, there is a 0.80 correlation between Barrel% and HR/FB rate. Since hitting barrels is the underlying skill that drives HR/FB rate, let’s look at the gainers and see if their HR/FB rates have improved as well.
