Last week, I reviewed a number of rookie starting pitchers. Now let’s flip over to the hitters. I’ll begin by reviewing some of the top prospects before switching over to the top performers that weren’t top prospects in an effort to cover everyone you care about.
Yesterday, I reviewed the five rookie starting pitchers who have posted a sub-4.00 SIERA so far. Now let’s discuss some of the other well-regarded prospects who haven’t been as fortunate, posting weaker skills.
Since fantasy owners generally always need starting pitching, we tend to jump on the new shiny toy that gets recalled from the minors in the hopes they could improve our pitching ratios. So let’s review the five rookie starting pitchers that have posted sub-4.00 SIERA marks so far.
Let’s finish up the week with one final look at the wackiest starting pitcher metric levels. Today, it’s all about the batted ball type distribution. Think grounders, liners, etc. Batted ball profile has a dramatic impact on performance, so it’s important to monitor, especially if a pitcher suddenly transforms into an extreme ground ball or fly ball pitcher.
Yesterday, I shared our first set of weird and wonderful metrics for starting pitchers, digging into SwStk% and Hard%. Today, let’s continue the fun with some additional metrics.
Let’s start talking pitchers. It’s time to move on to the wackiness that is starting pitcher metrics. So who is part of the weird and the wonderful as April’s books have closed? Let’s find out.
There are still a number of hitting metrics to review the extreme cases, so let’s continue the weird and the wonderful on the batting side before moving over to the pitching side.
Today is Statcast day, so I’ll review hitters at the extremes of the various Statcast metrics we share on FanGraphs.
Yesterday, I reviewed some of the early 2023 outliers in various hitting metrics. Since there are so many metrics, we’ll continue on the fun. Yesterday, the focus was on strikeout and walk rates. Let’s now flip over to batted ball metrics.
In past years, I have reviewed some of the most extreme performers in various categories after around a week of play. Though not necessarily actionable, it was fun to see the players and stats that stood at the top and bottom of the leaderboards. It’s a bit later than I have normally reviewed the weird and the wonderful historically, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any wackiness going on! So let’s review some of the outliers a couple of weeks into the season.
Yesterday, I identified and discussed the starting pitchers with at least 20 IP this season and last who have raised their SwStk% marks most. Today, let’s now look at the decliners, the pitchers who have suffered the largest SwSk% declines. We’re still in small sample size territory, but such significant declines are still worrisome, especially if paired with a velocity drop.
