Author Archive: Mike Podhorzer

It’s still quite early to evaluate outcomes like strikeout and walk rates, so let’s stick with underlying drivers of those metrics, like SwStk%. Typically, the higher a pitcher’s SwStk%, the better the pitcher and the lower the ERA, though obviously that’s not going to be the case 100% of the time since we’re ignoring walk rate. But SwStk% gains are almost always a good thing, as that should result in a higher strikeout rate, which means fewer balls in play and therefore fewer hits allowed. So let’s dig into the starting pitchers (with at least 20 innings pitched both this season and last season) that have raised their SwStk% most.

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Yesterday, I reviewed the hitters who have most underperformed their xwOBA marks so far, which included a number of names that would make for good trade targets. Today, let’s flip over to the overperformers. I hesitate to make a blanket statement that these guys should be sold high if possible, as each deserves their own evaluation. So let’s dive in.

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We’re about two and a half weeks into the season, which means impatient fantasy owners are going to start cutting or selling low on their slow starting hitters. Before making such rash decisions, it pays to check out the hitter’s Statcast xMetrics. While the metrics have their flaws, it’s the best data we currently have to determine a hitter’s expected performance given their actual batted balls. So let’s review the hitters who have most underperformed their xwOBA marks. This could be your early trade target list if you don’t own these names, and if you do own them, perhaps it’s a reminder to hold strong.

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Let’s jump back over to the relief pitcher fastball velocity gainers. The sample sizes here are even smaller than for starting pitchers, so I arbitrarily required a minimum of five innings pitched this year since velocities will fluctuate from outing to outing. A reminder that if I’ve already discussed the pitcher in my first review, I will not be posting comments about the pitcher again as nothing will have changed. Instead, just celebrate that the pitcher is still on the gainer list and hasn’t fallen off of it if you’re an owner!

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It’s been about a week since I last reviewed the starting pitcher fastball velocity gainers, so let’s take another look. Velocity does fluctuate from start to start, so even though it’s far more meaningful in one game than a pitcher’s walk rate in that game, it’s still subject to the same small sample size caveats as any other metric. So with a bunch more innings in the books, let’s revisit the fastball velocity gainers. It’s also important to check the game logs and see if the velocity has been consistent, or if the average was inflated by just one outing. Finally, it’s helpful to check the maxVel, because a pitcher might not actually be throwing harder, but instead the smaller sample has reduced his lower velocity fastballs that over a season would bring down his average.

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With only around 7% of the season in the books, it’s still far too early to evaluate the majority of performance metrics. But we still want to analyze something, so let’s review the hitter SwStk% improvers versus last year. I chose SwStk% instead of strikeout rate, as the former has a 0.76 correlation with the latter from 2018 to 2022. There’s less noise in SwStk% than strikeout rate, so it’s a better skill metric to evaluate this early, rather than an outcome statistic. Remember, the sample sizes here are small and contact ability could fluctuate throughout the season. But hitters improve their strikeout rates all the time, which could lead to a breakout given the additional balls in play. Cutting down on swings and misses could be an early sign that such improvement will either continue or occur soon.

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Usually, the larger the sample size the better when evaluating a metric. However, that’s not necessarily the case when looking at maxEV, Statcast’s peak exit velocity reading for a particular hitter. While you wouldn’t want to ding a hitter whose maxEV has declined versus last year after just a week and a half of games, you do want to celebrate a hitter who has already increased their maxEV after such a small sample of balls in play. You can’t really fake hitting the ball harder, so it’s possible that an increased maxEV is an early sign of a power spike. Let’s review the maxEV increasers and see if we can find any interesting names.

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Yesterday, I revisited the starting pitcher fastball velocity increasers. Today, it’s time to return to the starting pitchers who have suffered velocity declines. Any names that appeared in my first article will be skipped in the commentary. A reminder that velocity tends to increase as the season progresses, so it’s not necessarily time to panic just yet. However, since I’m only discussing the biggest decliners, odds are most, if not all, of these pitchers will fail to regain the velocity they showed last year.

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We’re going to continue on reviewing fastball velocities as it’s one of the few metrics that actually mean something this early. Note that for whatever reason, velocity readings are all over the map for the same pitch by the same pitcher, depending on which source I’m looking at, so it makes it kind of impossible to know for sure how hard a pitcher is throwing. Hopefully, the relative numbers are correct, as in a 1.5 MPH increase from one source matches another source, even if the absolute velocities differ. With a second start under a bunch of pitchers’ belts, along with first starts by a number of pitchers, let’s review the increasers again. Any names that appeared in my first article will be skipped in the commentary.

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In deeper leagues, strong non-closer relievers can earn positive fantasy value. Every year, a slew of relievers seemingly pop up out of nowhere or take a giant step forward and become elite. Some of them eventually steal the closer role or record a couple of saves. So it pays to monitor their velocity readings as well. Today, I’ll share five relievers whose four-seam fastball velocity is up most compared to last year. Since we’re dealing with tiny samples here, I limited the search to just four-seamers and 10 pitches thrown during both 2022 and 2023.

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