Last week, I discussed the Triple-A hitter wOBA and HR/FB rate leaders and their chances of a recall to the Majors over the near term. Already, several of them have graduated only days after publishing my articles. Now let’s turn to starting pitchers, or those who have amassed the majority of their innings in such a role. For minor league pitchers, all I really care about is strikeout rate. Obviously, I don’t want to see a 15% walk rate, but the strikeouts are my primary concern. So let’s review the starting pitcher strikeout rate leaders in American League organizations first. On the hitter side, I included who the MLB incumbent(s) is/are because they could create a real roadblock to near-term fantasy value. I’m not going to do that for pitchers as the path to a rotation spot or even a spot start is much easier and could come at any time due to injury. Finally, any names currently in the Majors will be excluded from these lists.

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Yesterday, I perused the Triple-A hitter HR/FB rate leaderboard and discussed the AL hitters at the top. Now let’s jump to the NL and determine whether any of these sluggers could find themselves in the Majors within the next month. Once again, I have excluded any hitters who are already in the Majors and this list only includes qualified hitters.

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Let’s continue our future minor league callup series, this time moving to the metric I probably care most about — HR/FB rate. Since home runs is a category and wOBA is not in the majority of fantasy leagues, we could directly understand the potential impact a high (or low) HR/FB rate could have for fantasy teams. So let’s now begin in the American League by reviewing and discussing the Triple-A HR/FB rate leaders. Once again, I have excluded any hitters who are already in the Majors and this list only includes qualified hitters.

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Yesterday, I discussed the American League Triple-A hitters leading in wOBA and their chances of being recalled in the coming weeks. Today, let’s switch over to the National League. As a reminder, I’m excluding any hitters currently in the Majors.

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Now that we’re more than a third into the season and we’re approaching the date in which teams no longer have to worry about Super 2 status, let’s turn to the minor league leaderboards to try identifying who may get promoted over the next couple of weeks. I’ll start in the American League and review the wOBA leaders. I only care about prospects who are earning a call-up. If the hitter in question is not performing well in the minors, regardless of his prospect pedigree, why would we expect the hitter to suddenly perform well in the Majors? For each prospect, I’ll list his age, rank on our prospect lists and current MLB incumbent ahead of him. I’ll exclude any hitters already in the Majors, as some were just recalled this weekend.

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Yesterday, I discussed seven starting pitchers whose SIERA marks improved the most in May versus April. Those improvements were driven by underlying skills surges — some sort of combination of a higher strikeout rate, lower walk rate, and/or more optimal batted ball distribution. Let’s now flip to the pitchers whose skills declined the most, leading to the largest increases in SIERA from April to May.

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We know that pitchers’ skill levels could change quickly, so it’s important to pay attention. A pitcher could suddenly gain/lose velocity, alter his pitch mix, adjust his mechanics, etc, and suddenly become a new version of himself. So let’s dive into the starting pitchers who improved their SIERA marks most from April to May, driven by a significant improvement in skill metrics.

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With some insane strikeout rates during his short minor league career, all backed by mid-to-upper teen SwStk% marks and even an absurd 21.5% mark at Double-A in 2019, I have been excited about Tarik Skubal ever since he debuted last year. That performance was quite mixed, as he brought his strikeout stuff, punching out 27.6% of opposing batters, but also allowing a crazy 54.2% FB% rate, which is dangerous in our homer-happy times. Since he allowed an inflated 20% HR/FB rate, it resulted in a sky-high 2.53 HR/9 mark. It’s no wonder he sported an ERA near 6.00! Of course, his 4.12 SIERA suggested better days ahead, but all those fly balls are scary, nonetheless.

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Yesterday, I used the Statcast Home Runs Leaderboard to identify and discuss the starting pitchers who have allowed more home runs than expected according to Statcast’s calculation. Today, let’s flip to the starting pitchers who have allowed fewer home runs than expected. Are they any sell highs among this group? Let’s find out.

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Earlier this month, I reviewed the hitters who had most underperformed and overperformed their Statcast xHRs. But Statcast doesn’t only calculate xHRs for hitters, it does so for pitchers as well. So let’s review the starting pitchers that have allowed at least two more home runs than Statcast has calculated that they should have been expected to allow.

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