It’s Week 1 of the MLB season, so it’s time to obsess over velocity. It’s a topic that several other FanGraphs writers have touched on, including Jeff Sullivan in his article about Felix Hernandez yesterday. As a fantasy player, I try not to overact to early-season velocity changes for established starters, but I do like to peruse the early velocity leaderboard for relief pitchers. Since there is so much bullpen turnover from year to year and since I frankly don’t know many of the young relievers who earn jobs and, in spite of whatever limitations that prevented them from sticking as starters, have a chance to become late-inning relievers in the future, I like to use velocity to identify possible relief sleepers.

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I’ve been thinking about Wade Davis and Joe Kelly lately. Davis started 29 games in back to back seasons for the Rays in 2010 and 2011, striking out fewer than six batters per nine and putting up FIPs and xFIPs in the neighborhood of 4.70. The next season, the Rays moved Davis to the bullpen where he struck out more than 11 batters per nine and produced a 2.78 FIP. After trading for Davis that offseason, the Royals tried Davis at starter again for much of the 2013 season with poor results, and they’ve put him the bullpen ever since, where he’s again become dominant.

Davis and Kelly aren’t the same pitcher. Kelly throws much harder than Davis did as a starter and has a four-pitch repertoire that includes a change-up. However, both pitchers use a four-seamer, a slider or cutter, and a curveball and have most of their success with their fastballs. Meanwhile, Kelly shows similar and similarly underwhelming strikeout rates as Davis did as a starter. Kelly has had FIPs and xFIPs over 4.00 in each of his four seasons. That’s 461.2 innings of mediocre results, but the Red Sox seem to be planning to rely on Kelly as a starter again in 2016.

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I’m the Jose Molina of Bold Predictions. Sure, I can’t hit my weight, but you can still read about me on FanGraphs.
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In my previous article, I found that left-handed platoon hitters who start games with the handedness advantage can expect to have that handedness advantage in 84.9 percent of their plate appearances in those games. Right-handed platoon hitters maintain their handedness advantage in 52.6 percent of their plate appearances in those games. Those percentages imply that relying on vs. left-handed pitcher and vs. right-handed pitcher split statistics to project the performance of platoon hitters in their starts with the platoon advantage overestimates their production in those starts. I wanted to see if I could do better based on my research, and so I created a (Marcel-) simple projection system.

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A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about platoon options, and astute reader Tacocat pointed out that platoon hitters never actually realize their versus left-handed pitcher or versus right-handed pitcher splits that we frequently cite. Instead, platoon hitters start games with a platoon advantage, and then sometimes managers have to leave them in to face same-handed pitchers out of the bullpen.

Daily players use the same decision-making as actual managers. You can choose to start a platoon player because he is facing an opposite-handed starter, but that creates a chance that he could see a plate appearance versus a same-handed reliever later in the game. If you are relying on a split stat versus left-handed or right-handed pitchers to make that start/sit decision, then your platoon hitters will underperform your expectations on average.

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The rebirth of the Houston Astros as an elite team likely starts with their position players like Carlos Correa and George Springer, but their pitching staff is pretty excellent in its own right. Led by the 2015 AL Cy Young winner, the Astros have both exceptional top-end talent and depth in both their rotation and bullpen.

If you’re looking for more playing time discussions, check out our summary page.

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Doug Fister had a bad season in 2015. His 4.19 ERA was half a run higher than in his worst season between 2011 and 2014, and his FIP and xFIP were even higher. His best seasons with the Tigers featured close to seven strikeouts per nine and a groundball rate over 50 percent. Last year, he struck out five and a half batters per nine and induced under 45 percent groundballs. That is why Fister had to sign a one-year, $7 million contract with the Astros.

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The Cincinnati Reds got a jump start on their rebuild during the 2015 season by trading away starter Johnny Cueto, and they were not afraid to give their prospects a chance. Cueto was one of 11 Reds starters to reach 20 innings pitched last season. Of the other 10, eight were rookies, and Mike Leake and Jason Marquis, the two non-rookies, are neither still with the team.

If you’re looking for more playing time discussions, check out our summary page.

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The Nationals have been attached to rumors for a variety of the top free agent starters this offseason, most recently with both Mike Leake and Scott Kazmir. Perhaps those rumors come from a genuine interest, but I speculate that at least a part of them stems from the star power that already exists at the top of their rotation. Last offseason, the Nationals had four excellent starters with Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, and Doug Fister, and then they added Max Scherzer on top of them. That rotation and not Bryce Harper was the reason most analysts believed the Nationals would win the NL East. If the rich could get richer last year, perhaps they could again this year.

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After David Price’s and Zack Greinke’s $200 million deals, it is easy to treat the $90 million contract the Giants gave to Jeff Samardzija as simply the price one pays for an average starting pitcher these days. Of course, looking at 2015 alone, it may be a stretch to call Samardzija an average starter. As Jeff Sullivan detailed, Samardzija led baseball in both hits and runs last season. His 4.96 ERA bested only Alfredo Simon and Chris Tillman among the 78 qualified starters.

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