Dan Straily: 2017 Projection

Dan Straily was an interesting pitcher in 2016 as seen by the number of FanGraphs articles written about a journeyman 5th starter. Mark Sheldon at MLB.com summed up his entire season with data from a bunch of sabermetric websites.

What helped Straily perform well enough to earn one of those coveted spots? First, it was his effort over the previous offseason. He spent time in Washington working out at Driveline Baseball, a facility that emphasizes pitching data in training programs and uses — among other things — throwing with weighted baseballs to build shoulder strength.

“I literally can say after 31 starts that I never came in one day and was sore,” Straily said. “That’s not supposed to be that way. You’d have the little lingering stuff, but there was never a day where I didn’t want to pick up a baseball. I felt good the entire season.”

……
According to Statcast™, Straily had a very low spin rate on his changeup — the average of 1,444 RPMs ranked 80th out of 90 pitchers who threw at least 250 changeups in 2016. Changeups and fastballs with less spin generally have more downward movement. According to the heatmap, Straily was good at locating his changeup down and away to lefty hitters.

The heatmap on Straily’s slider demonstrated he could consistently locate it down and away to righty hitters. According to Fangraphs, the right-hander’s slider was worth 11.3 runs above average, making it his most valuable pitch.

I dove a bit into Straily’s yearlong results and came up with a different pitcher than the one who started the season. The big change happened after his May 25th start when he basically shelved his two-seam fastball (sinker) for the season.

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A few days ago, I made my first attempt at trying to determine a pitcher’s value knowing their pitch grades. Since it was published, I have made some adjustments to the pitch grading scale. With the new scale in place, I have been working on comparing grades a pitcher previously received to their actual performance. The results have been extremely disappointing.

In the original article, created a framework to grade individual pitches with an ERA equivalent value (pERA) and a scouting grade on each pitch. While I liked the overall framework, one part really bothered me and I will address the issue first.

The change was to put some consistency in pitch grades, especially with fastballs. The problem was that a pitcher’s fastball is getting graded because of its velocity, but that velocity changes depending on if the pitcher was a starter or reliever. Relievers can really ramp up their velocity when moving to the bullpen.

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2017 Projection: Anthony Rizzo

Rizzo has been an extremely consistent the past three season almost to the point of being eery.

This type of consistency makes creating his projections easy. Except his 2016 projection didn’t seem easy with Rizzo swiping 17 bags out of know where. In his four previous seasons, he only stole a combined 16 bases. Does he keep the numbers going forward or will he go back to his old ways. The key when seeing an unexpected stolen base jump it to basically ignore it.

Here are some the numbers behind such jumps. In all, 16 under 30-years-old players have had a season with double-digit stolen bases which were higher than the three previous seasons combined. They would see an average drop in stolen bases by seven or to about 60% of the previous level in the following season.

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When I started this series which attempts to determine the projected fantasy value for prospects, I knew today’s step would be the hardest. The issue was converting various pitch grades (and control) into a workable framework for a pitcher’s overall production value. I thought I may not end up with a workable answer, but the following results have promise beyond just grading pitches.

I was able to piece together work from various articles and gave each pitch a grade based on the ERA scale. Combining per-pitch-ERA’s with a control value, it looks like we can estimate a pitcher’s overall value.

A pitching prospect is usually given a value on each of their pitches and a command and/or control grade. For example, the MLB.com’s grades for their top rated pitcher, Lucas Giolito, are:

Pitch: Grade
Fastball: 80
Curveball: 70
Changeup: 55
Control: 55

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It’s not prospect season yet. It is not even close to prospect season, but I will go ahead and provide some prospect rankings for people use as they make keeper decisions and with early season drafts. As much as I a respect and use many of these sources, I do like the option of having several sources to compare to get a player’s overall skill set. I am always looking for people to talk about the flaws as most people only mention the good stuff. With just a couple of lists currently out, I had to create a few of mine own. I will start with the more traditional rankings and then move on to some I created.

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Today, I am going to look at some hitter who missed most of 2016 and some 2017 expectations.

Kyle Schwarber (Torn knee ligaments, sprained ankle)

Schwarber has the most upside of all the players I will look at today, but his price will likely be too high for me next year. The variables in his value are playing time, health, and position eligibility.

The first key is his health. Until we can see him run and turn and hit a baseball, the results of the knee surgery and rehab will not be known. Besides the lost production, hitters with knee injuries are more likely to go back on the DL with a knee injury than any other injury. Everyone will have to wait for spring training for this answer.

Second, I am not 100% sure where he is going to play in the field. It is very unlikely he will catch again, so he will need to go the outfield with Anthony Rizzo playing first base for the Cubs. In the outfield, he will be competing against some combination of Jorge Soler, Ben Zobrist, Kris Bryant, Jason Heyward, Albert Almora, and maybe Dexter Fowler (if option picked up). It is going to be tough to predict over 450 plate appearances for him.

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Fantasy Projection: Wilson Ramos

Wilson Ramos had a career season this past year pretty much setting a personal career high value in all his offensive stats. Most of the changes were attributed to a LASIK surgery he had during the offseason. The surgery may have helped him quit swinging at pitches out of the strike zone (career low O-swing%) and making more contact with the pitches in the strike zone (career high Contact%). The surgery explains some of the change, I think a little bit of the change is from being a little lucky with his BABIP.

All of his stats happened before he tore his ACL in late September. The injury is going to cost him six to eight months. He will be deal with the injury at the same time as he is looking for a new team since he is a free agent. He knows his 2017 catching time will be limited, so he may be looking at a one-year deal with an AL club so he can DH.

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Player projection: Max Scherzer

He’s a stud. I don’t see any reason he won’t be the 2nd pitcher taken in 2017 drafts. There might even be a possible case to take Scherzer over Kershaw because of Kershaw’s recent health issues.

An eventual health issue is the only reason I could see for being leery of the 31-year-old. At RotoWire, I found the following chances for an ace pitcher breaking down from his ace status:

Age: Chance of still being an ace
26-29: 68%
30-32: 59%
33-37: 53%

Scherzer is in the middle of the 30-32 age group and has a decent chance for a decline. If an owner is worried about the eventual decline, maybe look to pick up a younger “Ace” who still puts up a ton of innings like Chris Sale (27-years-old, 226 IP) or Madison Bumgarner (26-years-old, 226 IP also)

Projection: 210 IP, 256 K’s, 3.00 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 16 Wins

Player Projection: Michael Fulmer

Before I like to make a projection on a young pitcher, I also like to give a quick look at them. For Fulmer, I went with his July 27th start versus Boston because it was the last start for Fulmer a decent camera angle.

Thoughts

• His windup is generic. He goes right to the plate with a 3/4 release. In the Baseball America handbook, they had him throwing “slightly across his body”, but not anymore. Looking back at some old college video, he as completely revamped his once high energy delivery.
• Fastball: 93-96 mph. Fairly basic and straight. Besides the velocity, nothing special. He does have plus command of the pitch.
• Sinker: This pitch gets labeled as a sinker, but I wonder if it is a cutter. It doesn’t get any more sink than his regular fastball but does break the same way as his slider. It is tough to notice the difference between it and his regular fastball.
• Change: 85-88 mph, really similar to his slider but with release side run while the slider has some glove-side run. Has a nice late sink at times.
• Slider: 87-89 mph. It can be a wipeout slider, but he hung it a few too many times. Again, BA graded it as a 60 and as a “plus pitch with sharp two-plane break”. MLB.com calls the pitch a curve, grades it also at 60, and just describes it as “powerful”. During this game, it was average at best.

Ignore all previous scouting reports on him. He is a completely different pitcher with a dominating changeup (66 GB% and 19% SwStr%). I am sure he feel comfortable with his average slider (42% GB%, 13% SwStr%) but the changeup is his best pitch. Its dominance was on display more as the season went on as he tripled its usage from 6% in April to 19% in September.

I didn’t find any reason for his ERA (3.06) being under his ERA Estimators (~4.00). The regression was already happening during the season with a 2.11 ERA in the first half and a 3.94 ERA in the second half.

I am not 100% sold on him but I do think he could improve by throwing his breaking balls more consistently and using his changeup even more. For next season, I will go with the following projection for him.

Projection: 190 IP, 7.5 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 3.75 ERA, 10 Wins, 1.15 WHIP

Notes:

• I could see two players getting more draft love than expected based on their postseason performance, Javier Baez (.391/.417/.609) and Francisco Lindor (.350/.350/.700). For me, the pair’s performances help to justify their 2016 seasons, but that is about it. It is too early to know if owners will and by how much overpay, but their value is something I will track this offseason.

• Shawn Kelley was removed from game five of the Division Series with a lack of feeling in his hand.

Kelley, who has had Tommy John surgery twice, said that his right elbow was fine and that the issue was a nerve problem in his fingers.

“I got ready quick and it’s cool out there,” Kelley said. “I threw that slider to Turner. I felt some numbness going down my hand. It took a second to try to get some blood flowing to it. When I threw the next pitch to Gonzalez, I didn’t have any feeling in my fingers. It was tough to pitch.”

After the game, Kelley told manager Dusty Baker that he was getting some feeling back in his fingers.

He looked to be in a good position to take over as the Nationals closer, but they may need to go find some replacement if Kelley isn’t healthy.

• Here is the last report from Garrett Richards rehab.

Garrett Richards is sitting a consistent 95-96 with power cut life. Touched 98. Showing the hard 79-80 mph hook too. #Angels

— Josh Norris 🐻 (@jnorris427) October 13, 2016

It is nice to see the fastball velocity up into his normal range. I feel in 2017 he is going to be a draft steal or be completely useless and the results will 100% center around his health.

• The Pirates have a few too many corner infielders and they want John Jaso to try out third base.

If the Pirates keep Jaso, he could play a valuable part by moving to the other side of the infield and the corner-outfield spots.

He would effectively assume the role played this year by Matt Joyce (a fellow lefty-swinging corner outfielder) while taking over some of Sean Rodriguez’s responsibilities as an occasional third baseman and late-inning replacement at first base.

Jaso also could spell Bell or platoon with David Freese at first. At third, he could share time with Freese behind starter Jung Ho Kang, potentially creating an interesting four-way rotation that also includes shortstop Jordy Mercer.

I think there is some value to be gained in mix leagues by guessing correctly who ends up with a full-time job. Besides the above names, highly touted prospect Josh Bell is also in the first base mix. In deep leagues, I would stay away from all of them.

• Wilson Ramos will be out 6-8 months after having knee surgery. I think his value will be in leagues with a lot of DL slots where he can be benched for a couple of months and then used if he comes back healthy.

I will continue to help define how to value a prospect for fantasy purposes. Last week, I examined how major league position players’ production lines up with the standard scouting grades. Today, I go the other way and look at how graded prospects perform in the majors.

I believe I am making this study about two years too soon. I would love for there to be more MLB information after the player received his grades and his 4-5 year production. I don’t have that luxury right now. I feel any answer I come up with will be a nice anchoring point but will need to be adjusted later.

To do this study, I took the grades given by Baseball America (2011 to 2014) and MLB.com (2013 to 2014). With each of these players, I looked at those who had 300 plate appearances in their career. With this fairly encompassing group, I would only able to match of 118 seasons. In some of these cases, the same player was compared. For example, both BA and MLB had their own 2013 grades for Xander Boegaerts. Like I said, a person can shoot about 20 different holes in this study, but I am just working with what I have been given so far.

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• Reports from Scott Boras have Matt Harvey returning at 100% health to start spring training.

….. Harvey underwent surgery on July 18 to remove a rib. The goal was to free compressed nerves traveling from his shoulder to his armpit, allowing them to function normally again. For much of this season, Harvey was pitching without complete feeling in his arm and fingers.

“When you lose that sensation, man, it’s scary for a pitcher,” Boras said. “You don’t know. He’s sitting here struggling and he’s struggling and he’s struggling, and it’s so mentally stressful not to be able to execute.”

I am little more optimistic with Harvey than other pitchers coming back from other elbow surgeries because the injury wasn’t because of damage to his arm.

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