For this fun exercise we are going to look into some pitchers who gained or lost velocity on their fastball. Usually a gain or loss in velocity could lead to a difference in performance. This season is a little tough because the question of the year is, were pitchers able to throw faster because they knew it was a short season? Or vice versa, did some of these pitchers lose their velocity because they didn’t have time to properly build up their arms? Or are they typically slow starters? Unfortunately these are questions that won’t be answered until the 2021 season begins. With that in mind let’s take a gander and these pitchers and what it could mean moving forward.

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With only a two month season, it makes sense to look into pitchers who were gaining momentum in the final month. Of course, taking a small sample isn’t always ideal but perhaps a pitcher started to gain velocity, made a pitch mix change, or were just plain unlucky in the first month. These tangible changes could mean something and could hint at who will carry their success over into 2021.

Here are the top 30 ERA leaders in the last month:

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This season, this short, crazy, and insane season has seen a lot of rookie pitchers. With all of these call ups this has been one of the more compelling MLB seasons we have seen in a long time. It seems like every week new pitchers are being called up to grab a spot start. Pitchers who haven’t even reached the AAA level are getting called up! This is the second and final part of analyzing some of these rookie pitchers, how they are performing, and what their future holds.

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This season, this short, crazy, and insane season has seen a lot of rookie pitchers. With all of the call ups, this has been one of the more compelling MLB seasons we have seen in a long time. It seems like every week there are new pitchers being called up to grab a spot start. Pitchers who haven’t even reached the AAA level. Most importantly pitchers that we have been waiting a long time to see. There will be two parts to this article as we will analyze some of these rookie pitchers, how they are performing, and what their future holds.

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The 2021 draft season will be interesting, to say the least. There has been an abundance of surprises when it comes to starting pitchers. For instance, Zach Davies, Corbin Burnes, Dallas Keuchel, Framber Valdez, and Adam Wainwright all have a sub-three ERA.  What’s going to be strenuous for 2021 is figuring out who is “real” and who isn’t. How do we do that? Well, there are several factors such as a pitch mix change, movement changes on pitches, and velocity. With all that said there’s (at least) one pitcher performing well who seems to be legit. That pitcher is Pablo Lopez.

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SwStr% is a simple metric that is calculated by taking swings and misses and dividing it by total pitches. Why is SwStr% important? Simply put, if a pitcher can produce a bunch of swings and misses it means his strikeout rate should be high. The more strikeouts the better, because if you look at an elite pitcher in baseball you will see a high strikeout rate. It is well known that SwStr% correlates well with a pitchers strikeout rate. Want to know if a player’s K% is over or underperforming? Check out their SwStr%. The rule of thumb (although it isn’t exact) is to double a pitchers SwStr% and their K% should be around that number. Keep in mind some pitchers will be outliers if they consistently rely on called strikes, like Aaron Nola.

Let’s take a look at the SwStr% leaders so far this season.
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Movement

Pitch movement is simply measured by vertical and horizontal movement. Some websites do differ in the number of inches as some include gravity while others don’t. Movement on a pitch can mean everything. Think about it – of course the more a pitch moves the harder it is to hit. But on the other end, that also means it is harder for the pitcher to command. Below are two pitchers who have seen an increase in movement on one of their pitches. So what does this mean for these pitchers moving forward? Check it out below!

Trevor Bauer

Trevor Bauer has been like a sour patch candy the past two years. In 2018 he was sweet and put up a 2.21 ERA with the underlying metrics to support it. In 2019 he turned sour and put up a 4.48 ERA and again had the underlying metrics to support it. Coming into 2020 it was impossible to make rhyme or reason on what the heck happened to Bauer. Personally I thought his four-seam seemed to over-perform in 2018, thinking his 2020 wouldn’t be far off from his 2019. Boy was I wrong.

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Hey everyone! Before we get started on pitch mix changes I figured I would introduce myself since this is my first article on Fangraphs. When I learned I would be writing for Fangraphs it felt like I had just won the lotto. As people would say these days, my mind was blown. For those who don’t know me, you can mainly see my work on my own blog and I am extremely active on twitter. I have an obsession with pitching, am a Mets fan (unfortunately), and my favorite pitcher in today’s game is, of course, Jacob deGrom. The baseball community is the best in the world and I couldn’t be more excited for this new adventure!

In this shortened season we sadly won’t be able to rely on a ton of metrics when analyzing pitchers. The sample size just won’t be big enough, but one factor that could be telling is pitch mix. We have seen numerous pitchers suddenly lean on different pitches, creating a significant difference in their performance (looking at you Patrick Corbin). Below are four pitchers who appear to be changing things up for the 2020 season. The question is, what does this mean for their future?

Danny Duffy

Danny Duffy came into 2020 with the mindset of keeping a pitch mix change he made towards the end of last season. In July and September (hurt in August) of 2019, Duffy started to get comfortable with his changeup. Most notably in September, he threw his changeup over 20% of the time, the first time he did that all season. In that month he threw for 30.1 innings while producing an impressive 2.37 ERA and 3.61 FIP.

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Introduction

This year, I again had the great fortune and the amazing honor of being invited to one of the most prestigious fantasy baseball industry leagues – Tout Wars (toutwars.com). It was my second year participating in Tout Wars.

Last year, I was a member of the inaugural Tout Wars Draft & Hold league. This year, I was invited to take part in one of the four live auctions – the Tout Wars Head-to-Head Points league. It was originally scheduled to be held live in Midtown Manhattan on Sunday, March 15.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we were unable to hold this auction live. Though the NFBC had chosen to cancel their live auctions, and many of my home leagues agreed to postpone – the Tout Wars board had decided to proceed onward. Rather than postpone – all four remaining Tour Wars leagues competed online, with Fantrax as the provider platform.

Aside from the benefits of the social aspect of a live auction (one of the key reasons we do this in the first place), we lose many of its intangible aspects when moving to the online arena. You can no longer look a league mate in the eye as they bid. It is much harder to pick up on ‘tells’ by simply reading out your computer monitor. The art of using my voice to hypnotize others goes away (yes, that’s right – I said hypnotize). It isn’t the same.

Personally, I have played in many online auction leagues. It was a dynamic that I was used to, and I have previously played on the Fantrax software. My home office setup is quite decent for an online auction. I use two 27-inch monitors, plus a side 15-inch auxiliary monitor. I used one screen to see the auction room. One screen contained my homemade draft software. Displayed on the third monitor was my plan of attack for the day. Technologically, I was primed for the event. Perhaps, this medium of fantasy baseball drafting was even an advantage for me.

You can view the results of our auction on Fantrax here. Full spreadsheet results of all Tout Wars auctions and drafts are compiled here.

For Part I of my Tout Wars auction recap, rather than simply break down my player selections – I wanted to share with you some of my process and preparation. I might comment about one or two of my player selections along the way, but I thought that you – the reader – would benefit more from a discussion of my approach and from my overall observations.

Both in fantasy sports, as well as in real life – the process is always more important than the specific or situational results.

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A new Ottoneu league has recently formed with a twist – despite the deep, dynasty-like structure of the platform, our league has decided on a single rule change this year: players without MLB experience (“rookies”) are ineligible for the annual spring player auction.  Instead, rookies may only be added to rosters through an in-season free agent player auction once they have accumulated their first MLB PA or IP.  Yes, this means Luis Robert cannot be owned (48 hour auction waiting period) until he completes his first PA, most likely to come on Opening Day (3/26) against the Royals.

This one simple rule change impacts a tremendous amount of Ottoneu strategy, a discussion for which I’ll reserve a future post.  For now, the purpose of this article is to list the rookies that have at least some opportunity to debut in 2020, and estimate which of these prospects might actually have some relevant fantasy impact this season.

The table below lists 130+ prospects that could potentially make their initial MLB rookie debut in 2020.  All players with existing MLB experience (Gavin Lux, Jesus Luzardo, Dustin May) have been removed.  The three columns to the far right should be the most useful:

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