Archive for Head to Head

In my previous article on Effective Velocity, I discovered that the pitchers who had EV Adherence rates above the 80th percentile collectively had an ERA that was 10 points below their FIP between 2013 and 2016. Put differently, the pitchers who most closely followed the principles of Effective Velocity seemed to be able to consistently outperform their peripheral numbers, presumably because their sequences of pitches had large perceived differences in velocity for hitters, which kept those hitters off-balance and generated weaker contact on average. That is a pretty notable finding because EV Adherence is a strategy that anyone can pick up, and my research for this week’s article demonstrates that many pitchers have done so in recent seasons and found success.

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Just before the season started, the FanGraphs staff (including RotoGraphs contributors) was asked to make its official predictions for the upcoming season. We took our best shot at predicting the playoff teams, MVP and Cy Young Award winners, and Rookies of the Year for 2017. Perhaps in the coming weeks we will check in with the top picks for MVP and Cy Young, but in this article, we’re going to look at the top rookies.

Our staff picks on the American League side had Andrew Benintendi (40 votes) as the overwhelming favorite to be named the league’s top rookie, with Jharel Cotton (4) and Mitch Haniger (4) rounding out the top three.

Over in the National League, Dansby Swanson (27 votes) was the favorite by a wide margin, followed by Robert Gsellman (12), Manuel Margot (5), and Hunter Renfroe (4).

While it’s extremely early and still much too soon to make any concrete statements about who will win this year’s awards, let’s take a look at the wide-ranging early season performances of the players we expect to be the game’s top newcomers: Read the rest of this entry »

We know that pitch velocity stabilizes rather quickly and while a pitcher’s pitch mix each game could vary, sometimes wildly, it’s generally consistent from year to year. But often times, pitchers introduce a new pitch or switch up their current pitch mix in an effort to be more effective. Those changes could lead to a breakout if the pitcher lands on the optimal mix. Although we’re still only a couple of games started into the season, let’s take a gander at those starters who have thrown any of their pitches 15% more or less frequently than last season.

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Before I posted my Effective Velocity article from last week, Perry Husband was gracious enough to provide me with some feedback, much of which will guide me in improving the simplified EV calculation I am currently using. But rather than refine my math right away, I want to push forward a bit to a point where I have a real metric to evaluate pitchers. My hope is that I can then more easily test whether my attempted improvements to my EV calculations are making real improvements by testing the performance of the metric. To follow that roadmap, my next step now that I have calculated the EV of every pitch is to figure out which pitchers are executing an EV-friendly game plan, whether or not they realize they are doing so.

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What do you look for in second-week-of-the-season pitcher pickups? I’m solely looking at quality of stuff improvements, such as increased velocity, a spike in swinging strikes from a guy who rarely induces lots of them, and perhaps a new pitch mix featuring more prominently a pitch that has been effective, but less frequently thrown, in the past. Unfortunately, 99% of fantasy owners are simply picking up the guys who happened to only allow a run or less in their first start. While a blind squirrel will eventually find a nut, it’s not the most efficient path to success. That said, let’s take a gander at which American League starting pitchers fantasy owners are picking up on CBS.

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With about a week of 2017 baseball data in the books, there are already thousands of innings, plate appearances, and batted balls to parse through. We’ve seen a perfect game bid, a cycle, multi-home run performances, and a huge lead blown in the ninth. Unfortunately, something else we’ve seen are injuries to key players. Like the crack of the bat and pop of the glove, injuries are a part of the spot. They’re bad for the player, the team, the fans — and fantasy owners.

When a key player on your fantasy roster gets injured, it often leaves you scrambling to fill the unexpected hole. The following exercise is designed to help you survive such situations. We’re going to look at viable players who are readily available in most fantasy leagues. To qualify for this list, a player must be owned in less than 50% of all Ottoneu fantasy leagues, based on the Ottoneu Average Salaries page. He also must be able to help your team right now (i.e., no prospects).

Getting right to the list, here are of five players worth a shot in an emergency who are owned in less than 50% of Ottoneu leagues, along with their positional eligibility, average salary, and owned percentage: Read the rest of this entry »

I went to the SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix about a month ago, and one of my favorite presentations was by Perry Husband, creator and champion of the concept of Effective Velocity.  The presentation actually jogged my memory for an article I read on SB Nation by Jason Turbow back in 2014 that introduced me to the concept and chronicled some of Husband’s efforts to get MLB teams to buy into his idea.

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Yesterday, I discussed five players whose spot in the batting order was a surprise, to me at least, and perhaps everyone else as well. I didn’t include everyone though, so let’s take a look at six more hitters whose value is in line to change if these new lineups stick.

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As difficult as it is to keep up with during the spring, my Pod Projections reflect a hitter’s expected position in the batting order. For the best projections, they must, as all the counting stat forecasts are affected by a hitter’s spot. And yet even when we think we know where a hitter is going to slot in, when the games finally start to matter, there are always surprises. So here are a bunch of hitters whose spot in the batting order differs from my projection and whose value would therefore be affected meaningfully if it sticks.

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Leading off and playing shortstop for the Seattle Mariners on Opening Day was one of the most compelling players to watch in 2017. From 2012 to 2015 with the Milwaukee Brewers, Jean Segura batted just .266/.301/.360 with a .290 wOBA and 78 wRC+, amassing 3.4 WAR. In 2016 with the Arizona Diamondbacks, he had a .371 wOBA and 126 wRC+ on his way to a +5 WAR season. What should be made of the breakout? While many people seem to expect heavy regression from Segura, there are compelling reasons to believe he is an entirely different hitter than he was in the past. Read the rest of this entry »