Archive for Meta Analysis

In-season Saves hunting is a long standing fantasy baseball tradition. It can lead to the promised land (Felipe Rivero) or to hours of frustration (the Nationals). To help with finding volatile closer situations, I created a metric to help find relievers on the ‘Hot Seat’. While it is far from perfect, it does show some promise in finding struggling relievers.

First off, this Hot Seat metric is not close to being a replacement for our Bullpen Report. It doesn’t take into account different levels of team fickleness, injuries, velocity drops, setup options, and many other contextual contributions. It just looks back at pitcher performance. It might not even show any relievers who are really struggling but it may give a desperate owner a list of closers who may be on the outs after a couple more Blown Saves.

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Yesterday, I listed a slew of hitters whose HR/FB rates sit far higher than we expected heading into the year. But there have been so many darn surprises, I felt the need to continue discussing names. These are the guys that I literally do a double take when I see their HR/FB rates and think “wait…WHAT?!?!”. Once again, I included their xHR/FB rate marks as well to help gauge how sustainable these surprise power sources are.

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Let’s continue our perusal through the various leaderboards, returning back to power and HR/FB rate. We’ll go through the HR/FB leaders, include their xHR/FB rate marks (not adjusted for home park) and marvel of their awesomeness.

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I’m not sure of the exact Sleeper and the Bust podcast but Paul and Eno were discussing Jeff Samardzija and how his ERA would look better without a Colorado start. Right now Samardzija’s ERA is 4.31 but if the seven run, five inning start in Colorado is removed his ERA drops to 3.81. I’m not a fan of removing starts from a pitcher’s stats. The good and bad will happen. The deal is that Samardzija owners probably sat him that week like I did in Tout Wars. If owners aren’t going to use pitchers in their Colorado starts maybe owners should start ignoring the stats generated there.

The increase scoring environment in Colorado is about impossible to overcome. In an article at Rotowire ($) last year, I stated the following:

What we do know is that the road pitcher should expect between a 1.00 and 2.00 increase in ERA. I might put the ERA drop near 1.50, but I could understand if an owner wants to use a smaller or larger number. Additionally, I will put the K/9 drop near 0.9 and the WHIP increase at .25.

Those increases are just too much to absorb over an entire season. Sure an owner can get away with a start every now and then but eventually, the odds will even out. Once the hammer drops, an owner will spend a couple weeks trying to recover their overall rate stats.

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Two weeks ago, I went searching for some of the league’s underthrown pitches. Which offerings by virtue of their paucity, despite excelling at inducing whiffs and weak contact, should be thrown more often? We’ve seen it so many times in the past, when a pitcher of whom we think a known quantity, suddenly leans on one pitch just a little more heavily and reinvents himself. Last week, we looked at the league’s underthrown four-seam fastballs and sinkers. This week, we turn to cutters and curves.

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Late last season and into the start of this season, I couldn’t stop singing the praises of Robert Gsellman. Gsellman had the pitcher trifecta going on with above average strikeout and groundball rates and a below average walk rate. While I encouraged owners to acquire him, I didn’t completely buy into the transformation. But I still hoped for the best. My reservations and hopes can be linked back to T.J. House and Jacob deGrom and the waning months of 2014 season.

Near the end 2014, House put together a respectable season with a 7.0 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 and a 61% GB%. They combined to support a 3.35 ERA and I was all in going into 2015. He seemed to be the perfect sleeper candidate with results similar to Dallas Keuchel.

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Last week, I discussed the two month BABIP underachievers, identifying names whose marks fell significantly below my xBABIP. Now let’s take a look at some of the hitters whose low BABIP marks are actually validated by xBABIP. These are the guys who at first glance, your knee-jerk reaction might be to expect a dramatic rebound, but the underlying skills that drive BABIP suggest there has been little bad fortune involved. That’s not to say that the hitters are going to maintain such weak skills, but that looking backward, the poor results have been legitimate.

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Last week, I discussed the two month BABIP overachievers, identifying names whose marks significantly exceeded my xBABIP. Now let’s take a look at some of the hitters whose high BABIP marks are actually validated by xBABIP. These are the guys who at first glance, your knee-jerk reaction might be to expect heavy regression, but the underlying skills that drive BABIP suggest there has been little fortune involved. That’s not to say that the hitters are going to sustain such skills, but that looking backward, the results have been legitimate.

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Yesterday, I discussed a swath of hitters whose BABIP marks sit significantly higher than their xBABIP. Today, it’s time to look at the underachiever list, which is probably more actionable than the overachievers. Let’s take a gander.

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Last week, I began my examination of in-season BABIP with a look at how the league was utilizing the defensive shift and individual players were being shifted versus last season. It was a precursor to identifying and discussing where hitters currently stand with regards to my new xBABIP equation, which was developed earlier in the year and accounts for defensive shifts. So let’s dive into the hitters who have overachieved the most, meaning their BABIP marks are significantly higher than their xBABIPs.

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