The latest episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jeremy Hefner, New York Mets

Interview

• Highlight of career
• Game preparation
  • Preparing players for the mental & physical aspects of the game
  • Is game planning more about having players pitch to their strengths, or about exploiting weaknesses of your opponents ?
  • In-game management
    • 3rd time through the order
  • Use of an “opener”
  • How “first-in” and “next-in” pitchers coming out of the bullpen are decided

• Health
  • Keeping pitchers healthy throughout the season
  • Extended rest between outings – good or bad?
• Analytics
  • How best to use analytics as a coach
    • Objective vs. subjective view
  • Analytics vs. Gut
    • Pulling Blake Snell in the World Series
    • Trusting analytics, and when to go with your gut
  • How are stats/analytics used to help players on the major league level?
    • Which are the key stats/indicators that you look at?
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Rule changes in baseball
  • Universal DH
  • 3 batter minimum rule for pitchers
  • Extra inning runner on 2nd base rule
• Position players pitching in baseball
  • Effectiveness of Ariel pitching in the major leagues

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Machine learning allows human eyes to take a break from the mundane scrolling and sorting through spreadsheets while still gathering useful insights. What made a top-five pitcher (from a fantasy perspective) so great in 2021? You could answer that easily by sorting through our leaderboards. Robbie Ray? Well, he had an excellent K-BB% (25.2%, league-average 14.6%) Corbin Burnes? His K/9 was a huge 12.61 while the league was only at 8.9. These underlying metrics are important to take note of but can be difficult to analyze all at once. Don’t get me wrong, it can be done. Just look at Michael Simione’s latest piece where he compares pitchers’ underlying metrics. In fact, that’s a lot of fun to do! But, as you come out of your fantasy hibernation and are ready to begin making your draft rankings, you’ll want a quicker way to analyze large data sets all at once. Enter the decision tree. 

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This season I’ve been checking to make sure all my counting stats are on pace using my league’s historical first-place totals. This is just a shallow ESPN league, but we’ve been at it for a few years now. So, I can get a good idea of what totals I’ll need to accumulate to come out on top. Using historical data in combination with Steamer rest of season projections, I can get a good sense of where I’ll be at the season’s end. Here’s a nice, simple graph that you can easily replicate using Excel:

I won’t show my ratios, you don’t want to see them. My WHIP and ERA are practically gone and never coming back. But, that allows me to go all-in on strikeouts and as you can see, I’ll need a big boost if I want to finish with first-place totals. Here are three pitchers who are likely available on waiver wires and have high rest of season strikeout totals. 

Patrick Corbin, 43.9% rostered ESPN, ROS SO: 44

Corbin has hurt a lot of fantasy managers this season and his 5.82 ERA is the evidence. But, an extra 44 strikeouts would certainly be welcome. With the Nationals projected to win another 16 games, you may just get one or two more wins. His ROS ERA is 4.02, but this is really a move for strikeouts and not ratios. If you’re holding onto a small number there, don’t claim Corbin. 

Josiah Gray, 33.9% rostered ESPN, ROS SO: 41

In Gray’s second start for the Nationals he recorded 10 strikeouts and in his two most recent starts he’s gone six innings. His ROS K/9 is a healthy 9.48 and it really seems like the Nationals are trying to see what their new rotation piece has to offer. 

JT Brubaker, 12.4% rostered ESPN, ROS SO: 36

I know, I know. He’s on the IL, he’s had a rough go in his last few starts and his ROS ERA is a 4.18. But, his injury is supposedly only going to keep him on for the minimum stay, two of his last three starts resulted in an xFIP that was at least 4 points lower than his FIP and he only gave up four hits, and no runs in his most recent start.

The big disclaimer here is that you need to be willing to ditch WHIP and ERA. These three pitchers are not projected to keep the numbers off the scoreboard, but they could be cheap and easy ways of accumulating more strikeouts. As long as you have the starts remaining to spare, these three pitchers’ rest of season projections could get you what you need.

Our MLB DFS lineups don’t start and end with pitching. I’m not saying to punt pitcher every night or even every now and then. I’m just stressing that each and every slate does not rest upon our pitching. But the pitcher position is so vital because it’s the slot where we can get the most accurate projection in an extremely volatile wing of DFS.

Our pitching isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they shape they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

Tonight’s slate features a wide variety of pitching quality, but we’re gonna focus on the top — the best pitcher, the best play, and the best contrarian option — or else some poor editor is gonna have to sift through 3,000 words, as there is just so much really good pitching.

The best pitcher of these three is Shane Bieber and it isn’t particularly close. His 3.09 SIERA, 11.99 K/9, and 27.9% K-BB rate all lead the slate. And his matchup against the White Sox is not as scary as many think it is. The White Sox only have a 102 wRC+ against right-handed pitching and they carry a 24.5% K rate. Vegas has the implied run total for the White Sox around 3.5, which is totally fine. And Bieber is about $1k too cheap on both sites for his skill level. That all said, Bieber won’t carry the most ownership.

Trevor Bauer will likely actually be the heavily-owned chalk tonight because he’s a couple hundred cheaper than Bieber and is projecting better across the industry, despite being far short of Bieber in SIERA at 3.77 and overall skill. There are three key reasons why:

1. The Rockies are a trainwreck. Forget the home-road garbage. We don’t have to speculate on the extremes of Coors Field. The Rockies active roster has a 79 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers with a 25.1% K rate.

Is Trevor Story legit-good? Sure. Is Charlie Blackmon nothing to slouch about? Sure. Does C.J. Cron have the type of power that transcends the Coors advantage? Sure. Can Ryan McMahon be a real thing? Sure.

But the rest of the Rockies lineup is hot garbage and none of the guys I mentioned are elite. According to the RotoGrinders Plate IQ tool, their projected starting lineup has an Earth-shattering 27.2% K rate.

2. Bauer’s environment is better for run prevention. Guaranteed Rate Field is a low-key big-time hitters park. It has a 102 park factor for wOBA and a 116 for home runs, according to EV Analytics, compared to 101 and 109 for Dodger Stadium. The rumor is that Dodgers Stadium’s home run factor goes down at night because of the marine layer. Not sure I believe it, but still a significant park advantage for Bauer.

Vegas sees (1) and (2) to give Colorado a 2.51 implied total — almost a full run under the White Sox.

3. Bauer’s one of the best pitchers in the league. Not like Bieber, but still… Bieber is probably a top-three pitcher in baseball, while Bauer is somewhere in the middle or bottom of the top-12, depending on who you ask. The most valuable quality Bauer possesses after his 11.23 K/9 and sub-4.00 SIERA is his ability to pitch deep into games. We get points for innings and more innings equal more Ks. His 6.36 innings pitched per start is elite in today’s game and his three complete game shutouts (CGSO) since 2019 as tied with one guy in MLB over that span.

This is the worst wRC+ versus any handedness in the league and one of the worst K rates in a much better ballpark for pitching than Bieber has to face. Add Bauer’s leash and there is legitimate CGSO upside for Bauer tonight.

That said, projecting considerably lower than Bauer, there’s Lucas Giolito. His matchup isn’t as finger-lickin’ juicy as Bauer’s and he’s pitching in the same park as Bieber, but no one’s gonna play him. His 3.48 SIERA is better than Bauer’s. His 11.89 K/9 is higher than Bauer’s. And his 24.6% K-BB rate is higher than Bauer’s.

Cleveland doesn’t strike out much (22.9% against right-handers), but their 90 wRC+ against right-handers is awful. Vegas has the game as a pick-em, so the implied total for Cleveland is even with the White Sox.

In cash games, we play Bauer. In smaller tournaments, we take a stand on Bauer or Bieber. But in large-field tournaments where we need more leverage over the field of entrants, Giolito has to be in the mix. If we’re maximum multi-entering or even playing 20-plus lineups, we should consider lineups without any of the three, as the pool of SP2s is about as deep as it gets.

All stats cited are since 2019, unless otherwise noted.

A couple weeks back I highlight a group of Out of Nowhere Hitters and gave some thoughts on how I view them for 2021. It’s time to take a look at some pitchers!

Note: this is not a complete list, there are definitely more than seven candidates so feel free to include yours in the comments and I’ll give my thoughts on them in a response.

Framber Valdez | Houston Astros

Valdez ranked just 22nd among Astros prospects coming into 2019 tabbed with a bullpen future due in large part to a two-pitch repertoire. A lack of viable starting options gave him an opportunity in 2020 and he took full advantage. After a mediocre debut against the Dodgers, he reeled off 41 innings of a 2.20 ERA and 1.10 WHIP with 46 strikeouts and a 3-1 record. Back-to-back duds against the LA teams (8 ER in 7 IP at LAA, 5 ER in 5 IP at LAD) pushed his ERA to 4.08 but then he allowed just 2 ER in his final 13.3 innings to give him a season mark of 3.57 in 70.7 IP.

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Again, I’m diving into some lowly-owned starters who have changed their pitch mix since last season. A couple seem to have potential.

Daniel Mengden (3% Owned at CBS)

While he’s better known for his 80-grade mustache, he’s trying to mix up his pitches to become useful. He’s reorganized a bunch of pitches that have helped but other parts of his game are dragging him down.
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I’m grinding away trying to find any pitchers who have changed their pitch mix and are flying under the radar. The changes could be for the better or worse. Also, I’m focusing on lowly owned guys. There is no reason to worry about pitchers who aren’t an option to cut or add. For example, Walker Beuhler has limited the usage of his four-seamer and curve and is throwing his cutter, sinker, and slider more. Sure he might change but is any owner going drop or bench him on the information.
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It’s time we talked about the pitcher that just doesn’t make sense.

Trevor Williams is an anomaly. We like to focus on peripheral numbers to get a better sense of how a pitcher is performing and Williams’ under-the-hood numbers since July 2018 paint a mediocre arm:

Yet across seventeen starts since July 11th, Williams is flaunting two ridiculous numbers:

1.60 ERA & 1.08 WHIP

How.

Williams’ repertoire consists of a seemingly mediocre 91 mph fastball, a changeup that returns a 7% swinging-strike rate, and a slider with a career middling .260 BAA. These are pedestrian numbers for a three-pitch mix, yet 100+ frames have returned only 18 earned runs.

It doesn’t make a lick of sense and I love when something doesn’t make sense. It means there’s something interesting to talk about.

So let’s talk about it.

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Earlier this month, I highlighted a couple of pitchers who improved their results by changing their pitch mix with a new team. With the positive results, I decided to apply the logic to this upcoming class of free agents. The reason I wanted to focus on free agents because I expect a pitcher’s current teams to keep the pitcher doing what he has always done. After going over 15 pitchers, four stood out with real upside.

I’m just going to focus on the each pitcher’s 2018 pitch mix. I can’t assume they’ll develop a new pitch, so I need to work with what they showed last year. The two most common ways for a pitcher to improve is to quit throwing a horrible pitch or drop their fastball usage. These changes don’t guarantee an improvement. For now, the focus is on pitchers with upside beyond their projection.

I collected the free-agent pitchers from MLBTradeRumors and took the youngest pitchers for this investigation. I didn’t include any pitcher who has any kind of option on their contract. I’ll go back and examine them once it’s known for sure who they are or aren’t a free agent.

After going through the pitchers, I found they fit into three main groups depending on if changing their mix could help. This list is in no way a ranking of pitcher talent but I’m sure someone will bring it up in the comments. These are just pitchers who I believe can improve by adjusting their current pitch mix.

Major Improvement Candidates

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I can’t believe I’m going to write this.

Wade Miley has a 2.12 ERA this season.

It’s just a 63.2 inning sample across twelve starts, but that’s still over a third of a season’s work with sparkling results, including a 1.18 WHIP.

Will this stick? In all likelihood, no. His 4.59 SIERA is nearly 2.5 points higher than the marvelous ERA, inflated by a minute 6.1% HR/FB rate, .260 BABIP, and 80% LOB rate. These numbers are all due to fall as the sample rises.

But this isn’t to say that Miley has had a remarkable season simply by being in the good graces of Lady Luck. Miley has completely revamped his approach:

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