Pitchers can change. Pitchers can change. Pitchers can change. If you don’t believe that, read those first three sentences aloud, preferably in a loud voice in a public space. Hopefully, it will be heard by a fellow baseball lover, and boom, you have a new friend to debate the topic with. You can chat about whether changes in the way pitchers approach opposite-handed hitters matter in the grand scheme of the season. In this article, I’ll present five pitchers from each matchup combination who have increased their strikeout rates against opposite-handed hitters.
We’re about three and a half weeks into the season, which still qualifies as a small sample size. Even though rate stats could still fluctuate wildly, especially ERA and WHIP for pitchers given their low number of innings, it’s hard for many to ignore those marks and look at the underlying skills instead as a better predictor of future results. So it’s worth reviewing a pitcher’s ERA compared to his SIERA to get an idea of whether he’s riding strong/weak skills or is being impacted more by the luck trinity of BABIP, HR/FB, and LOB%.
Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.
I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings. I should also note that the two new minor league stadiums that the Athletics and Rays are playing in this year currently have neutral park factors in my calculations, though both should play like hitters parks (those series are marked in yellow below).
The Dodgers and Cubs gain an extra day off next week to offset their early start in Japan in March. That means they’ll only play five games, though the Dodgers will need to call up a spot starter anyway after Bobby Miller was optioned after his own spot start on Thursday. Roster Resource has Matt Sauer listed as the starter on Wednesday but it’s possible Los Angeles will activate Tony Gonsolin for that start instead.
After spending most of the month rehabbing, we’ll probably see the season debuts of Ranger Suárez, Brayan Bello, Tobias Myers, and Lance McCullers Jr. (!) next week and Jack Leiter and Pablo López are on track to be activated from their short stints on the IL too.
Welcome to another installment of fastball velocity risers and fallers. For reference, here are a few articles that explain both the process and the importance of increased or decreased velocity when predicting future success:
The data for this article reflects games played through April 15th (but may include a Spring Training start for any pitcher who has yet to reach three starts) and only displays Statcast’s four-seam fastball (FF) velocity. Read the rest of this entry »
The wave of early season injuries has hit hard and your fantasy baseball team is more than likely feeling the effects. One of my Ottoneu teams has eight pitchers currently on the IL and I dropped two other injured pitchers in my desperate search for reinforcements. Hopefully, these eight under-rostered pitchers — four starters and four relievers — can help you in your own search for pitching help.
Tyler Mahle is finally healthy after working back from Tommy John surgery in 2023 and a shoulder injury last year. At his peak, he was a strikeout generating machine, producing a 27.1% strikeout rate across three seasons from 2020–22. He hasn’t reached that same level of effectiveness yet, but his first four starts this year have been promising. So far, he’s allowed just two earned runs and eight hits across 19.2 innings, and it seems like the command issues that limited him to just 1.2 innings in his first start are behind him. The velocity on his four-seamer hasn’t returned all the way — and it might not — but he’s getting more induced vertical movement on the pitch than ever before. Opposing batters aren’t swinging and missing against his secondary pitches yet, but the whiff rate on his heater 36.2% of the time! He’s gotten a bit lucky in the batted ball department so I’m sure some regression is coming, but as long as he’s healthy, he looks like he can be a useful starter in all fantasy formats.
Andrew Heaney has been a frequent recommendation in this column over the last few years. He’s the type of pitcher who has hot streaks where he looks incredibly impressive for a time but he isn’t consistent enough to deserve a high roster rate. He’s started off this year on a heater, allowing six runs across 18 innings in his first three starts with a phenomenal 20.0% K-BB%. He’s adjusted his repertoire to feature three different variations of his sweeping breaking ball — Statcast classifies them as a curveball, slider, and slow curve but they’re all generally the same shape with different velocities. He’s also added a sinker to his mix which gives him another weapon to keep batters off his four-seamer. These adjustments to his arsenal have my attention and I’m interested to see if they can help him reduce the amount of hard contact he allows off his heater.
After struggling in the starting rotation for a season and half, Matthew Liberatore found some success pitching out of the bullpen late last year. The Cardinals moved him back to the rotation to start this year and his first three starts of the season have been fantastic from a peripherals standpoint even if the actual run prevention hasn’t been up to snuff. He’s struck out 18 and walked just one in 18.1 innings and he’s managed to work around the platoon issues that have been a problem for him throughout his career. You can chalk that up to a greater emphasis on his changeup and cutter and better command of his entire repertoire.
After signing late in the spring, the Brewers called up Jose Quintana to make his season debut last week and he held the potent Diamondbacks offense scoreless over seven innings. At 36 years old, his best years are probably behind him, but he’s been a useful innings eater for a few years now. One thing to note: he threw his sinker more than half the time in his first start and more than half the balls in play off him were on the ground. Something to keep an eye on if you’re looking to add him.
Many teams are still sorting through the pecking order in their bullpens as they figure out which guys they can trust with high leverage opportunities. The four relievers listed above aren’t necessarily pitching in the ninth or eighth inning, but their peripherals are so good that they could find themselves in those spots sooner rather than later.
Randy Rodríguez has struck out more than 40% of the batters he’s faced so far this season and the Giants are starting to give him more and more high leverage work as a result. Tyler Rogers has been their long-time setup man but Rodríguez’s high-octane stuff fits the role a lot better.
After the Astros traded away Ryan Pressley this offseason, a spot towards the back of their bullpen opened up. Bryan King has quickly filled that opening by also striking out more than 40% of the batters he’s faced. As a left-hander, he’ll likely get high-leverage work when facing pockets of left-handed batters in the late innings, giving him some specific usage patterns.
The Cardinals didn’t really have many good setup options in front of their All-Star closer Ryan Helsley. In steps Phil Maton. He quickly grabbed the eighth inning role in St. Louis and doesn’t really have many competitors for the role.
Injuries wrecked Gabe Speier’s season last year but he’s healthy and firing bullets at the back of the Mariners’ ‘pen. Like King, Speier should see some specific usage patterns as a left-handed reliever and the impending return of Matt Brash could see him pushed down the pecking order in a few weeks.
Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.
I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings. I should also note that the two new minor league stadiums that the Athletics and Rays are playing in this year currently have neutral park factors in my calculations, though both should play like hitters parks (those series are marked in yellow below).
The Orioles are the only team with two easier matchups next week, but unfortunately, their rotation is a bit up in the air with the injury to Zack Eflin. I don’t really trust any of their other starters, even against weaker opponents at home.
The two Florida teams pull some pretty tough opponents next week. The Marlins host the Diamondbacks and then head to Philadelphia while the Rays host the Red Sox and Yankees. It’s still too early to put much stock in the early park factors for George M. Steinbrenner Field, but Statcast lists its current park factor as 92, though I wonder if that’s more to do with the weather than the actual park dimensions.
One of the few metrics I monitor closely during spring training is pitcher velocity. Process is significantly more important than results in March and could hint at the need to update projections to account for changes we see. Of course, Spring velocity changes don’t always carry over to the regular season. Often times we see a pitcher enjoy a velocity spike and fail to hold onto it when the regular season begins, or suffer a loss of velocity, but gain it right back. So now with a couple of starts in the books, let’s find out who has actually gained and lost velocity compared to last year so far.
Welcome to the first Pitcher Playing Time Changes rundown of the regular season! As with position players, the methodology is a little different in the regular season.
For starting pitchers, instead of displaying raw games started projections like I did during Spring Training, I’m switching to percentage of a team’s remaining starts. When looking at this on a weekly basis, pitchers who are closer to coming back from injury will have their percentage go up, since they’re projected to miss less of the remaining season. Pitchers who were injured since the last update will, of course, have their percentage go down.
Relievers are going to be more streamlined, in that I’m not going to actually show projected innings pitched, because the way we project them internally always show as full-season innings, even if there’s only 50% of the season left. For example, a relief pitcher who started with 70 projected innings pitched and had his projections unchanged will still show as 70 innings pitched after 81 games. So, instead, I’ll just be showing percent change for notable relievers and we won’t be focusing on the actual innings they’re projected for when we’re only talking about a week of difference. That allows me to zero in on pitchers who’ve gotten injured or demoted.
