Mike Foltynewicz, a first-ballot Hall of Namer, immediately strikes me as someone who outperformed his strikeout rate (K%) in 2018. I don’t have to look far for confirmation: his 27.2% strikeout rate outstripped his 10.3% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) by a mile. Because whiff rate correlates so strongly with strikeout rate, it serves as a useful proxy for what one could expect of a pitcher’s strikeout ability.

I generally follow this rule of thumb when I’m reluctant to get too into the weeds when assessing peripherals: SwStr% * 2 = K%. It’s imperfect but useful in a pinch. Folty violates this rule of thumb pretty dramatically. Of 13 qualified pitchers who struck out at least 27% of hitters, his 10.3% swinging strike rate falls well short of the shortlist’s 2nd-lowest mark (Charlie Morton, 11.9%). Foltynewicz’s 2018 performance has already wilted under what amounts to very little duress.

Still, I wanted to allow Foltynewicz the opportunity to redeem himself. Whiff rate does not a pitcher make; there are other components to plate discipline allowed such as chase rate (O-Swing%) and zone rate (Zone%), among others, that describe each pitcher in much finer detail. I broke down a pitcher’s plate discipline allowed into its component pitch outcomes:

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When Yusei Kikuchi was posted in early December, he had only a month to sign with a team. For this reason, his signing decision was going to fall over the holidays and Seattle broke the news right before the end of the year. Because of the unique timing, he didn’t get a ton of press, but owners should be aware that he’s a decent starter and not to be ignored on draft day.

First off, the other Jeff beat me to writing about the 27-year-old lefty. Twice to be exact. Once before the signing and once after.
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Fantasy owners have been chasing, to no avail, Chris Archer’s 2015 season, during which he recorded a 29% strikeout rate with a 3.23 ERA. After finishing just outside the top-50 overall by National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) average draft position (ADP), Archer averaged the No. 50 pick from 2016 through 2018. Unfortunately, the outcomes annually and in aggregate have been awful…

… even though his peripherals before and after 2015 have been nearly identical. That’s the persistent problem with Archer: he has given us perpetual reason to chase results he may never again achieve.

I’m here to argue Archer’s woes started not in 2016, when his ERA ballooned to 4.02, but in 2015 — yes, his career year. That’s because he stopped throwing his sinker in 2015, opting instead to rely on a pitifully bad four-seam fastball as his primary offering. His 2015 success can be attributed primarily to his slider, which he began to feature much more prominently, but the remaining success was thanks to good luck.

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We didn’t get a lot of earth-shattering moves at the Winter Meetings, but there was impactful activity, including a host of starting pitchers on the move. Al Melchior will be covering Lance Lynn’s deal with Texas soon and Mike Podhorzer had a piece on Tyson Ross, Ivan Nova, and Tanner Roark, so I’ve got the Charlie Morton and J.A. Happ signings for you.

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The news just keeps coming, as players are signing a flurry of deals, making it hard for me to keep track of all the moves and those expected to become official. Within just the last couple of days, a trio of mediocre starting pitchers have joined new teams either via free agency or trade. Rather than go through the full park comparisons like I have been all week, let’s summarize the potential effects on Tyson Ross, Ivan Nova, and Tanner Roark. Will the park and team switches make these pitchers any more appealing? Let’s find out.

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Merrill Kelly

The Diamondbacks signed Merrill Kelly after Kelly spent four years in the Korea Baseball Organization. I never heard of Kelly until the signing some it’s time to put together a profile for him.

First, here’s a tweet from Homin on Kelly’s profile:

KBO season ended. Merrill Kelly, former #rays prospect will play MLB next year. 92-94 mph FB, cutter, two-seam, CH, CV. Various pitches. No plus pitch, but reliable pitcher. Could be good long RP at mlb level. #rays are scouting him heavily.

— Homin Lee (@Homein22) November 13, 2018

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Reports are out that Patrick Corbin has pulled a stunner and will sign not with the Yankees nor the Phillies, but the Washington Nationals in a six-year, $140 million dollar deal (with no opt-outs):

Source confirms that Patrick Corbin's six-year deal with the Washington Nationals is for $140 million.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 4, 2018

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Let’s take a quick look at nine pitchers who have slid down draft boards or fallen off the radar completely whether because of injury or poor recent track record who could end up making an impact in 2019. I tried to give a wide-ish range of guys – well, as wide as you can with a group of lottery ticket-type guys.

Jimmy Nelson | Milwaukee Brewers – Nelson put up a fantastic 2017 season with a 3.49 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and 21% K-BB in 175 IP, but he missed all of 2018 to a torn rotator cuff suffered while diving back into first base after a single because the National League inexplicably still lets pitchers bat. Cool, National League. Cool. Nelson curbed the usage of his fastball, favoring his curveball instead with great results.

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I heard in passing from a credible source:

“The effectiveness of a pitcher’s slider relies on it having the same spin as his fastball.”

I figured it would be an easy test and could help to immediately identify top-rated sliders. After looking at the data every conceivable way and came up with the following conclusion: publicly available spin information has near ZERO correlation to a slider’s effectiveness. But while rooting around, I did find two factors which do matter, fastball velocity and the difference in slider and fastball velocity.

The theory behind the quote is that a hitter has a tougher time differentiating a fastball and slider if they are spinning at the same rate. So, the closer the difference, a higher chance for a swing-and-miss.

I compared 2018 pitchers with at least 200 sliders and 200 four-seamers thrown. Then, I compared just the difference, the absolute value of the difference, square of difference. Nothing tangible. Nothing matched.

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The emergence of Gerrit Cole as a top-10 starting pitcher and top-three pitcher for strikeouts was one of the more notable developments in fantasy in 2018. As unexpected as Cole’s emergence may have been, he did have a history of being an above-average strikeout pitcher, particularly in his second and third season with the Pirates. Just as noteworthy was a cohort of starters who catapulted themselves well above the major league norm for strikeout rate after having been average or below-average strikeout pitchers prior to this past season.
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