A computer program and I are back for some more abuse. After lining up the Steamer hitter projections with the Standings Gain Points (SGP) for The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, the pitchers now take center stage. And boy can I see some conflicts to fill the comments.
The SGP formula is from the average of the 13, 15-team Roto leagues and will soon be available in The Process (looks like Monday at the latest).
Let’s flip back to evaluating my preseason pitcher projections. I compared my Pod Projected ERA with Steamer’s ERA projections and discussed 11 I was most bullish on. Let’s see how they performed. Hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself. Also, be aware that these were the projections as of the date my post was published, which was March 6. It’s very possible that my or Steamer’s ERA projection changed from then through the beginning of the season.
A while back, I ranked hitters if all their 2018 stats were prorated to 600 plate appearances. It’s now time for the pitchers. In all fairness, the rankings are a huge disappointment with no surprises coming through.
I adjusted the rankings for 180 innings for starters and 60 innings for relievers and no one seemed out of place. With the hitters, Raul Mondesi at the top was an attention-getter. Looking over both sets of top-25 pitchers, the biggest surprise was Joshua James and he’s not really a surprise since he dominated at the season’s end. Time to get bored.
Did you know some people don’t like to be referred to as a “Twitter person.” On that note, Twitter person Bradley Newman created a poll asking the wild reaches of the baseballverse to choose Gerrit Cole or Aaron Nola for 2019. The poll received considerable attention thanks to an assist from Paul Sporer and Justin Mason. The results, you’ll see in a moment, are shocking.
A diverse pitching arsenal can help a starter successfully navigate a lineup several times since hitters have a harder time sitting on a single pitch. I went through the 2018 starters and found four pitcher groups who are the two ends of the spectrum. Either they rely on two pitches or have a diverse arsenal.
Many articles have been written about times through the order but the Holy Grail of research articles is the one MGL wrote a few years back. In it, he quantified how much having a third pitch helps. The research holds up even now. I took the 206 starters who threw at least 30 innings and found the percentage of pitches which were fastballs and next highest thrown. Normally, the average was around 75%. Then, I divided up the pitchers into 5% increments. Next, I subtracted the ERA from an average of their ERA estimators (FIP, xFIP, kwERA, SIERA) and here the average values. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, I reviewed my preseason list of nine potential strikeout rate surgers. Today, let’s find out how the 10 pitchers I identified as potential strikeout rate decliners actually performed.
Among starting pitchers who finished in the top 20 in Roto value this season, few were further under the radar on draft day than Blake Snell and Mike Clevinger were. Though Snell was the fourth-most productive starter in terms of Roto value (according to ESPN’s Player Rater) and Clevinger ranked 17th, neither were among the top 190 players in ADP in NFBC or ESPN drafts.
In addition to a surge in their totals of innings pitched, both Snell and Clevinger experienced surprisingly strong improvements in their walk rates. Free passes were a weakness for both of them in 2017, but this season, Snell trimmed his walk rate from 10.8 percent to 9.1 percent, and Clevinger lowered his from 12.0 percent to 8.3 percent. Both pitchers were already proficient at getting strikeouts and had done a fair job of avoiding homers. With even stronger skill sets heading into 2019, fantasy owners could see Snell and Clevinger as particularly appealing options in a pitching pool defined by uncertainty and risk.
But should we?
Read the rest of this entry »
In mid-February, I used my pitcher xK% equation to highlight nine pitchers that may have strikeout rate upside for 2018. The important thing to remember is that xK% is not a projection and isn’t meant to be forward-looking. Rather, it’s descriptive, or backward looking, the same way you might think about FIP/xFIP/SIERA. I have found many pitchers who consistently over/underperform their xK% marks for whatever reason, so I never blindly use previous xK% marks as my next season forecast. That said, let’s find out how the pitchers with the greatest positive divergence between 2017 K% and 2017 xK% performed in 2018.
Yesterday, I sat down to write this article only to discover there was another topic I had to cover first. Classic 5×5 Roto is one of the original forms of fantasy sports. And, despite attempts to tinker with the inputs, it remains the king of fantasy baseball.
A common change to the classic 5×5 categories is to swap out pitcher wins for quality starts. Although all agree a quality start doesn’t exactly measure its name – after all, a six inning, three run performance is pretty mediocre – everybody also agrees the stat is less capricious than pitcher wins. This season, Jacob deGrom won 10 games with a 1.70 ERA over 217 innings. He led the league in quality starts. Ryan Yarbrough won 16 games with a 3.91 ERA in 147.1 innings. He only made six starts, none of which were a quality start. Yeah, wins are sloppy.
Despite the flaws with wins, they’ve become vastly preferable to their number one alternative. It’s time to ditch the quality start. Don’t believe me? Behold, a table!
Read the rest of this entry »
A quick look at 26 names who were in consideration for the backend of my Top 100:
Jeff Samardzija, SF: Even writing off ’18, I’m still seeing a meh 21% K, 10% SwStr, and ugly 1.2 HR/9 from ’15-17
Clay Buchholz, FA: The CT/CH rebirth spurred 98 great IP, but ended w/a flexor strain clouding future
Zach Eflin, PHI: 2H fade (5.76 ERA) doesn’t erase all the growth as we still saw 10 pt jump in K% to 23%
Trevor Williams, PIT: Definitely awesome during 2H, but it’s just not bankable going fwd; he’s a 4.00 ERA arm
