Obviously, there are flaws for any SPs who are readily available for streaming, but today’s batch seems to be particularly volatile. I’m always down for a pitcher who can deliver that gem of 7+ innings with a  bunch of strikeouts, but when the downside is a sub-5 inning nightmare, you have to carefully calculate if you can take on the risk.

(I’ll be citing the FantasyPros roster rates)

Tanner Roark – WAS at PHI (47%)

The Cards hit Roark for his worst start in the second half last time out, but even with the 5 IP/6 ER dud, he still has a 2.91 ERA in 55.7 IP since the break. Roark has two quality starts, a dud (4.3 IP/6 ER), and a rain-shortened outing that had started well (3 IP/0 ER) against the Phillies this year. The Phillies have been a middling offense against righties since the break, sitting 18th in wOBA at .317 with a 23% K rate.

Read the rest of this entry »

I hope no owner is needing a free agent starter to use as it’s a rough group of lowly owned pitchers. When Ian Kennedy is the top choice, the pickings are slim.

Here are the pitchers owned in 20% or fewer FanTrax leagues.

Ian Kennedy (22% – close enough for RotoGraphs) at Twins

The 33-year-old righty should not be in play, but he’s Sunday’s best option with the chance for a Win (vs Twins) and some strikeouts (8.3 K/9). His flyball nature has helped him post a HR/9 over 1.5 over the past 4 seasons so he’ll have a high ERA. Experienced owners should know what they’re getting with Kennedy.

Erasmo Ramirez (19%) vs Yankees

I’ve never been able to trust Ramirez and I’m not sure I can against the Yankees. There are a couple signs for optimism. Most of his ERA damage happened in his first start when he posted a 10.24 ERA. After those two starts, he went on the DL (shoulder).

Since returning, his ERA has been 3.70 with ERA estimators near 4.00. He’s in the mold of a slightly below average starter with a 7.0 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9. He’s facing CC, so he has a chance for a Win. There are worse choices.
Read the rest of this entry »

For a pitcher who has been ignored by the vast majority of fantasy owners this season, we’ve given Felix Pena quite a bit of attention here at RotoGraphs. Back in July, both Jeff Zimmerman and Paul Sporer noted Pena’s somewhat limited sleeper appeal. More recently, Jeff pointed out Pena’s declining fastball velocity and strikeout rate in his analysis of most-dropped players.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m highlighting pitchers owned in 20% or few leagues at FanTrax.com

Daniel Norris (15%) vs Cardinals

Where did the 25-year-old’s lefty’s 11.4 K/9 come from? And the 4.6 BB/9? He is pulling a Robbie Ray (12.0 K/9, 4.8 BB/9) with an 89-mph average fastball.

After rooting around on his player pages, he’s basically a two-pitch pitcher, fastball and slider. Both pitches produce an above average amount of swings-and-misses and flyballs. The flyballs have led to a high number of home runs (1.8 HR/9) hence the inflated 5.49 ERA.

Most of the damage was done before going on the DL (groin surgery). In his one start since returning, he struck out seven Yankees and walked only one batter in 4.1 innings. In the start, his fastball was up to 91 mph.

For owners digging for strikeouts, they should be all in with Norris. The walks still worry me some and owners who need to control their rate stats may want to stay way to see another start. He may be a sneaky recommendation as the season winds down.
Read the rest of this entry »

The top 12 of the last 30 day starting pitcher strikeout rate leaders is littered with the usual names. But of course as with any metric over an arbitrary time frame, there are a few surprising ones. Let’s discuss the four, who all happen to be 25 and under.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last September, Jeff and I spent last September highlighting daily starters you could consider picking up for your playoffs and roto stretch run. We’ll be doing the same again this year starting with tomorrow’s super-lite 4-game slate.

(I’ll be citing the FantasyPros roster rates)

Luis Castillo – CIN v. SD (49%)

Castillo entered July with a 5.85 ERA, but has since put together a 10-start run of 3.23 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in 55.7 IP with a 26% K rate and 4% BB rate. Two 5 ER duds during the run push the ERA a bit, but he bounced back strong from each one. The Arizona one was kinda weird, too, because he bookended four perfect innings with the five runs in an inning and two-thirds.

Read the rest of this entry »

I use xwOBA as a leading indicator of good or bad things to come mid-season, for better or for worse. It’d be good to know if such reliance is truly warranted. I further talked myself into the idea when I wrote about several underperforming hitters in early June. Many of the names therein went on some serious heaters afterward, too. It wasn’t as prescient as it was playing the odds: the hitters underperforming xwOBA most extremely through two months always, always (in the Statcast Era^TM) bounce back to some degree.

It’s “predictive,” but not universally so, and only by virtue of common sense, in the same way a pitcher who allows a sub-.200 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) through two months could not reasonably sustain this high level of contact management. (There’s a discussion to be had here about the gambler’s fallacy, but I don’t think it necessarily applies to baseball. For another day.)

In terms of prior work, it’s all Baseball Prospectus‘ Jonathan Judge (only a slight exaggeration): he compared xwOBA to BP’s DRA metric as well as FIP (fielding independent pitching), a much simpler ERA estimator, and showed xwOBA is hardly superior to the field, at least for pitching. However, the article only covered year-to-year, not in-season, correlations.

After our dear and departed (but not dead) Eno Sarris asked Judge if he had looked at in-season correlations specifically, and after our dear and departed (and also not dead) Mike Petriello reinforced the notion that xwOBA could serve as an in-season predictor of regression under certain circumstances, I figured it’s high time I just tackle the question.

So: How predictive is xwOBA of wOBA in-season? For hitters and for pitchers?

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t really know. Thanks for reading!

Read the rest of this entry »

When I started writing Two Good Starts, Two Bad Starts earlier this season, the idea wasn’t to point out trends in small samples so that fantasy owners could act on them right away. That is almost always a bad idea. It was to identify changes in pitcher performance that could conceivably turn into longer-term trends, which in turn could be useful guides for making roster decisions. It could have easily been called Who To Put On Your Watch List.

Now that Labor Day is behind us, there isn’t much time left for small samples to become sufficiently large samples for making decisions. Then again, if you are still in contention, roster decisions will be especially crucial going forward. If you’ve been on autopilot in starting Jon Gray every week, there’s no time like now to consider if he is potentially worth benching. Similarly, if you continue to dismiss John Gant, even as he has shaved close to a run off his ERA over the past four weeks, you may be doing so at your own risk. Or maybe not…
Read the rest of this entry »

Since returning from the disabled list (neck nerve impingement), Stephen Strasburg’s fastball velocity has dropped from averaging 96.1 mph to averaging 93.9 mph. For a pitcher known for bringing the heat, the decline immediately impacts his value going forward. The question isn’t if but how much will be the decline.

First, I completely understand Strasburg could get his fastball velocity back as soon as his next start (the chances for this could be another whole article). When determining the 30-year-old righty’s value, I needed to plant a flag at some velocity and then come up with a projection.

Read the rest of this entry »