Watch the early innings of a Michael Fulmer start and you’ll see a damn fine 25-year old power arm evolving into one of the game’s quality workhorses. Keep watching, though, and you’ll find him unrecognizable by the sixth inning. Fulmer has consistently melted down in the latter innings of his starts, yielding a ghastly 4.73 ERA and 1.37 WHIP in 66.7 innings. Fulmer actually posted a 2.76 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in April with a lot of the damage coming in his lone blowup outing at Cleveland (3 IP, 9 R… 6 of them earned), but has allowed fewer than three runs just twice in his last seven. The sixth inning has become a clear point of demarcation between Good Fulmer and Bad Fulmer.

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It seems like it’s been a decade that we’ve been waiting for a Kyle Gibson breakout. But, this is only his sixth MLB season. Surprisingly, to me at least, he’s actually already 30 years old. It’s not often that a 30 year old pitcher with six seasons under his belt suddenly breaks out.

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Brad received a PSA in his chat yesterday that he then shared with us on our Slack channel regarding Jameson Taillon and his new slider:

Joey Boom Bats wasn’t lying! I mean, of course he wouldn’t lie about that. Who would lie about something that is so easily verifiable? Anyway, Taillon does in fact have a new slider and after dabbling with it a few times here and there in previous starts, he had it on full display this past Sunday against the St. Louis Cardinals.

WARNING: We’re about to go GIF-wild!

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If there is such a thing as a flyball revolution for pitchers, it appears that Blaine Hardy wants to be a part of it.

The Tigers’ 31-year-old reliever-turned-starter induced grounders at a mere 33.0 percent rate last season, but this season, he has gone extreme with a 24.1 percent rate. That might not seem like a good career move for someone who coughed up seven home runs in 33.1 innings a year ago, but he is making it work. In his 20 innings to date, Hardy has allowed two homers and a .143 Iso (which is 23 points below the American League average).
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Back from Portugal! Thankfully, technology is amazing and I haven’t missed a baseball beat. Before I left, I listed and discussed the starting pitchers who had posted significantly worse wOBA against marks than their Statcast xwOBA marks. So today I’ll look at the pitchers on the other side of the coin, those who have most outperformed their xwOBA marks, and therefore may be in for some serious regression.

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Mike Minor

A few days back, I released my latest pERA grades and Minor was projected for 3.47 ERA while his actual ERA (5.59) is two runs higher and one run higher than his FIP (4.41) and xFIP (4.32). His SIERA is the lowest at 3.85. Which metric should be believed?

Starting with the lucky pitcher trio (BABIP, HR/FB, LOB%), not one stat sticks out though each one is above average.

BABIP: .324
LOB%: 68%
HR/FB: 12.9%

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Earlier this week, I found most of Tanaka’s struggles occur with men-on-base. What I didn’t know if these differences were predictive or due for regression. After diving into the numbers, struggles with men on base aren’t exactly predictive except for those with extreme windups.

The narrative concept behind this study is that a pitcher has a windup talent level and a throwing from the stretch talent level. I’ve always thought Daniel Mengden’s great windup would keep hitters off guard.

He loses all the deception from the stretch. My theory has been borne out with a career 4.99 FIP with runners on base and 3.42 FIP with the bases empty. Joey Lucchesi is another pitcher with a unique windup and he has a 3.40 FIP with no runners on base but it jumps to 5.14 with runners on. The windup advantage for these two pitchers is an obvious item to point to when explaining their stats.

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Getting through a lineup three times is a bit of a lost art these days with both the rise of the bullpens and starters going 100% every at-bat from the jump which often drains the tank right around the time that batters are getting a third look. We often hear about the guys who struggle the third time through and we don’t always see those who are good at it highlighted for the success. Of course, the studs of the game do it well and that’s what makes them the studs, but there are definitely some surprises having TTT success. Let’s look at both ends of the spectrum today, starting with the duds.

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Masahiro Tanaka decided to create more questions than answers in my life. I just released my first 2018 pERA run and Tanaka’s pitches and control point to a 2.88 ERA but he’s posting one nearly two points higher at 4.95. I dove into his stats hoping to find a simple answer, instead, I found someone struggling out of the stretch while throwing harder. While it explains his struggles, I am not sure any of it matters. At least not yet.

The first item I checked for with ERA and estimators diverge is a high BABIP which was only at .243, about 30 points lower than his career average (.276). Nope, not BABIP.

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For much of his career, Jeremy Hellickson has been a fantasy afterthought, but in the midst of his ninth season, he is getting some owners to take notice. He is owned in a majority of the leagues on CBSSports.com and Fantrax, and he is not just being picked up for Tuesday night’s matchup against the lowly Padres. On both of those sites, Hellickson was owned in roughly 50 percent of leagues during the previous weekly scoring period. Even on ESPN.com, where leagues tend to be shallower, Hellickson currently has a home in 46 percent of leagues.

The 31-year-old is simply off to a great start to his 2018 season. Since joining the Nationals’ rotation in mid-April, Hellickson has been steady, allowing three runs or fewer in each start, adding up to a 2.20 ERA and 0.86 WHIP. He has been pitching in the zone (45.2 percent) more often than in any season since he lost rookie eligibility in 2011, and among pitchers with at least 30 innings, only Miles Mikolas has a higher first-strike rate than Hellickson’s 71.1 percent. His improved control is serving him well, as he is allowing contact on pitches in the strike zone at a lower rate than he has compiled in any full season. Hellickson’s strikeout rate of 21.5 percent may not be a head-turner for fantasy owners, but it, too, is higher than any rate he has had over a full season.
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