Archive for Starting Pitchers

After a 2018 breakout season, Kyle Freeland gave us a lot to be confused about on draft day. As a rookie in 2017, Freeland defied conventional wisdom about Rockies pitchers, posting a lower-than-average HR/FB ratio at Coors Field (10.3 percent), and then he did it again last season (12.6 percent). He even took a relatively modest 92.0 mph average exit velocity on flyballs and line drives (EV FB/LD) at home and lowered it to 91.2 mph. While Freeland had been especially effective at limiting homers with his four-seam fastball, last season, he was able to hit another level by getting more whiffs on his cutter.

We owners didn’t know exactly what to do with a pitcher who had consistent success at Coors Field. We didn’t treat him like the top 25 starter that he was in 2018, and for good reason. Skepticism about his home splits aside, Freeland benefited from an 82.8 percent strand rate that he was almost sure to regress from significantly. He had earned enough trust to be among the top 175 players taken overall on average, according to both FantasyPros and NFBC ADP. Even with a lower strand rate on the horizon, Freeland’s 3.67 FIP and 200-plus innings showed the potential value he could have for owners this year. To buy into the FIP and the innings, though, you had to buy into his homer-thwarting abilities.
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On Thursday, I discussed some of the statistical oddities and extremes on the hitter side after a month of play. While we preach not to make rash decisions based on small sample randomness, it’s because it could lead to some really fun, weird, and extreme results. Let’s dive into some of the weird and extreme starting pitcher stats.

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After taking last week off, I’m back to make a brief examination of some pitchers who worry me with their declining velocity. There is no good news today. It’s just some pitchers who could be headed for a demotion or the IL.

Some quick housekeeping. The entire list of pitchers and their fastball changes are available on this spreadsheet. With more data available, I examined at the past two weeks of data for the in-season information. Finally, an injury value of -100 is bad and +100 is good.

Note: Sorry for the short article but real life got in the way and I want to make sure I have time to go through the AL lineups tomorrow.

Carlos Rodon
2018 FBv: 93.0
2019 FBv: 91.5
Last two week: 90.6

Note: This was written before he went on the DL

The 26-year-old seemed to have finally righted the boat after dealing with injuries and wildness for several seasons. In his first five starts this season, he had a 2.89 ERA and 11.3 K/9 (huge jump over 8.8 K/9 career value). Two blowup starts came against offensive powerhouses Detroit and Baltimore and now he has a 5.19 ERA fueled by a 4.4 BB/9.
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Pardon my delay on “The 10” this week, but we’ve got a good one today! I recently released my May SP rankings and today I’ll highlight 10 of the biggest movers and explain their move in more detail.

5 UP

Jerad Eickhoff, PHI | 56 spots to 51

When I released my previous SP rankings on April 18th, Eickhoff didn’t have a rotation spot just yet. He had a fantastic 4-inning relief appearance two days earlier and joined the rotation three days later with a start in Coors Field. He held his own with a 6 IP/4 ER outing that did see him allow 11 base runners (7 H, 4 BB), but also net eight strikeouts. He followed it up with seven shutout innings against Miami. Obviously beating up the Marlins isn’t exactly a huge feat, but those innings count in all formats!

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We are a month into the season and the pitching landscape is a mess. The top tier has been shaken to its core with several studs struggling their way through the month while streaming feels damn near impossible with they way the ball is flying out of parks. Of course, there have been bright spots and I do my best to highlight those while also being careful not overreact too much.

I look at my in-season rankings in 4-6 week blocks so the potential innings limits facing some of the younger arms rated highly aren’t really that important right now. Given that so much is going to change in the next month let alone the next five, I don’t see the point in pretending that these updates are viable for the rest of the season.

Pay attention to the tier! If I didn’t rank someone as high as you thought I should, but they are still a must or usually start, then it’s probably not worth freaking out too much. Those tiers mean they are in the rotation pretty much all the time. I’m open to debating slotting, too, but worrying about a 4-spot difference between two guys in the same tier is probably a waste of time.

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4/24/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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STARTING PITCHER ARSENAL CHANGES

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4/18/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

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It’s time to update the rankings. This is an especially tough ranking this early into the season because we have 3-4 starts for most guys and I don’t want to overreact… or underreact for that matter. My thoughts from March on these guys still carries a lot of weight, but factors like velocity, pitch mix, and role can influence a big change. The performances carry weight, too, but I try to temper what I’ll do based on three starts.

Pay attention to the tier! If I didn’t rank someone as high as you thought I should, but they are still a must or usually start, then it’s probably not worth freaking out too much. Those tiers mean they are in the rotation pretty much all the time. I’m open to debating slotting, too, but worrying about a 4-spot difference between two guys in the same tier is probably a waste of time. I’ll have some more extensive notes on a host of big movers coming soon (likely early next week as I probably won’t have time on Friday).

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After going over the pitchers who changed their velocity from 2018 to 2019, the pitchers who have seen changes this year get highlighted today. For the first week or so, pitchers who saw major adjustments were in the crosshairs of the fantasy community. But who from that list kept the changes? A pitcher’s talent shouldn’t get anchored to one early-season report. It’s time to dive in.

About the data

• I use the fastball’s average spin rate and velocity along with the pitcher’s overall Zone% to come up in the Injury metric. With spin rate, I’ve seen pitchers try to keep up their velocity while dealing with an injury and the pitch’s spin changes. As for Zone%, if a pitcher is having issues finding the plate, they may have something mechanically wrong.
• The Injury value ranges from a -100 (several negative forces are at work) to +100 (major improvements).
• A pitcher can have more than one fastball in the table
• When examining the 2019 data, I’m comparing velocities from the past week to fastballs thrown before this past week.
• All the numbers are available in this overall spreadsheet.

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After Monday’s smallish slate of games, there have been a total of 241 games played so far this season. That’s 9.9 percent of the total schedule. By the time Tuesday’s games are done, the status bar will have moved to 10.5 percent. For a very brief moment, we still have the opportunity to say, “we’re not even 10 percent through this season!”. That’s something of a comfort when coping with the angst that comes with having drafted players who underperform early in the season.

Mike Podhorzer has looked into a number of slow starters in separate columns for hitters and pitchers, and a couple of the subjects from the latter column have been particularly concerning to me. Mike pointed out that Carlos Carrasco and Miles Mikolas are both posting a lower SwStr% so far this season, but what had caught my eye about them was where they were ranking on Baseball Savant’s leaderboard for exit velocity on flyballs and line drives (EV FB/LD).
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