The 24-year-old righty has made two starts so far this season and I watched his start from the 5th because of a better camera angle. Since it was his first game, the Gameday’s pitch labeling was off with his slider and splitter getting mislabeled quite a bit.
• Fastball: 91-95 mph. Fairly straight pitch with a small bit of glove-side run and sink. His plus controls made this pitch play up. Also, he may have mixed in a handful of four-seamers.
It’s still far too early to analyze a lot of the metrics we typically use to evaluate players. But underlying skills like SwStk% are meaningful more quickly than strikeout rate because the denominator increases faster. So let’s peruse the American League starting pitcher SwStk% leaderboard and discuss.
Fastball velocity changes may be getting beat to death but they are one of the few stats in which stabilize early in the offseason. I’ve created a couple tools which I use during the season to help find which pitchers to evaluate further using velocity. I have one which grades fastballs and a new pitcher injury finder.
Fastball Grades
This tool simply gives an ERA and 20-80 grade to a fastball based on its projected results from its velocity and spin. The velocity component is simple to understand. It’s hard to hit fast flying small objects. It’s even harder to hit faster flying small objects. Understanding the spin component is a little tougher.
As we are not even two weeks into the season, it is ridiculously early to draw many conclusions from season-to-date stats. Still, most of us aren’t just standing pat with our opening day rosters, and it’s not just injuries and playing time trends that are guiding our add/drop moves.
It’s certainly not mere coincidence that Jakob Junis is coming off Monday night’s scoreless seven-inning performance against the Mariners and he is atop the most-added lists on ESPN and CBS for starting pitchers. Owners have not been scared off by Junis’ total of nine strikeouts over 14 innings, as they have been drawn in by his 0.00 ERA and 0.50 WHIP.
Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, I discussed the starting pitchers who have experienced the largest spikes in ground ball rate. In the era of the fly ball and home run, it’s more important than ever to induce the batted ball type that cannot leave the park — the grounder. Today, let’s dive into the starting pitchers who have seen their GB% dive compared to last year. Remember we’re still dealing with tiny samples here, so it’s likely the majority of pitchers regress toward their career average. But that won’t always be the case, so it’s worth trying to catch the batted ball type distribution changers early.
Though the leaguewide HR/FB rate is down (likely due in part to the cold weather), it’s clear that this fly ball revolution is here to stay. That’s bad news for fly ball pitchers, because now more of their fly balls are going to jump over the wall for a home run. The best way to keep your HR/9 rate in check is by inducing grounders. So let’s check in on the early starting pitcher ground ball rate surgers.
Why wait for another edition of the Sporer Report? Y’all seemed to enjoy it and even commented some names you’d like to see covered so I’ve included a couple of those. Sorry about the GIFs in yesterday’s being wonky for some. I didn’t realize that host was ad-laden. Today’s won’t be so cumbersome.
Not included: Jakob Junis
The reason is two-fold. One is that I already dropped some thoughts on him just before the season started and two is that Jeff Sullivan covered him in detail today. I’m obviously pleased with the start he had on Tuesday and still considering him one to watch and at least stream in most formats.
Tyler Mahle (68% owned at FanTrax)
I watched his game for the 2nd when he beat the Cubs by going 6 IP, 0 Runs, and 7 K’s. Mahle and the opposing pitcher, Tyler Chatwood, did have generous wide strike zone to work with.
It’s not easy to get strikeouts when you don’t get batters to swing much. It’s even more difficult when you avoid the strike zone.
Over the previous three years, a qualified starting pitcher has induced swings at a rate lower than 44.0 percent over the course of a season only 23 times. Of those, only Trevor Bauer, Jose Quintana and Tyson Ross have had a single season with a strikeout rate of at least 24.0 percent, and none has had more than one season with a rate that high. By contrast, there were only seven occurrences of a strikeout rate below 24.0 percent among the 23 pitcher-seasons with the highest swing rates over the same period. Bauer and Quintana both elevated their K-rates last season, and they were able to do that partly because they located their pitches in the strike zone at near-normal rates of 44.4 and 44.8 percent rates, respectively. Ross registered a 25.8 percent K-rate in 2015, even though he induced swings infrequently and displayed subpar control. However, no qualified starter was better than Ross at getting whiffs on pitches outside the strike zone that season.
Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been trying to find a way to collect a bunch of my thoughts that aren’t quite worth their own article, but often extend beyond a tweet dating back to last year. So this will be a work in progress and I’m open to feedback on what y’all like and don’t as I try out different things here. It’s always going to be more pitching-focused, but it won’t be limited to just the mound. If you’ve followed my writing for a certain amount of time, you’ve no doubt seen me use the “Sporer Report” title for other columns.
It’s not that I think it’s some great name or anything (I’m not that vain); it’s just a general name that doesn’t limit the column’s contents. I originally wanted to call it the “The Week That Was”, but when it inevitably becomes super popular and people start tweeting about it so often that it gets condensed into #TWTW, I’m worried it’ll be lumped in with Hawk Harrelson’s “The Will to Win” nonsense.
Without further ado…