Yesterday, I published an article on a few pitchers whose fastball velocity changed over the course of last season. And then my old buddy MGL showed up.
He’s right. I have so much on my plate right now, mainly my first book and a 2019 player previews, that I didn’t take it another step forward. Here are most of his answers.
It may seem that fastball velocity gets over utilized for explaining a pitcher performance, but I don’t think it gets used enough. As I get going full steam ahead in my off-season research, I find myself always looking to see how a pitcher’s velocity held up over the season. Instead of looking up each pitcher individually, I decided to go ahead and collect 2018 fastball velocity reading for an easy reference.
For the data, I found the pitcher’s velocity for the whole season, April to June, July to October, and just September/October. The entire data dataset can be found here.
I went through the data and found some intriguing pitchers who gained and lost a few ticks. I divided up the analysis between first versus second half and first half and September. Many of the same pitchers would have made both lists. Here is the first to second half values.
| 2Hv-1Hv | Pitcher | Fastball | Count | Season Velo | 1H Velo | 2H Velo | Sept Velo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -1.7 | Stephen Strasburg | FF | 996 | 94.6 | 95.3 | 93.6 | 93.3 |
| -1.2 | Dereck Rodriguez | FF | 710 | 91.6 | 92.4 | 91.2 | 90.9 |
| -1.1 | Marco Estrada | FF | 1230 | 88.5 | 89.0 | 87.8 | 88.0 |
| -1.0 | Antonio Senzatela | FF | 976 | 93.6 | 94.4 | 93.4 | 93.1 |
| -0.9 | Tyler Skaggs | FF | 931 | 91.5 | 91.8 | 90.9 | 90.0 |
| -0.9 | Brad Keller | FF | 992 | 94.3 | 94.9 | 94.0 | 94.3 |
| -0.8 | Marco Gonzales | SI | 650 | 90.1 | 90.4 | 89.6 | 89.3 |
| -0.8 | Jon Gray | FF | 1387 | 94.7 | 95.0 | 94.3 | 94.2 |
| 1.1 | Zack Wheeler | FF | 1295 | 95.8 | 95.3 | 96.4 | 95.8 |
| 1.1 | Mike Clevinger | FF | 1735 | 93.6 | 93.0 | 94.2 | 94.5 |
| 1.2 | Gerrit Cole | FF | 1617 | 96.2 | 95.6 | 96.7 | 96.5 |
| 1.2 | Jacob deGrom | FF | 1399 | 96.0 | 95.4 | 96.7 | 96.9 |
| 1.3 | Jordan Hicks | SI | 707 | 100.5 | 99.7 | 101.0 | 101.1 |
| 1.4 | Cole Hamels | FT | 450 | 91.4 | 90.8 | 92.2 | 91.8 |
| 1.5 | Gio Gonzalez | FF | 885 | 89.8 | 89.0 | 90.5 | 90.3 |
| 1.5 | Lucas Giolito | FF | 1305 | 92.3 | 91.7 | 93.2 | 92.5 |
| 2.2 | Matthew Boyd | FF | 904 | 90.4 | 89.3 | 91.5 | 92.4 |
Stephen Strasburg is the most concerning name on the list with his fastball down ~2 mph. The drop occurred after he went on the DL with shoulder inflammation.
His results also took a hit with his ERA going from 3.46 to 4.20 and his K%-BB% dropping from 23% to 19%.
Strasburg is getting in the danger zone where his fastball will start losing its effectiveness if he loses any more velocity. Here are its swinging-strike rates since he joined the league at different velocities.
| mph | SwStr% |
|---|---|
| 92 | 4.8% |
| 93 | 7.0% |
| 94 | 12.7% |
| 95 | 13.9% |
| 96 | 16.8% |
| 97 | 14.7% |
| 98 | 16.0% |
The fastball starts to lose its effectiveness as it dips near 93 mph.
With the velocity drop, Strasburg will still be a good pitcher because his changeup is elite and curve and slider are decent. His issue is that he’s already been cutting his fastball usage from 73% when he entered the league to 52% last season. I think the chances of him having that elite season has passed.
One major consideration will be if he can get his walks under control. In the first half, they were at 2.1 BB/9 but jumped to 3.5 BB/9 in the second half. Spring training reports are going to matter quite a bit on how he gets valued.
| SEPv-1Hv | Pitcher | Fastball | Count | Season Velo | 1H Velo | 2H Velo | Sept Velo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -2.2 | Danny Duffy | FF | 1044 | 93.0 | 92.9 | 93.1 | 90.7 |
| -2.1 | Chris Sale | FF | 957 | 95.3 | 95.1 | 95.9 | 93.0 |
| -1.6 | Corey Kluber | FC | 922 | 88.5 | 88.7 | 88.3 | 87.0 |
| -1.5 | Aroldis Chapman | FF | 679 | 98.9 | 99.1 | 98.5 | 97.6 |
| -1.3 | Bartolo Colon | FT | 1369 | 86.9 | 86.9 | 86.8 | 85.6 |
| 1.4 | Luis Castillo | FF | 944 | 95.9 | 95.5 | 96.4 | 96.9 |
| 1.5 | Patrick Corbin | FF | 630 | 90.8 | 90.5 | 91.1 | 92.0 |
| 1.6 | Tyson Ross | FF | 1226 | 90.7 | 90.4 | 91.1 | 92.1 |
| 1.8 | Drew Pomeranz | FF | 576 | 89.4 | 88.9 | 89.9 | 90.8 |
| 1.9 | Sean Newcomb | FF | 1833 | 92.9 | 92.7 | 93.3 | 94.5 |
| 2.0 | Mike Fiers | FF | 1095 | 89.4 | 88.5 | 90.2 | 90.5 |
| 2.7 | Martin Perez | FT | 703 | 92.5 | 91.4 | 92.9 | 94.1 |
Corey Kluber is the name which jumps off. For pitcher going in the second round of mock drafts, an ~1.5 mph drop in his fastball throws a major red flag.
He got hit around more in the second half with his BABIP jumping from .248 to .321 while list strikeout and walk rates remained constant (22.5 K%-BB% to 22.1 K%-BB%). Kluber found a way to be effective even with the velocity loss.
My gut says something is off but I can’t find it. His steamer projection has his ERA next season back in the 3.50 range (same as 2015). so it even sees that something is not right. I’ll read some more previews as the season nears and see if I can gain a better understanding of him.
Yesterday, I reviewed my preseason list of starting pitchers composed of guys my Pod Projected ERA was significantly better than Steamer’s forecast. They were my upside guys. Today, I’ll recap how the guys my projections considered as having ERA downside ended up performing. You might notice that this is half the size of the upside list, which likely owes to my projections being more optimistic on ERA on the whole.
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 »
