Archive for Starting Pitchers

Rain is stupid. OK, not all the time, but it was remarkably stupid last night as it shortened the debut of Chicago White Sox uber-pitching prospect Michael Kopech. The 22-year old flamethrower didn’t return after a rain delay just before the third inning started, but we did get to see 52 pitches as he labored a bit through his two innings. He allowed three hits, but stranded all of them and didn’t walk anybody while tallying four strikeouts.

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If you’re noting a greater sense of urgency in this week’s Two Good Starts, Two Bad Starts, that’s because it features a pair of pitchers set to make their next starts in mere hours upon publication of this piece. Many owners will have likely been anticipating Kevin Gausman’s Tuesday night start, as he is among the most-added pitchers in ESPN and CBS leagues. After a mediocre Braves debut back on Aug. 4, Gausman responded with two much better starts. While that may have been reason enough to pick him up, is it reason enough to start him right away?

Fantasy owners have not been holding Jose Berrios‘ two-game slump against him, as the vast majority of his owners (at least in CBS and Fantrax leagues) have him active — quite likely for his scheduled two-start week. An analysis into his recent starts will help us to see if that looks like the right call.
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The term “consistency” is thrown around a lot in fantasy sports, though it lacks a set definition and is often just a nebulous idea rife with recency bias. A few memorable meltdowns? Horribly inconsistent and can’t be trusted! Can’t recall any truly awful starts? So consistent! My impetus for diving into this was a self-check on someone I’ve deemed rather inconsistent this year, Nick Pivetta. Was I just remembering the week-ruining disasters he dropped on my H2H team or is he truly a volatile arm?

I’m looking at starts with a Game Score of 40 or lower as the threshold for inconsistency. The baseline is 50 and there is no way to truly salvage a 40 GS outing. Jon Gray had one with 10 Ks, which is the closest thing to a salvaged 40, but the 6 earned runs and 11 base runners in five and a third all but canceled out the whiffs.

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(Not to be confused with Jeff Zimmerman’s delightful Quick Looks.)

In terms of fantasy topics to discuss, I’ve been pretty unmotivated for the last month. I took to Twitter to solicit some ideas. Rather than letting myself procrastinate and become unmotivated about these interesting topics, I figured I’d knock a few out at once with some quick takes.

The re-emergence of Ben Zobrist

Or, conversely, the caving-in of the rest of the Cubs’ offense.

Sure, there have been bright spots: Javier Baez makes for a nice down-ballot MVP candidate, Kyle Schwarber is not a liability, and Jason Heyward is a non-zero with the bat for the first time since moving to Chicago. But for everyone else? Not so much.

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Prospects, prospects, prospects! Back on July 25th, I recommended stashing Sean Reid-Foley. It wasn’t because I’m fond of hyphenated last names (I am!), but because in a deep league, finding a starting pitcher with true strikeout potential is gold. Over the last couple of days, it has been reported that three more prospects will or at likely to, make their debuts either during this upcoming week or before the season ends. Let’s discuss them.

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Every so often, I like to peruse recent starting pitcher performance, as skills seemingly change far more often than for hitters. That’s because all it might take is an added pitch, ditching of one, or simply changing the mix. So let’s discuss some of the surprises that appear near inside the top 20 over the last 30 days, our of 93 qualified pitchers.

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It’s time for another round of potential unknown pitching prospects. In this iteration, I made a rather major change to the age for level adjustment. Additionally, I examined a few high minor league starters.

First, for the adjustment. I felt too many mediocre 20-year-old or younger arms were near the list’s top. While these pitchers could develop into decent 4th or 5th starters, they weren’t top end starters. I cut the factor for age at the level by over half. More elite pitcher from the lower levels, no matter their age, jumped up the list.

Additionally, I keep getting comments on being transparent on the process. It’s not complex with just three inputs. With so much noise included into ERA and any batted ball data, a struggling pitcher can be high on this list.

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If you read my recent piece on Lucas Giolito and Kyle Freeland, then you know I have a growing fascination with pitchers who excel at getting both chases and freezes. (And if you haven’t read it, you’ll find out why I’m fixated with them by going here.) Jakob Junis is this very sort of pitcher, yet it’s been hard to write glowing words about a starter with an ERA above 5.00 and an HR/9 north of 2.0.
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It’s been about a month since the All-Star break and we’ve seen a host of interesting arms put up excellent ERAs. Some of them are just studs being studs (Max Scherzer 1.32, Carlos Carrasco 1.56, Rich Hill 1.78, Aaron Nola 2.16, Trevor Bauer 2.21, and Clayton Kershaw 2.23), but others have come from unexpected sources so let’s look under the hood of those guys to see what’s up.

(listed in ascending order of ERA)

Trevor Williams, PIT | 0.75 ERA, 1.21 WHIP in 24 IP

Williams has the best qualified ERA over the last 30 days (Chris Sale has a 0.00 ERA in that time, but only 17 IP), but there’s nothing supporting it. His insane 98% LOB rate is doing virtually all of the heavy lifting. Obviously, any sustained period of sub-1.00 ERA performance is going to have some outlier metrics involved and it’s usually going to involve a mix of peak skills and good luck, but it ranges from average to truly bleak outside of the LOB rate.

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Touki Toussaint

Fastball: The 22-year-old righty threw a 91-96 mph with a decent amount of release side run. Generally, he can control the pitch but its movement can cause it to dart in-and-out of the strike zone. This movement may help him generate weak contact.

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