A week ago, I discussed some of the surprising and notable names atop the American League starting pitcher last 30 day strikeout rate leaderboard. Today, let’s check in on those pitchers that find themselves at the bottom.
You’re all familiar with pros and cons lists. Today’s subject is pitcher German Marquez from the Colorado Rockies. The 22-year old righty has had an impressive rookie campaign spurred by a two-month hot stretch that is ongoing. He was a top 100 prospect across the industry this year, charting 52nd on Eric Longenhagen’s list, but didn’t get much buzz because of his home ballpark. His quality pitching and the success of Colorado have forced us to take notice.
It was a relatively unexciting trade deadline as fewer big names switched uniforms than usual. No, I don’t have any actual data to back that up, but I feel like I’m probably right. Anyhow, one of the bigger names to switch teams was Sonny Gray, as he departs the West coast for the East, joining the New York Yankees. Let’s analyze the park factors, the team defenses, and offensive support to help determine how this affects his value over the rest of the season.
As I have been known to do, let’s take our every-so-often look at American League starting pitchers who are currently making a surprise appearance atop the last 30 day strikeout rate leaderboard. Since pitchers change so much more frequently than hitters, whether due to fluctuations in velocity or an adjustment to pitch mix, it’s far more valuable to analyze small sample pitching performance than hitting performance.
Lance McCullers was highly sought after this draft season. He was the 40th SP on average in NFBC drafts, but went as high as the early-20s among pitchers, making him a top 100 pick in those cases. A couple rough starts in April left him with a 4.34 ERA, but then he reeled off a 1.51 ERA for eight starts before a sore back put him on the DL. It was his third DL stint since the start of 2016 and a continuation of injury issues that have haunted him throughout his pro career (high of 104.7 IP in the minors). It’s been rough since his return. He has a 7.13 ERA in five starts and hasn’t gone six innings in any of them.
So what’s going on?
• For Faria, I watched his July 6th game against the Red Sox. The game was the most recent with a decent camera angle.
• The nearly 24-year-old righty used a 3/4 release with decent command and control of his pitches.
We still have about a week to go before the non-waiver trade deadline, but already deals are being made. Yesterday, both Jaime Garcia and Trevor Cahill were shipped off of their non-contending teams to the American League. Let’s see how the league, park, and team switches could affect their values.
A couple of National League Central starting pitchers have caught my eye. Both are owned in a lower percentage of fantasy leagues than they should be, and both are flame throwers. One of the two has already received not just one endorsement from Paul Sporer earlier this month, but also a second after pitching decent in Colorado and brilliantly in Arizona. The other hurler hasn’t received the same level of praise, but Jeff Zimmerman noted a new breaking ball this righty’s added to his mix, and his results of late are intriguing. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this year, I introduced the new xHR/FB rate that uses Statcast’s Brls/BBE (barrels per batted ball event) metric. While the equation was for hitters, Brls/BBE is still a useful data point for pitchers. Luckily, the Statcast leaderboard has the exact same metrics for pitchers as hitters, including Brls/BBE. Let’s lets discuss some American league starting pitchers from a Brls/BBE and HR/FB rate perspective. Given the hitter xHR/FB rate formula, you know that Brls/BBE and HR/FB rate correlate rather strongly. A mismatch will typically mean some sort of regression in either of the stats.
I’m sure no one noticed but I took last week off and am now back in the saddle. I needed to catch up on starting pitchers to see who is or isn’t performing as expected. Here are some my thoughts while catching up on the news.
Joe Ross and Michael Pineda will need Tommy John surgery
I was a little surprised to see both of these injuries happen during the All-Star break. After reading the news, Ross’s injury shouldn’t have been a surprise for someone paying attention with him exiting his July 9th start early. His fastball velocity for the start was down 3 mph compared to earlier in the season.
Read the rest of this entry »
