I despise the use of small sample sizes, but pitchers change so frequently that it’s not so silly after all to evaluate shifts in underlying skills over a relatively small number of starts. So as I do every once in a while, I peruse the SwStk% leaderboard over the last 30 days. Let’s discuss some of the interesting names on there, shall we?
It is so deflating to lose a piece of work so close to the end. I put together the NL Arms to Buy piece for posting today with one pitcher’s section open to see how he did on Tuesday. I woke up today, woke the computer from its slumber, and it’s gone. Just 100% gone. I did all the recovery methods for Microsoft Word that usually result in getting a doc back, but this one is gone. So frustrating, but hardly the end of the world. By the way, the AL piece last week suggested the NL arms would come out the day after instead of the week after, my apologies on that flub. Let’s try it again!
Off the top, I recommend checking out Jeff Sullivan’s piece on Nelson from last week. Nelson’s ascent is kind of weird to me. The key factor, as Jeff points out, is that he’s throwing a lot more strikes with career-bests in Zone percentage (51%) and First-Pitch Strike rate (64%). That’s a big plus. A guy with good stuff finally throwing more strikes and trusting said stuff is good, I dig it. He also has career-bests in strikeout (23%) and walk (6%) rate, too.
Late last season and into the start of this season, I couldn’t stop singing the praises of Robert Gsellman. Gsellman had the pitcher trifecta going on with above average strikeout and groundball rates and a below average walk rate. While I encouraged owners to acquire him, I didn’t completely buy into the transformation. But I still hoped for the best. My reservations and hopes can be linked back to T.J. House and Jacob deGrom and the waning months of 2014 season.
Near the end 2014, House put together a respectable season with a 7.0 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 and a 61% GB%. They combined to support a 3.35 ERA and I was all in going into 2015. He seemed to be the perfect sleeper candidate with results similar to Dallas Keuchel.
Velocity changes between seasons, or even games, are well reported on thanks to Jeff Zimmerman’s velocity tracking document.
Fastball Velo changes, ’16 adjusted up
C Anderson +2.4
Estrada +1.8Cain -3.2
Santiago -2.8
Adleman -2.4https://t.co/Qr33MW0GYN— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) June 7, 2017
Velocity is very important to the success of pitchers – as I’ve written about with respect to my Stuff metric, and as highlighted in this great article by Mike Fast from 2010, every little bit of velocity matters. Within pitchers – those who lose velocity become shells of their former selves – like Eno Sarris wrote about Matt Harvey before this season started. While a Velocity drop between games is an indicator that someone might be hurt, a velocity drop within a game might indicate that a pitcher is becoming fatigue – a big sign of possible future injury.
Yesterday I put a list of 20 hitting tidbits covering topics and players you might’ve overlooked two-plus months into the season. I’m following that up with a pitcher version today and I was considering doing these on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on how useful y’all found them. Let me know in the comments what you think.
Did You Know…?
Yesterday, I wrote about some pitchers at the top of my two-month pERA ranking. Today, I am going to examining some starting pitchers (min 5 starts) who are the other end of the spectrum. These pitchers have struggled and I will try to determine why.
Note: For reference, here are the articles in which I created the framework for the metric (full list).
Rich Hill (#165, 6.01 pERA): Hill throws two pitches and both have taken a significant step backward. Starting with his fastball, it’s 1.5 mph slower. This move is not a game changer, but for a pitcher with just one other pitch, any fastball degradation could kill his overall value.
This past year, I created an ERA estimator which utilizes each pitch’s groundball and swinging strike rate and combines them for an overall pitcher ERA estimator (pERA). It’s time for a 2017 update. Today, I will go over some of the starters (min 5 starts) which stand out near the list’s top (full list).
Dallas Keuchel (#1, 2.14 pERA): Even though I expected Keuchel to be somewhere near the top of the list, I didn’t expect him to have the top spot. Two changes to his pitch repertoire have reversed his fortunes.
David Price and James Paxton are back from DL, but Masahiro Tanaka has the 2nd-worst ERA among qualified starters (6.24), Matt Harvey aka The Dark Knight isn’t far behind at 5.43, and stable assets like Julio Teheran and Jose Quintana (the righty/lefty version of one another) have been buried in a heap of home runs. Even as we get some studs back, pitching remains a landmine-riddled hellscape. We’re on pace for the 2nd-most starts of 5+ ER since 2009 with 322 already. There were 937 all of last year.
Sitting around and complaining won’t do us any good, though. We have to remain diligent on the waiver wire and trade block to counterbalance the blowup starts that are seemingly impossible to avoid for more than a few days at a time regardless of who makes up your pitching staff. Today, I have three AL arms I’m looking as potential long-term* pickups. I tried to span shallow to deep league availability, too. I’ll have NL arms tomorrow next week.
*long-term at this point is a month to six weeks (speaking of which, there will be a new SP Update in a couple weeks)
Manaea walked five in his first start off the DL, but has been sharp ever since including a brilliant three-start run. He faced both Cleveland and New York on the road as well as hosting a red-hot Toronto offense, allowing a combined three runs against them. He has a 2.70 ERA and 0.93 WHIP with 34 strikeouts in 30 innings since returning. Over the five starts, he has a swinging strike rate below 14% just once (9% v. BOS) and a filthy 18% rate in his last two starts.
There are 10 qualified starting pitchers with an xFIP under 2.80 in the last 30 days.
Among them are predictable names like Chris Archer (2.52), Clayton Kershaw (2.53), Chris Sale (2.64), Johnny Cueto (2.74), and Zack Greinke (2.76).
The other five aren’t as well known, and therefore, they are more intriguing.
Being in the top 10 xFIP leaderboard for a month is not necessarily a huge accomplishment. However, xFIP has one of the highest correlations with future ERA of all pitching metrics, so it’s among the most relevant numbers to examine when searching for potential breakouts or analyzing the legitimacy of poor or plus performance.
Below is a table sorted by the top 10 qualified starting pitchers in xFIP over the last 30 days*, with the best statistic in each category highlighted in yellow, and the worst statistic in each category highlighted in red: Read the rest of this entry »
6/4/17
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