If James Paxton has suffered through his last three starts in the course of a healthy season, it would be annoying and definitely garner some attention, but I don’t think it’d cause a freakout. Given that they’ve come so closely a DL stint – something Paxton has been unable to avoid throughout his career – there are concerns. Paxton faces the Detroit Tigers tonight in Seattle, a game I’ll be watching. I figured I’d take a look at what’s been happening over these last three starts in comparison to the first seven (which includes his first off the DL on May 28th) and see if we can highlight the issue(s) and find something to keep an eye on tonight.

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With the holiday weekend, Jason and I took the week off from the podcast. I didn’t want to leave you empty-handed, though, so here’s a little guide to this week’s pitching waiver wire.

TWO-START ARMS

Shallow (ranked):

• Brad Peacock – at OAK, at SEA
• Brandon McCarthy – v. NYM, v. COL
• Zack Wheeler – at LAD, at SF
• Ariel Miranda – v. DET, v. HOU

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I’m not sure of the exact Sleeper and the Bust podcast but Paul and Eno were discussing Jeff Samardzija and how his ERA would look better without a Colorado start. Right now Samardzija’s ERA is 4.31 but if the seven run, five inning start in Colorado is removed his ERA drops to 3.81. I’m not a fan of removing starts from a pitcher’s stats. The good and bad will happen. The deal is that Samardzija owners probably sat him that week like I did in Tout Wars. If owners aren’t going to use pitchers in their Colorado starts maybe owners should start ignoring the stats generated there.

The increase scoring environment in Colorado is about impossible to overcome. In an article at Rotowire ($) last year, I stated the following:

What we do know is that the road pitcher should expect between a 1.00 and 2.00 increase in ERA. I might put the ERA drop near 1.50, but I could understand if an owner wants to use a smaller or larger number. Additionally, I will put the K/9 drop near 0.9 and the WHIP increase at .25.

Those increases are just too much to absorb over an entire season. Sure an owner can get away with a start every now and then but eventually, the odds will even out. Once the hammer drops, an owner will spend a couple weeks trying to recover their overall rate stats.

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Here are a few starters who have seen their velocity drop during the 2017 season and my thoughts on each (full list).

Gio Gonzalez (-0.9 mph on 4-seam, -1.9 mph on 2-seam)

Of the pitchers I am examining today, Gonzalez is the toughest to get a read on. Besides a reasonable strikeout rate (8.3 K/9), his sub-3 ERA is the only trait he has going for him. His walk rate (4.3 BB/9) is his highest since 2009. He doesn’t have a good groundball rate and his home runs are up (with the rest of the league).

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Two weeks ago, I went searching for some of the league’s underthrown pitches. Which offerings by virtue of their paucity, despite excelling at inducing whiffs and weak contact, should be thrown more often? We’ve seen it so many times in the past, when a pitcher of whom we think a known quantity, suddenly leans on one pitch just a little more heavily and reinvents himself. Last week, we looked at the league’s underthrown four-seam fastballs and sinkers. This week, we turn to cutters and curves.

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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?

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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!

Jimmy Nelson

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.

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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.

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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 +1.8

Cain -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.

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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…?

• OK this first one is crazy. Grab a seat for this doozy. You’ll never believe that Clayton Kershaw is the top pitcher in baseball so far!
• Ervin Santana has a .153 BABIP… One. Fifty. Three. No one has ever come close to posting a full season at that clip
• Sid Fernandez’s .196 BABIP is the best single-season mark (min. 100 IP) since 1960

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