With the 2017 changes MLB Advanced Media implemented with their StatCast pitch tracking data, I’ve been scrambling to recode my pitcher injury finder. Well, it seems to be working fine and here are some pitchers it found to be concerned about.

Note: I have bumped up all 2016 and earlier values to be equal with higher 2017 readings.

John Lackey

It’s tough to tell if Lackey is hurt or he’s at a new, lower talent level. His last start was the most concerning. Here are his velocity and spin rates over the past two seasons.

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Jason Vargas is pitching out of his mind right now. He has allowed just one run in 20.7 innings (0.44 ERA) with a 0.77 WHIP. Perhaps more impressive than the surface results is the fact that he has a 31% strikeout rate powered by a 13% swinging strike rate. His 3% walk rate is great, too, though less surprising given his career 7% mark. Three starts of a 3% for a guy who rarely walks batters isn’t crazy. The rest is just insane, though.

His velocity has always been underwhelming (~86-88 mph) and it’s on the low end this year at 86.6. Vargas is using essentially the same pitch mix, too: 55% fastballs, 30% changeups, and 15% curveballs. By the way, it’s worth noting that this kind of started last year in three late-September as he managed a 2.25 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 23% K rate, and 10% SwStr rate in 12 IP. So comparing the 32.7 innings from 2016-17 to his 380 from 2013-15, the biggest differences I found were with the fastball and changeup against righties. There’s also a wholesale zone percentage change, up to 51% against a career 45% and sitting 39-41% from 2013-15, which shows up in the fastball/changeup against righties.

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What do we do to analyze players this early in the season? Focus on the underlying metrics that stabilize quickest and try to spot early changes. While our sample size stabilization points don’t include any advanced metrics, I would bet that the plate discipline metrics, including Z-Contact%, would sit on the low end in terms of how many plate appearances or batters faced they require to reach the calculated stabilization points. So let’s dive into the American League starting pitchers that have improved their Z-Contact% most from last year. Is there anything more illustrative of the quality of a pitcher’s stuff than making a batter miss a pitch in the strike zone?

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 Note: Do to a calculation error involving popups, the values initially report were off by a small bit. Everything is corrected now.

Our Dark Overlord continues to install enhancements to FanGraphs. One item which he has sneaked in over the weekend in Swinging Strike (must add to custom dashboard) and Groundball Rates for minor league pitchers (example). With the data now available to query, it’s time to find the league specific baselines and compare some highly touted prospects. Today, I will just concentrate just on the batted ball data.

Anytime new data becomes available, the baselines values are the starting point for an analysis so comparisons can be made. First, here are the overall league ground ball rates from 2016.

There is some funkiness going on in Rookie Ball and the Majors but the general trend is for ground ball rates to drop as the level approached the majors. Generally, the numbers are steady. With the league averages out of the way, I will move onto pitchers.

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Just before the season started, the FanGraphs staff (including RotoGraphs contributors) was asked to make its official predictions for the upcoming season. We took our best shot at predicting the playoff teams, MVP and Cy Young Award winners, and Rookies of the Year for 2017. Perhaps in the coming weeks we will check in with the top picks for MVP and Cy Young, but in this article, we’re going to look at the top rookies.

Our staff picks on the American League side had Andrew Benintendi (40 votes) as the overwhelming favorite to be named the league’s top rookie, with Jharel Cotton (4) and Mitch Haniger (4) rounding out the top three.

Over in the National League, Dansby Swanson (27 votes) was the favorite by a wide margin, followed by Robert Gsellman (12), Manuel Margot (5), and Hunter Renfroe (4).

While it’s extremely early and still much too soon to make any concrete statements about who will win this year’s awards, let’s take a look at the wide-ranging early season performances of the players we expect to be the game’s top newcomers: Read the rest of this entry »

Tout Wars Thoughts:

In Tout Wars, I am currently last in both ERA (5.32) and WHIP (1.58). I knew I would struggle in these two categories but this lack of production is about impossible to replicate. The culprits are:

Name: ERA, WHIP
Corey Kluber: 6.38, 1.42
Rick Porcello: 7.56, 1.74
Adam Wainwright: 7.24, 2.20
Jeff Samardzija: 6.16, 1.42

Two of my closers aren’t much better:
Blake Treinen: 6.00, 2.00
Ken Giles: 9.00, 1.80

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Last week we told you about some hitters who might be of interest to, and only to, people (like us) who play in leagues so deep that they (the leagues, not the people) are hadalpelagic. Your kind response has encouraged us to take on an even more daunting task: identifying, down there among the bristle worms and the viperfish, starting pitchers who aren’t widely owned (which we define as being owned in fewer than 50% of NFBC leagues) and might be worth having. Read the rest of this entry »

We know that pitch velocity stabilizes rather quickly and while a pitcher’s pitch mix each game could vary, sometimes wildly, it’s generally consistent from year to year. But often times, pitchers introduce a new pitch or switch up their current pitch mix in an effort to be more effective. Those changes could lead to a breakout if the pitcher lands on the optimal mix. Although we’re still only a couple of games started into the season, let’s take a gander at those starters who have thrown any of their pitches 15% more or less frequently than last season.

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This post on old broken men comes via Mario Mendoza when he asked about a few pitchers.

While I won’t cover all the pitchers today, McCarthy and Ryu intrigue me because they’ve been productive in the past but injuries cost them most of last season. While not listed, Lance Lynn and Brett Anderson fall in the same category. As a group, they averaged 15 IP in 2016. Here is a quick take on all four.

Brandon McCarthy (Dodgers)

Wow, I hope the other pitchers will be easier to analyze. McCarthy has been consistently inconsistent. I will start with the basics. His fastball’s averaging 93.2 mph. He’s been at this higher velocity the last four seasons after averaging around 90 mph before 2014.

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There have been a lot of questions and comments this season about the change in pitch velocity readings. I am not going to go into depth why these changes were made, but I have seen a lot of people questioning these velocity readings, and how they might compare to past seasons.

I am sure you have seen articles about how velocities this season are roughly 0.6 mph faster than last season, so maybe you have been subtracting a mile per hour from each number you see as a back of the envelope estimate.  Maybe you’re happy with that, maybe not.  Tom Tango mentioned a manner for calculating the traditional pitch velocities in the comment section of his blog post about the change to Start Speed. After seeing this, I immediately implemented it on my personal pitch database, and I am here to share those results with you today. Read the rest of this entry »