Welcome to another automated installment of fastball velocity risers and fallers. For reference, here are a few articles that explain both the process and the importance of increased or decreased velocity when predicting future success:

• Using Game-By-Game Fastball Velocity to Influence SP Sit/Start Decisions by Lucas Kelly
• MLB pitching models should incorporate recency, giving us an intriguing ranks update by Eno Sarris
• Baseball’s ‘Hot Hand’ Is Real by Rob Arthur and Greg Matthews

The data for this article reflects games played through April 24th and only displays Statcast’s four-seam fastball (FF) velocity. 

A.J. Puk’s velocity decrease was likely a result of shoulder fatigue and he remains on the IL. He is expected back in the first week of May and is reportedly going to rejoin the bullpen. Dean Kremer’s most recent start showcased the most drop in velocity, but he also recorded 10 strikeouts against the Angels in that start. It’s something to keep an eye on as Kremer threw a career-high 172.2 innings in 2023.

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When you get around your friends and family who play in your fantasy baseball league and they immediately tell you how sorry they are for you, it means your fantasy team stinks. Hunter Brown had a really bad game and I won’t complain or write bad stuff about him because I’m sure he’s feeling bad enough about it as is. Our ERAs are bad, let’s leave it at that.

Did you see it coming? Did anyone? Apparently, someone in a Paul Sporer chat smelt a stinker coming just by paying attention to the underlying metrics. Brilliant! Making sit/start decisions with starting pitchers is an area of my game that needs improvement. I want to flag and bench a pitcher not because they’re heading to Atlanta or playing the Dodgers, but because I conducted sound analysis and noticed something wasn’t quite right. In this article, I will introduce PINE (Pitchers In Need of Extraction), a new and very basic model to flag starting pitchers who need to be given a little more scrutiny and possibly removed from your starting lineup, set to riding the pine.

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The number of pitching injuries haven’t let up yet and it feels like everyone is looking for starting pitching to help out their rosters. Here’s a trio of pitchers who are rostered in under 10% of all Ottoneu leagues who could be useful pickups if you’re looking for an option to fill in for an injured starter or two.

Because he’s spent his career pitching in Oakland, Paul Blackburn’s success has gone quietly unnoticed. He’s also dealt with a myriad of injuries and has surpassed 20 starts in a season just twice in his eight-year career. Still, over the past three seasons, he’s compiled a 3.95 FIP with a decent strikeout-to-walk ratio and some excellent contact management. This year, it took him four starts to finally allow his first run of the season. He’s dramatically reduced the usage of his sinker and is now throwing all six of the pitches in his repertoire between 20% and 10% of the time. His cutter is now technically his primary pitch and the effectiveness of that pitch has increased this year thanks to slightly higher velocity and horizontal movement.

In Mitchell Parker’s debut, he held the Dodgers to just two runs in five innings. In his second start in the big leagues, he held the Astros scoreless over seven innings. Those are two of the best lineups in baseball and Parker carved through them. He only throws his fastball in the low-90s, but his over-the-top delivery creates natural carry with the pitch. And when he pairs it with his 12-to-6 curveball, it becomes a deadly pitch pair. He’s also added a splitter to his repertoire recently and his scouting report says he also throws a slider. He’s survived his first two starts with some pretty good batted ball luck and his profile that of an up-and-down back-end starter. With the new splitter and improved command, it’s possible he’s raised his ceiling a bit, but I’d be wary of paying too much to roster him at this point.

Albert Suárez’s story is a fun one. He pitched for the Giants in limited action way back in 2016 and 2017, bounced around in Japan and Korea for five years and finally signed a minor league contract with the Orioles this offseason. He had a great spring training and finally got the call up to make a spot start last Wednesday. He held the Twins scoreless over 5.2 innings in his first big league action in seven years and then held the Angels scoreless over another 5.2 innings in his second start yesterday. His calling card is a mid-90s fastball with plenty of carry that he can command at the top of the zone. Batters have swung and missed on nearly 20% of the heater’s he’s thrown in his two starts so far. That’s a ridiculous whiff rate, especially for a fastball. His repertoire is rounded out with a changeup and cutter, both of which are returning decent results so far. With the Orioles dealing with plenty of injuries in their starting rotation, it’s likely that Suárez will get a long run of starts to prove he can stick in the majors for good.

My favorite activity early in the season is to try to capitalize on underperforming and overperforming starting pitchers. I’ll dangle my pitchers with low ERAs whose skills don’t support it and target those who hold high ERAs despite strong skills. In the past, I’ve exclusively used SIERA to identify such pitcher groups. Today, I’ll use Statcast’s xERA, as it utilizes actual batted ball data, so not every ground ball and fly ball are equal, as they are in the SIERA equation. So let’s compare actual ERA to xERA to identify and discuss both the underperformers and overperformers. Don’t forget that any ERA estimator uses actual strikeout and walk rates, so if those metrics seem unsustainable (either on the high or low side), then the expected ERA equation isn’t going to be as helpful.

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Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings.

A few general schedule notes:

• The Braves and Rays look like they have pretty easy schedules next week. Tampa hosts the Tigers before traveling to face the hapless White Sox next weekend while Atlanta hosts the Marlins and Guardians. The Giants also have six games at home next week which should be a boon to their starting rotation.
• On the other hand, the Reds and Guardians have tough slates next week. Cincinnati hosts the Phillies before heading out to face the Rangers on the road while Cleveland hosts the Red Sox and then travel to Atlanta over the weekend.
• The Astros have a weird week with two off days and just five games including two in Colorado next weekend.
• The Phillies might activate Taijuan Walker from the IL next week. Keep an eye on their rotation to see how they handle his activation while allowing Spencer Turnbull to continue his hot start to the season.
• The Red Sox will need to make a roster move to find a fill in for the injured Garrett Whitlock on Sunday. Right now, Naoyuki Uwasawa is listed on the Probables Grid. In addition, Boston used Cooper Criswell as a bulk reliever behind an opener yesterday. If they continue that pattern next week, make sure he’s in the right SP or RP slot in your lineup depending on how the Sox deploy him.

Yesterday, I reviewed the extreme hitter performers that both sit atop and at the bottom of various statistical leaderboards. We don’t necessarily expect the majority of these results to continue, but it’s fun to review them. Strong early results could give some hitters a longer leash, increasing their job security, while weak results could result in a playing time cut. So even if we think regression or improvement would come, managers may already taking action on the early performances, rightfully or wrongfully. Therefore, we should be aware of the outliers.

Today, we’ll switch over to starting pitchers.

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Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings.

A few general schedule notes:

• It looks like the Phillies have a pretty easy schedule this week; they’ll host the Rockies and White Sox. Citizens Bank Park is fairly hitter friendly, but both Colorado (outside of Coors) and Chicago have been punchless to start the season. Aaron Nola is the lucky recipient of a two-start week against these weak opponents.
• I’m also recommending you start everyone in the Giants rotation; they’ll start the week in Miami and then return home to face the Diamondbacks next weekend. Arizona could pose some problems, but the cavernous ballpark in San Francisco should prevent things from getting too out of hand.
• After their easy week this week, the Braves face both Texas teams next week. That will present some tough matchups, and after Max Fried’s blow up last weekend, it’s hard to trust anyone from Atlanta’s rotation next week.
• It’s possible we’ll see the season debuts of Walker Buehler, Jordan Montgomery, Edward Cabrera, Braxton Garrett, Michael Lorenzen, and Jameson Taillon next week. If you roster any of those guys, you’re probably already monitoring their rehab starts. Buehler and Montgomery both have pretty easy matchups if they stick to their schedule — those would be the only two I’d recommend starting so quickly off the Injured List.

Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings.

A few general schedule notes:

• It’s a great week to roster any of the Braves starters; they host the punchless Mets and then travel to Miami. Charlie Morton and Reynaldo López are the lucky starters to pull a double shift next week.
• If I had any confidence in their starters, this would also be a great week for the Nationals; they’re on a West Coast swing through the Bay Area next week and play six games in those cavernous stadiums. As it is, I can only recommend MacKenzie Gore wholeheartedly with the rest falling somewhere between “maybe” and “risky.” That’s a shame.
• The Astros and Rangers have a wrap around four-game series that ends on Monday before meeting up again over the weekend. That means Framber Valdez lines up to face the Rangers twice in one week. After a rough first start to the season he looked much better against the Blue Jays on Tuesday. Still, I don’t really have much interest in seeing if he can tempt fate twice against the Rangers high-powered offense.
• It’s a rough week to roster any of the Marlins starters; they travel to New York to face the Yankees and then host the Braves.
• There are a handful of starters who are slated to come off the injured list next week including Blake Snell, Nick Lodolo, and possibly Michael Lorenzen. Normally I wouldn’t recommend starting a pitcher coming off a stint on the IL but Snell and Lorenzen have pretty juicy matchups against the Nationals and A’s, respectively.

With just three games in the books of the 2024 regular season as I type this (or five for the Dodgers and Padres), there’s not a whole lot of statistical analysis to be done that avoids running into sample size issues. What does stabilize relatively quickly is pitcher velocity. Of course, that doesn’t mean that one game is enough to celebrate a gainer or panic over a decliner. Velocities fluctuate from game to game and also tends to increase as the season progresses. However, the data is far more valuable than the majority of other metrics we have to stare at on the very, very young season.

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Think about where you were in September of last year. It feels like a long time ago, doesn’t it? Perhaps you’ve changed since then, just slightly. Maybe you were sitting at a baseball game. I remember sitting in the shade at Camden Yards because the summer’s sun was still beating down and, by that point, I had received my share of sunburns. The memory seems distant as the last blast of polar wind still cuts through March and my light, dog-walking, jacket. Wherever you were and whatever you were doing in September of last year likely seems like a distant memory. Now consider a pitcher like Blake Snell.
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