Quick Looks: Julio Urias

Last Saturday, I was watching the Cards-Cubs game until Alex Reyes was done pitching. I moved over to the Dodgers hoping to see what Brett Anderson looked like. I missed his one inning start. After a brief appearance of Josh Fields, the Dodgers brought in Julio Urias and I got some bonus prospect coverage.

I was not impressed at all with his current production level. He seems to be a thrower in the Tim Lincecum mold and doesn’t really know where the ball is going at times. This wildness can be seen in his 4.1 BB/9.

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This won’t take too long. Before the current season, and at various points during the early part of the season, we posited that there is such a thing as a five-inning pitcher. By this, we meant a starting pitcher who can pitch well through five innings, but then usually fouls the nest in the sixth. We further hypothesized that, with the success of the impermeable Kansas City and Pittsburgh bullpens, and the burgeoning population of pitchers who can throw 97 MPH for 20 pitches at a time every couple of days, more and more teams would be constructing bullpens that can take over in the sixth inning and remain nonporous through the ninth. And finally, we surmised that an enlightened and stat-wise new breed of managers would start removing the five-inning pitchers after strong performances through the fifth inning, notwithstanding the pitchers’ desire to stay in the game. This, we concluded, would lend unexpected (by everyone but us and our fortunate readers) value to the aforesaid five-inning pitchers, who would now be unable to sabotage their own victories, and their own ERAs and WHIPs, via sixth inning self-immolation. We found for ourselves, and identified for those same fortunate readers, a bunch of such pitchers whose 2015 (and sometimes early 2016) stats suggested they belonged in this category. And in many instances we acquired these pitchers in our various drafts, auctions, waiver claims, and FAABs. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past, while looking for pitchers with multiple plus secondary pitches, I’ve run into a type of pitcher that can struggle despite having good offspeed weapons: the bad fastball guy. Chase Whitley, John Lamb, David Hale, and Nick Tropeano could all be put into this bucket, even if their stories are not yet done being written.

If your primary weapon isn’t great, you really have to go full Matt Shoemaker and start throwing you secondary pitches more often than your fastball, and even then you’re not guaranteed success. Look at Nathan Eovaldi, who did go the Shoemaker route once he found that splitter that he likes, and yet… he’s just about the same as he’s ever been, more or less.

What the heck? He’s got a really big fastball. But it’s lesser, for a few reasons. Let’s try to get at one of the ways it’s less than it should be today — perceived velocity.

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Quick Looks: Kyle Hendricks, Luke Weaver, and Alex Reyes

Saturday’s Cardinals-Cubs game made for some good pitcher watching with three young pitchers taking the mound. Let me start with Hendricks.

A couple of years back, I did a Quick Look at Hendricks and here were my thoughts:

I just have not seen enough of him to convince me he can keep up the results. I would not be surprised one bit if his ERA from now to season’s end was near 4.00 (which is where his ERA estimators are hanging out).

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Valuing Danny Duffy

Putting a future value on Danny Duffy is fairly difficult because he has never performed like he is right now. Here are some of his stats after his one run complete game last night.

• 9 wins
• 2.82 ERA, 3.14 FIP
• 10.0 K/9
• 1.8 BB/9
• 1.0 HR/9

Let’s start with the biggest changes and the one value which sticks out, the 10.0 K/9. Duffy is getting more strikeouts by getting hitters to swing at his pitches at career high rate (52%) and they make contact at a career-low rate (72%). This dual combination has led to a career high swinging strike rate (14%). By using the simple rule K% = 2 * SwStr%, Duffy is projected to have a 28% K% and it is 29% this season. With these matching up, I expect little regression with his strikeout rate.

A search for why the transformation as occurred begins with a 1.5 mph increase in his fastball velocity. The velocity increase raised his swinging strike rate on the pitch to a 13.6%. With the fastball velocity increase, his other pitches are playing up with his slider (15%) and change (21%) being at career highs in swinging strike percentage. I am not sure why these two pitches are performing better this season. They made be playing off his fastball as hitters are concentrating on his fastball. The pitches have a bit more movement and this could be the cause. Also, he may have changed his deception some. Or it could be a combination of several factors. All I know it is working.

Besides the increase strikeouts, Duffy continues to bring is walk rate under control which hurt his value early in his career. In 2012, his BB/9 was at 5.9 and this season it is a third of that value (1.8). The drop in walks along with the increase in strikeouts put his season’s K%-BB% at 23% for 6th best in the league.

The final aspect to understand with Duffy is he lives up in the strike zone and will give up a ton of fly balls which hurts and helps him. More fly balls mean more home runs and he will likely always have an HR/9 at or above 1.0. One the good side, the additional fly balls lead to more easy outs and he will normally have a suppressed BABIP (.286 on career) and an ERA less than his FIP (3.58 ERA vs 3.98 FIP in his career).

The big question is if Duffy can keep the high strikeout and low walk values going forward. It’s tough to tell, but we still have a month and a half of starts to monitor. Additionally, Duffy pitches at a spring training park with a Pitchf/x system installed so we will have an idea where his velocity sits next spring. I see his 2017 value being a major discussion point this offseason.

What’s left of Carlos Gomez?

Gomez was designated for assignment by the Astros and may end up a free agent soon. He was a top hitter from 2012 to 2014 when he averaged over 20 HR, 35 SB, and .270 AVG per season.

Examining his stats, the two big keys to his decline are his declining power and complete inability to make contact this season. With his power, it climbed steadily until he was 27 and has been falling fast as seen here.

Additionally, his Contact% (66%) abruptly fell to a career low. Gomez has always been a free swinger, so with his ability to make contact deteriorating, he has seen his strikeout rate jump 10 percentage points to 31% and batting average drop to .210.

Looking forward, overcoming both factors is going to be tough for him. He has not been able to stop the three-year decline in power. Even if he does, how much will it jump up? I don’t see him turning this issue around much. I could see him make quite a bit more contact since the drop was all at once. Even if the contact rate increase, will the lack of power just make him a bottom of the order player which produces some stolen bases?

With him, I am watching two items. Where he ends up this year and does that team try to make an improvement in his contact rate. The second is what his spring training and early season contact rate are next year. Right now, I don’t see him being productive and should only be taken as a late-round flier.

Michael Pineda’s Sky High ERA

Michael Pineda has seen a nice steady rise in his velocity to go with a 10.4 K/9 and a reasonable 2.6 BB/9.

With these great numbers, Pineda has a 5.07 ERA because he is getting hit hard as seen by his 1.4 HR/9 and .338 BABIP. The biggest issue I see with Pineda is he is basically just a fastball-slider pitcher (rarely throws a bad change). Hitters are holding off swinging at the slider (which he rarely throws for strikes) and looking for his fastball. Here are the triple slash lines when he is ahead, even, or behind in the count.

Behind: .345/.510/.628
Even: .312/.319/.563
Ahead: .186/.192/.314

He becomes dominant once ahead, but hitters are sitting on his fastball in all other counts because it is the only pitch he can throw for strikes. Unless he can start throwing the slider for strikes or develop a third league average pitch, he is going to continue to get hit hard.

Leaders in Home Runs Plus Stolen Bases

A few years back I created a metric to help find pitchers who are showing signs of a possible injury. I named the metric PAIN (Pitcher Abuse INdex). While I can easily publish the information at all times, I have not been able to dive into the results  as often as I would like. With the new arrangement with BJ Maack and me with the MASH Report, he will be looking at more of the daily and rehab updates and I can then dive into some deeper topics. Today, I will give an update on possible pitcher injuries.

There are just two inputs into the PAIN metric, fastball velocity, and Zone%. I have found drops in both to be indicators of possible pitcher injuries, so I decided to include the pair in the metric. Initially, I had to do a little back fitting to get the system to work. I have made a few minor tweaks over the years, but it has remained relatively constant.

One of the more recent tweaks I have made is to lower the bar for the players at risk. Initially, I made 100 the threshold for risk, but looking back, values of 90 are injured quite often. At some point in the future, I may adjust the formula so 100 is the threshold again.

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Yes, I came up with that brilliant title all by myself. So, Dylan Bundy, he has been a top prospect for seemingly forever. He was selected fourth overall in the 2011 draft and his eventual arrival to the big leagues was eagerly anticipated. His high 90s fastball fueled a near 30% strikeout rate over three different levels during his 2012 debut. Unfortunately, the good times soon came to an end, as he ended up succumbing to Tommy John surgery, which caused him to miss the entire 2013 season. He returned in 2014 to pitch 41.1 innings, but his strikeout rate in High-A over a rather small sample collapsed to just 12.8%. Then in 2015, he was shut down with a shoulder injury and managed to throw just 24 innings. And now, he is back with the Orioles after debuting for two games back in 2012. Phew, it’s been quite the roller coaster ride indeed.

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Cardinals Pitcher Call-Ups: Reyes and Weaver

The Cardinals called up Alex Reyes and he made his first major league appearance for the Cardinals bullpen last light. Reyes is a talent pitcher and here is some comparable pitchers with similar grades to his 2016 Baseball America prospect grade.

The list is dominated by hard throwers with good curve balls which describes Reyes.

Moving onto his Triple-A production this year, the 21-year-old has been a strikeout machine with 12.8 K/9, but he has some issues with walks (4.4 BB/9). Last night he averaged 99 mph with his fastball and was 98 mph in the Arizona Fall League last year. Besides the fastball, he has an above average curve ball. He is a talented pitcher and should be a top 20 pitcher for years to come if his change up is serviceable.

But to put it simply, all the talent doesn’t really matter this season. Reyes will not be useful in most leagues since he will be relegated to the bullpen and is currently not in line for Saves. In redraft leagues, let others fight over him. In keeper leagues, understand his value is limited this season. Now, if I was a non-contender in a keeper league, I would look to see if one of the contenders has Reyes and would try to pick him up for a piece which could help them win a championship.

Luke Weaver is the pitcher owners should be targeting this season instead of Reyes. To start with, here are some comparables for Weaver using MLB.com’s 2016 grades.

The list of pitchers doesn’t bring a ton of excitement to Weaver’s debut on Saturday. The key when looking at these grades is if he can get his curve or slider to be his third league-average pitch. Weaver has been extremely productive in Double-A posting a 1.40 ERA and 10.4 K/9, but a pitcher can dominate the minors with just two pitches. If viewing his start on Saturday, watch to see how his curve and slider work. If he can’t get them going, he may struggle the second or third time through the order.

As for fantasy, I think he is worth a stash in all leagues to see how he performs. I think he could be in the Cardinals’ rotation until the season end because he has only thrown 83 innings this year after throwing 124 IP last year so workload may not be an issue.

Dylan Bundy: Quick Look

I have been intrigued on how Dylan Bundy looks since moving to the Orioles rotation in mid-July. With his injuries and starting the season in the bullpen, I wanted to get an idea of what to expect from him as a starter. For the game, I picked his last start on August 7. Here are my thoughts:

• His fastball was at 92-97 mph with sink at the lower velocities. He had good command of this pitch and seemed to constantly hit is spots with it. This will help him get ahead of hitters who are looking for a pitch in the middle of the plate. His fastball seems to have a couple different movements and I would not be surprised if he has a four-seam fastball and a slower two-seamer.
• His split-change was at 85-87 mph also with plus late sink. This pitch was the best pitch he threw.
• His final pitch is a classic 12-6 curve at 77-80 mph which he used as a chase pitch for called strikes.
• As with any pitcher, when he hung the curve or change, they got crushed.
• If he throws like he did during this game next year, he is going to be a strikeout machine.

For next season, I like the possible production from him and he could be a top-20 to 40 pitcher …. if he stays healthy which is a huge if. I think he will be more valuable in shallow leagues where the replacement level is higher. In deeper leagues, he may end up a wasted pick if he goes back on the DL again for the season. Right now I would put a 140 IP, 9 K/9, and a 3.50 ERA on him for a 2017 projection.

T.J. House: Back in the majors

Going into last season, I had a huge crush on T.J. House after he put up some great numbers at the end of 2014. I bragged him up over the offseason and picked him up where ever I could. Right out of the gate of the 2015 season, House stunk it up and ended up the DL with an injury.

The biggest key I took away from my House love affair, for non-prospect who break out, any kink in their armor will probably make them unplayable. In House’s case, his velocity lost 2 mph from the previous season. There was no way he could keep up his 2014 production with a batting-practice fastball.

His return to the majors is only to the Indians bullpen and his fastball, which he should throw harder from the bullpen, only sits at 90 mph. He is unplayable in all leagues right now, but I will always remember the bond we shared that one offseason.

Parsifal had his Holy Grail, Ahab had his Moby Dick, Sam the Sham had his Ring Dang Doo. What we’ve got is Cheap Starting Pitchers, for which we search obsessively, frustratedly, and often self-destructively. It appears, though, that a strategy for drafting cheap starting pitchers that we proposed back in the pre-season has some promise, and we’d like to report on it for you. Read the rest of this entry »

Corinne Landrey just wrote about Tyler Anderson last week, outlining some loose comparisons between he and Clayton Kershaw. I commend you to read that, but also this. By the way, she doesn’t really think he’s Kershaw, just wanted to point out some interesting similarities. I’m always fascinated when a pitcher finds success at Coors Field so I wanted to see how he was doing it.

He only has 11 major league starts, but eight of them have already been at home. Small sample size caveats are in full effect, of course. The first I noticed about Anderson is that he seems to have different paths to success for home and road. He doesn’t necessarily change how he pitches batters home and road, but the resultant statistical profiles are interesting. He has taken these paths to virtually the same ERA in (3.04) and outside of Coors (3.06).

HOME

In Coors, Anderson leans on his fastball-changeup combo using them a combined 74% of the time. His fastball comes in around 90-92, about average for a lefty, but his 81 MPH changeup helps the heater play up a bit while also being really good, too. He throws it to righties and lefties alike. Righties get it 33% of the time, but lefties get a steady diet as well at 26%.

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