We looked at strikeouts plus pop-ups minus walks, even if I need to re-run those numbers with pop-ups divided by plate appearances. And then we looked at Arsenal Scores, even if I need to re-run those numbers with more precision. Those things, plus projections, all inform my rankings, which I’ll run below.

But a word about my process. Pitching foils projection systems more than hitting for a reason: there are small changes that can make a huge difference. And changes in role are huge.

So, if you sort for the third category in my rankings below (difference percentage), you’ll find a bunch of guys that made small changes down the stretch that I think will make a big difference. And a bunch of guys that I think will win the fifth starter role. As well as guys that get hidden outs with the pop-up, and a bunch of guys undervalued by their overall numbers despite good arsenals.

You might be surprised to hear that I don’t run this all through a projection system and press go, and then run the rankings. That might be the best way to go. But I’m more intuitive. I’d rather play the would you rather and rely on my first impression in some cases. I’d rather go by my own sense of the depth charts than any that is put together for me. I’d rather feel my way through the ranks.

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Sorry for not having as many Quick Looks this off season. Instead of watching games inside while exercising, I have been exercising outside. I will try to get some more once spring training games start up so let me know of any pitchers you would like to see my thoughts on.

I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Dan Farnsworth’s scale he discussed in this article.

I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future value). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.

Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.

Matthew Wisler
10/4/15 vs Cardinals
(45 CV/50 FV)
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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Sometimes, I like to write about the low hanging fruit. The Mets’ pitcher battles are all around the fringes of the roster and won’t need to be addressed until halfway through the season. What follows is mostly a discussion of depth with a nod to two talented pitchers who will return in July.

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Everybody has their sleeper lottery tickets. By that, I don’t mean known quantities like Adrian Beltre who may be slightly underpriced. Players like Lance McCullers, Corey Seager, and Xander Bogaerts have flashed impressive talent, but they’ve yet to truly prove it’s sustainable. We’re making informed guesses when we reach for them in the draft. Today, we’ll talk about three reaches that I just don’t get.

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This is our new Innings Limit Tracker. This covers young pitchers (age-25 season or under) who could face an innings limit this year. If you think someone should be on the list, please let me know in the comments. Also if you see a source confirming someone’s inning limit one way or the other, please let me know!

I’ll be updating this throughout the season, especially as prospects with potential IP limits come up and start making an impact.

The chart shows how old the player will be for 2016, his 2015 innings breakdown, how many innings he’d have with a 20% increase of his 2015 count, his IP limit status assuming we know something, and then the source.

(This will show up in the sidebar under Draft Tools.)

(And it’s sortable in case you’re wondering!)

The theory first. By looking at the results on a per-pitch level, we can spot pitchers that have somehow been worse than the sum of their parts to date. Those pitchers, with better sequencing and selection of their existing pitches, or just luck, could be better in the future.

In order to avoid the problems inherent in balls in play data, we’re going to focus on two classes of information that help us the most — ground balls and strikeouts. We’ll z-score every pitch thrown over 100 times last year and sum up the scores. Let’s focus on starters — depth of arsenal matters more for them. And let’s report summed up z-scores as well as average ones per pitch. One tells us how good their collective pitches are, the other how even their arsenal is.

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The Giants’ biennial odd-year failures are well documented. By now, Giants fans know that if it’s an odd-year, they can safely leave town on Columbus Day weekend, volunteer at their NPR affiliate’s fall pledge drive, or spend a weekend up in Santa Rosa picking delightfully fragrant organic Braeburn apples in-season. But odd-year apple seasons bring Brian Sabean neither respite nor rich phytonutrients. For it’s a time when baseball’s longest-tenured GM must roll up his sleeves and construct yet another World Series winner.

This past October, Sabean set his sights on filling a gaping hole in center field and rebuilding a rotation that ranked 25th in WAR. So he signed Denard Span, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija to multi-year contracts, undoubtedly improving the team in 2016. And that’s more or less it. Needs addressed.

From a fantasy perspective, there isn’t so much a battle for the final rotation spot as the inevitability that injuries to Matt Cain or others will open the door for Chris Heston and conceivably a few promising young pitchers. With that in mind, we take a look at those pitchers vying for the final spot in the Giants’ rebuilt rotation.

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Two weeks ago, we inaugurated what will likely still be a few more weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Both Orange and Los Angeles Counties‘ pitching situations.

As an Orange County native, this is not fun for me to write. It’s embarrassing. As it stands, the Angels project to record the 3rd-worst pitching WAR (wins above replacement) in all of baseball — worst in the American League. What proceeds will likely be more tirade than objective analysis.

The Good Part

The Angels are not short on depth. With at least eight legitimate starters at their disposal, the team likely won’t suffer any embarrassing midseason shortages, especially in light of a woefully shallow farm system.

OK, that’s it. Read the rest of this entry »

The woods decay and fall. Man comes and tills the fields and lies beneath, and after many a summer dies Abe Vigoda. But…we’re still around! We’ve worked hard this winter, pumping irony. We’ve added five pounds of muscle—well, one of us has; the other has added ten pounds of fat—so we’re in the best shape of our lives. This season, we’re going to run more. We’re also going to walk more. Especially, though, we’re going to sit semicomatose in front of our computer screens more, burning up even more irreplaceable hours than we did last year. Yes, once again, we’re taking our two-man submersible deep into the sunless sea of fantasy-relevant stats, and, as before, when we resurface, we’ll show you our specimens.

We’re the Birchwood Brothers, honest-to-God siblings, aggregate age 124 years, lifelong stat geeks and baseball fans, unregenerate fantasy baseball addicts, and spare-time would-be craftspersons of lapidary prose. Like you, in all probability, we’ve got better things to do than this, but that doesn’t mean we do them. Having attained mediocrity in last year’s National Fantasy Baseball Championship Main Event, we’ve decided to seek new challenges. The Main Event uses a snake draft; this year, we’ll be joining the NFBC Mixed-League auction, where we figure to be even more overmatched. As an aperitif, yesterday we started an NFBC slow-draft league—15 teams, no in-season transactions, as much as 8 hours to make each pick, 50 rounds or Ragnarok, whichever comes first. We’ll also be playing in the Bluefish Blitz league, whose rules have so little in common with anyone else’s that we’ll have to prepare for it all over again. And somewhere, we’re going to find a fourth league that suits us, and if we can’t find one we like, we’ll start our own. Read the rest of this entry »

Unhappy about the team’s sub-.500 record in 2015, Diamondbacks General Manager Dave Stewart has resorted to signin’, wheelin’ n’ dealin’ this offseason to seemingly make a run at a playoff spot. The majority of his moves were to bolster a starting pitching staff that ranked 11th in ERA in the National League with a 4.37 mark. Of course, I’m not here to discuss Zack Greinke or Shelby Miller. Rather, let’s talk about the guys who are not a lock to be a part of the team’s rotation and back end of the bullpen.

Rotation

Because I cannot type an entire article without mentioning Zack Greinke’s 2015 performance, I will simply note this — his LOB% ranked as the fifth highest mark ever among qualified starters. That’s running our leaderboard as far back as it goes, choosing 1871, and ending up with 9,358 pitcher seasons. Do not pay top five starter prices. That is all.

Since I’m on a luck will run out campaign (wait, aren’t I always?), I might as well mention Shelby Miller and his massive SIERA-beating ways. Wait until he hits a severe hitter’s park for the first time!

Now I feel better.

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