Well, I have had making a two-start evaluator on my to-do list for a while. With the help of Jonah Pemstein, the project is done. A problem is its usefulness with only two weeks left in the season. I am going to roll it out anyway and take comments over the next couple of weeks. It will then be ready for full implementation to start next season.

The setup is pretty simple right now.
•Find the games a pitcher is expected to start this upcoming week.
• Determine the starters projected Steamer stats per start.
• Use my Standing Gain Points formula I calculated to start the season to give each pitcher a weekly value. Then rank them by this value.

This is all the data available for now, but running it for the first time I found a few ways to improve it going forward.
• I ran into a coding error for pitchers who have no more projected starts (end of the list like Hudson or Moore) according to Steamer. I am trying to get the depth charts updated to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future.
• On the same note, the stats for pitchers who are swingman (starter and reliever) may be a bit inflated because of the improved reliever rates.
• Wins are just funky but needed to show the value of the chance to pick up two Wins. Ideas?
• The strength of opponent and park factors are not shown or worked in yet. I am working on this portion now but wanted to make the list available before next week.

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Sort our leaderboards by second half ERA in descending order in the American League and Jeff Samardzija sits atop the list with the highest mark. And it’s not even close. His 7.43 ERA might have been less of a surprise if it came from another former White Sox starter Hector Noesi, but the guy affectionately known as “Shark” has been bitten by the bad pitching bug. It’s not even like he has pitched well, but has suffered from some poor fortune like teammate Chris Sale (5.00 ERA in 2nd half vs 2.57 SIERA), as his 4.76 SIERA is fifth worst in the second half. Of course, he wasn’t exactly Samardzija like in the first half either, but a 4.02 ERA compiled while pitching in a hitter’s haven of a ball park and with a terrible defensive unit behind him isn’t so bad.

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We may not have found a way to measure hanging breaking balls today, but one table in particular caught my eye as being maybe useful for fantasy players. On this table, you’ll see the curveballs with the biggest range in movement with a few outcome stats included. If we sort through this list mentally, it seems possible to find our hanging curveballs.

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Remember April?

How crazy was that month? It seems like ages ago at this point.

It was a month during which Chris Sale had a remarkably misleading 5.32 ERA. Sale was at 2.37 through the first three starts of the season’s opening month before the Twins rocked him for 8 ER in just 3 IP of work. That seemed especially preposterous at the time given the opposition, but now the Twins sit just a game out of the second wildcard spot and while it’s always jarring to see Sale rocked, the Twins being the ones who inflicted the damage isn’t as much of a shock as they’ve now done it multiple times to Sale.

There were also several guys pitching out of their minds in April and as we do in every April likely as a response to a winter without baseball, we got overly excited about some of the performances because they were all we had on the 2015 season. Sure, some guys post a mid-2.00s ERA in April and it’s a harbinger of a Cy Young-level season, but most are just having their best month – a month we wouldn’t notice if it had been June or August.

April gets us drunk on the potential of five more months at this new level. Today, we’re going to look back at five surprise pitching standouts from the month and see how things have gone since the fast start.

Nick Martinez, TEX

April: 0.35 ERA in 26 IP

Since: 5.08 ERA in 95.7 IP

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I will use player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Kiley McDaniels 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.

Aaron Nola (CV: 60/FV: 70)
8/23/15 vs Marlins

Game Thoughts

• The 22-year-old righty had a slightly funky delivery. He threw from a low 3/4 release across his body, which is a little unusual for a right-handed pitcher. Additionally, he had a little late leg lift which may be a little distracting for the hitter.
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How do you mark the beginning of autumn? You have your choice: Labor Day has come and gone, football season is upon us and the Jewish calendar has already ushered in a new year. And the air is already starting to feel a bit chillier here in the northeast.

But we know the real indicator: it’s fantasy playoff time. Forget the sleepers, the stashers, the upside plays, the aching bodies recuperating on the injured reserve; all we care about now is who is available in deep leagues who can help the cause. Good thing we have two candidates available in a plethora of formats who fit that job description.

As usual, the players listed in this space are typically better suited for mono leagues, and the ownership percentages are by way of CBS.
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Heading into the 2015 season, Marcus Stroman was a very popular sleeper/breakout pick. You know, one of those players everyone hypes so much as sleeper material that he no longer actually goes for sleeper prices. In fact, a Google search for “marcus stroman sleeper” yields many articles, some of which include the following quotes:

Stroman is on the verge of breaking out into one of the American League’s best starting pitchers…Stroman’s combination of nasty stuff, good command, and superb FIP has me pinpointing 2015 as a breakout for him.

When the dust settles, the diminutive Stroman could be a top-20 starter in 2015.

There is a real chance that we start associating the word “ace” with Stroman this year.

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It’s September, so innings limits, pitch limits, etc. tend to be a topic of discussion. Some teams are going the way of a six man rotation a la the Mets (well, until Matt Harvey gets shut down for the regular season) or moving starters to the bullpen such as the Nationals and Joe Ross. Regardless of the route teams decide to opt for, here are a few relievers who I suspect will get at least one or two starts in the final weeks.

Tyler Lyons, Cardinals — This is the first name that jumps to my mind when I think of RP/SP guys. He’s already made seven big league starts, and while the Cards aren’t set on a hard limit for Carlos Martinez, both he and Jaime Garcia would probably benefit from an occasional extra day or two of rest, or even a skipped start. Lyons is largely unowned, and is available in over 98 percent of CBS, ESPN and Yahoo! leagues. For someone who owns a 8.07 K/9 (20.2 percent) and a 4.39 FIP/3.91 xFIP in 100 1/3 innings career as a starter, he has uses in deep leagues where you’re looking for a win.
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A couple of weeks ago, I investigated Justin Verlander’s resurgence. I found reasons to validate his hot streak but turned up additional question marks along the way.

One of them was his zone contact rate (Z-Contact%). At 79.7 percent, it would have been the second-lowest of his career by several percentage points (despite not performing “at peak”). However, I realize now, unfortunately, that I must have encountered a glitch in the leaderboards — his Z-Contact% as of August 21 (because the post, despite running the same day as his Aug. 26 start, was published prior to it) was 85.7 percent.

Regardless, it got me thinking what affects a pitcher’s zone contact rate because it correlates very strongly with strikeout rate (R-squared = .594). User DoubleJ speculated about the metric via comment on one of last week’s posts:

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You know it’s late in the season when a Fantasy Baseball blogger can’t think of anything more constructive to do than recommend a Rockies pitcher. But stay with us for a moment, because we think we’re on to something.

More precisely, we think Mike Petriello, late of Fangraphs and dweller in stat Valhalla, was on to something six months ago. In early March of this year, a Denver Post article about Rockies’ starting pitcher Jorge de la Rosa caught his eye. As you no doubt know, Coors Field is a real tough place to pitch. And so it was for De La Rosa from 2008, when he joined the Rockies, through 2012. His home/road splits were big, though not really different from anyone else’s. Then, in 2013 and 2014, a very strange thing happened: De La Rosa was lights-out in Coors, but sub-mediocre everywhere else. Merge his 2013-2014 Coors stats and you have a Cy Young candidate: 29 starts, 20 Wins, 3 Losses, 2.92 ERA, 1.24 WHIP. Merge his two-year stats on the road and you’re in Jeremy Guthrieland: 33 starts, 10 Wins, 14 Losses, 4.66 ERA, 1.38 WHIP. Read the rest of this entry »