Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

Orion Kerkering

The 22-year-old righty flew through the minors spending time at Low (10 IP) and High-A (20 IP), AA (22 IP), AAA (1 IP), and the majors (3 IP). He has closer material written all over him and won’t be an unknown after making seven post-season experiences where he threw more innings (5.1) than in the major league regular season (3). While in the majors, he posted a combined 11.9 K/9, he struggled with walks (5.4 K/9). In High-A, he posted a 2.7 BB/9 and 2.1 BB/9 in AAA, so walks weren’t always an issue. Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday, Kenta Maeda agreed to a two-year contract with the Tigers, after a three year stint with the Twins. After missing all of 2022 recovering from TJ surgery, he returned this year to post some solid skills. Unfortunately, a triceps injury cost him nearly two months, limiting him to just 104.1 innings. Now on his third MLB team since debuting in 2016, how will the home park switch affect his results? Let’s consult the park factors to find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just over a week ago, Lance Lynn signed a one-year contract with the Cardinals. It marks a triumphant return to the team he started his career with, last pitching while donning their uniform back in 2017. Since, he’s been a member of five different rotations. Now coming off the highest ERA of his career, let’s dive into the park factors to determine whether his new home park might provide an assist in his quest to rebound.

Read the rest of this entry »

Note: For the next few weeks, I’m going to focus on some pitchers who I thought were interesting but haven’t had time to dive in. Most were late-season debuts while others had an arsenal change. Others came of the IL as the season was coming to a close. I’m just going to work through them in alphabetical order and once done, I move to my normal late-round starters.

Tristan Beck

The 27-year-old Beck was a multi-inning reliever until late in the season when he made three starts including five innings of one-run ball on September 30th. He leans into his slider (55% usage, 14% SwStr%) since it is his only above-average pitch. His fastball averaged 94-mph but it didn’t miss many bats (6% SwStr%).

With just the two pitches (showed a horrible curve), he struggled the second time through the order when starting (5.97 xFIP) and relieving (4.82 xFIP). For his fantasy value to increase, he needs another average secondary or his fastball to take a step forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Today we move on to reviewing Steamer’s favorite starting pitchers compared to THE BAT. As a reminder, Steamer actually proved closer in projected dollar value than THE BAT for all six of the latter’s favorites. Will THE BAT sweep Steamer’s favorites? Let’s find out.

Read the rest of this entry »

After finishing our review of projected hitter dollar value compared to actual, let’s now skip on over to starting pitchers. We’ll start by reviewing THE BAT’s favorite starters, with projected dollar values significantly higher than Steamer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part one of this installment looked at four-seam fastballs and cutters. Part two analyzed sinkers and splitters. Part three, our final act, will detail sliders, curveballs, and changeups.

Read the rest of this entry »

pVals are a topic of debate among pitch-level data masterminds. One side may consider them useless. Good pitches get hit and bad pitches get taken for strikes and pVals don’t explain any of that. On the other side, people like to know what actually happened. If a splitter left in the middle of the zone gets a called third strike when it probably should have been mashed for a home run, then pVals still credit the pitcher. The strikeout is what actually happened.

Keep in mind as you peruse this season’s best fastballs just that; pVals aren’t perfect. You’ll read about Chris Bassitt’s sinker and think, Chris Bassitt is a clear candidate for being drafted, but read on and you may back away from that stance. pVals help us understand what occurred, but take caution when using them to predict what will happen. Confused? Let’s just watch some GIFs.

Part one of this installment looked at four-seam fastballs and cutters. Part two will focus on sinkers and splitters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the final ERA forecast review as part of the 2023 projection showdown. We finish up with six more of Steamer’s ERA favorites compared to THE BAT. Let’s see which system fared better.

Read the rest of this entry »

Unlike the other projection showdowns, I decided to go a bit deeper on the ERA forecasts, reviewing the next six names on each system’s bullish list. Today, we’ll jump back into THE BAT’s starting pitcher ERA favorites. As a reminder, these were the system’s top six.

Read the rest of this entry »