Bud Norris had kind of a reputation as a hard-throwing but hittable right hander who could rack up some decent strikeouts, but had problems with his control and serious problems getting left handed batters out. The latter was an increasing issue as teams continued to stack their lineups with left-handed heavy approaches, and in fact in 2013, Norris gave up more hits to innings pitched than he had in his entire career.
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Chris Archer lived up to expectations in 2014. While Archer’s performance during his rookie season was strong, there were still some questions about his ability moving forward. His 3.22 ERA was strong, but his 4.07 FIP indicated things weren’t as rosy as they appeared. On top of that, there were questions about Archer’s ability to retain a manageable walk rate. There was also the issue of Archer relying on mostly two pitches, which led to some unfavorable numbers against left-handers.
Archer put most of those concerns to bed in 2014. There was no regression due to luck. In fact, Archer’s ERA and FIP nearly matched. While his walk rate did jump slightly, it remained at an acceptable level. And lefties, well, they were hardly an issue the second time around.
Heading into his second full season, Wily Peralta got some sleeper love and it was easy to see why. A high octane fastball that averaged 94.8 mph last year, ranking fourth in velocity among qualified starters, will always get fantasy owners excited. And although his 2013 strikeout rate was an uninspiring 16.1%, he posted much better marks throughout his minor league career, suggesting potential for upside if he could translate his stuff into results. For those who looked past the inflated ERA and below average control and imagined what could be, you were duly rewarded with a 3.53 ERA and 17 wins.
Like, not that he’s throwing his curveball with his changeup, at the same time, although that’d be a cool trick (and probably the toughest pitch to hit in baseball). Like, maybe Gio Gonzalez wants to throw his changeup more often, and that has thrown the Washington Nationals, his outcomes, and/or fantasy baseball players for a bit of a loop.
Gonzalez’s overall numbers (a 3.57 ERA, 24.8 K%, 8.6 BB%, and 1.20 WHIP) weren’t too shabby. His ERA was notably worse than his FIP for the first time since 2009, though. You might even look at the career-worst BABIP against him in a season of at least 100 innings (.294) and LOB% (71.0) and say, Oh, that’s just a little bad luck, sign me up next time!
That’ll probably work out, but I hope to find a little more of the why. I’ve started to wonder if Gonzalez didn’t also have a bit of a transition/growth period in 2014 as he began to prepare himself for his 30s. Maybe he’ll be better and a little more dependable.
You’ve heard me yammering about pitch-type peripherals for two years now, and we’ve made some advancements along the way. We established some good pitch-type peripheral benchmarks, and we took a first look at properly weighting each pitch. We’ve started to get a sense of how these things interact when it comes to the shape and speed of pitches. We’re making progress.
It’s worth stepping back and figuring out what the aim is at this point. Because we aren’t trying to rank the best starting pitchers overall, really. We’re trying to find undervalued pitchers before the market realizes that they’re good. So we have to move in the smallest possible samples. And we want to have a list of great pitchers that has some weird names on it as well. Those names, we hope, will soon start to make sense.
So, to that end, I’ve taken each pitch type and looked at only those pitchers that have thrown 100+ in each of those types. I’ve summed the ground-ball and swinging strike rates for each pitch, and then found the standard deviations. I’ve given each pitcher a z-score for his ground-ball rate and swinging strike rate on each pitch type. Then I’ve summed the z-scores for each pitch type, and then for each pitcher.
What we should be looking at is an Arsenal Score. With this way of looking at things, it’s possible to have one dominating pitch and still score well. Or a group of lesser pitches that are all positive.
What we haven’t done yet is nail down what the smallest sample for each pitch is. Or how to weight the pitches. Or how to weight the whiffs versus the grounders. So this may look different once we weight each pitch differently, and if we find a way to weight grounders and whiffs more correctly.
But at least we have a first attempt at it here.
The White Sox were busy conscripting new talent these last few weeks. While the club still has weaknesses, the top of the rotation is well-addressed with Chris Sale, Jeff Samardzija, and the topic of today’s analysis, Jose Quintana. He’s coming off a season in which he threw over 200 innings with nine wins, 178 strikeouts, a 3.32 ERA and 1.24 WHIP. You might be surprised to learn the total package was worth only $5. Per FantasyPros, his average cost was just $2, so his owners still made a decent bargain.
Julio Teheran followed up his breakout 2013 season with a 2014 campaign that was in many ways superior, increasing his WAR from 2.5 to 3.2 and finishing 14th among starting pitchers, according to Zach Sanders’ end of the season rankings.
I could recite a list of statistics here to emphasize this point, or, for expediency’s sake, present a chart that neatly compares the two seasons head to head:
| YEAR | INNINGS | W-L | WHIP | K/9 | BB/9 | ERA | FIP | xFIP | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 185.2 | 14-8 | 1.17 | 8.2 | 2.2 | 3.20 | 3.69 | 3.76 | .288 |
| 2014 | 221 | 14-13 | 1.08 | 7.6 | 2.1 | 2.89 | 3.49 | 3.72 | .267 |
It’s hard to find fault with that kind of output, especially given that Teheran was listed 34th in Zach’s preseason rankings, and for the former can’t–miss prospect, 2014 seemed a perfect second step on his path toward fantasy excellence.
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I have been a Brett Anderson fan since his early minor league days. A pitcher with an extreme ground ball tendency that also has above average strikeout ability and possesses excellent control is a pitcher that will always excite me. Furthermore, that pitcher also made his home in an excellent environment, with his pitcher friendly home park and good defense behind him. Unfortunately, pitching for the Athletics and displaying an intriguing set of skills mattered little when he simply couldn’t stay on the field.
First you establish that Jake Arrieta and Collin McHugh both soared to new heights due to throwing their breaking balls much more than they ever had before. Then you worry about their elbows.
Despite possessing above average fastball velocity, Jordan Zimmermann has generally posted strikeout rates right around the league average. Part of the reason for the disappointing strikeout totals is because he throws his fastball quite frequently. From 2011 to 2013, his fastball usage ranked 29th among 125 qualified starters. We know that the fastball easily sports the lowest SwStk% among all pitch types. So throwing the pitch often is naturally going to result in fewer swings and misses on average.
