Yesterday, I shared and discussed the 10 starting pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched who have outperformed their SIERA marks by the greatest degree. Today is a look at the opposite end of the spectrum — those starters whose ERA has most underperformed their SIERA marks. This could be an early list of pitchers who will be undervalued next season.
We’ve got streaming for steals. We’ve got your streaming two-starters sussed twice over. Tomorrow, I’ll look at some late week streaming for power options.
But today, I’m going to look at ahead at mid-week starters that deserve your attention. You may need to pick them up early, or at least identify them for quick waiver work. Because now is the time for all hands on deck — no more waiting for a bounce-back or a could be or even a should be. If you’re still in it, look at all your roto categories or every position on your head to head bench and ask yourself “What have you done for me lately?”
Morton
Yes, Charlie Morton is 5-12 and just coming back from the disabled list due to a sports hernia, but I like him this week as he faces the Red Sox in a home matchup on Tuesday evening followed by a second start at home against the Brewers.
Read the rest of this entry »
I spent an hour trying to find something relevant to say about the last two weeks of the season but was unsuccessful. Or at least there was no topic worth spending several hundred words on. If you’re looking for a two start streamer in what is likely the last week of your H2H playoffs, look at Blue Jays Marcus Stroman and Drew Hutchison. They’re the most talented pitchers owned in less than 50% of ESPN.com leagues in terms of K-BB% and OPS allowed on balls in play (aka limiting hard contact). Instead, let’s spend a few hundred words quickly running through a way too early top 10 SP list for next year. Read the rest of this entry »
By simply taking the difference between a starting pitcher’s SIERA and ERA, you could quickly identify which guys are likely to be overvalued and undervalued in next year’s drafts and auctions. We do still have a couple of weeks left this season, so things can and will change. But it’s unlikely to change so dramatically so that the players discussed will finish out the year on the opposite list. So let’s talk about some of the biggest SIERA overperformers as these pitchers may be next year’s busts.
This is a weekly series on players I have selectively watched while exercising. Usually, I will concentrate on lesser known players or rookies just getting their first call ups.
Why I watched: A highly touted prospect.
Game Watched: 9/1/14 vs Twins
Game Thoughts
• His fastball is elite. He normally throws it around 94-95 mph, but can change speeds to launch it up to 97 mph. It sometimes has some release side run which makes it about unhittable. For a 4-seam fastball, it gets a good number of groundballs (43% on the season) mainly because he pitches low in the zone.
• Well, that is about it for good news. His other pitches, a change/splitter and slider, are horrible. He couldn’t throw either for strikes and they just don’t have good movement. His change/splitter gets a bit of swing-and-miss because everyone seems gearing up for his fastball which he throws almost all the time. He throws his fastball 72% of the time which is good for the 8th most in the league (min 80 IP).
The Royals recently promoted 2014 draftee Brandon Finnegan to the majors to be a lefty out of the bullpen. So far the 21-year-old has thrown just a couple of relief innings. What I wanted to do is push the limits to discover what type of pitcher Mr. Finnegan may be in the future given this small sample of information. Today, I am concentrating just on his fastball.
Eno has been doing quite a bit of pitch benchmarks and I helped him out with some values. After using these values for a few months, I noticed heavy flyball pitchers like Chris Young and Danny Duffy had vertical movements, as defined be Pitchf/x, near or above 10. On the other end of the spectrum, ground ball pitchers, like Justin Masterson, had a vertical component near or below zero. By knowing the amount of downward break on fastball, I hope to get a range on their ground ball rate (GB%).
Additionally, a fastball is thrown fast with the hope to induce some swing-and-miss. So, additionally I looked to find the average swinging strike rate (SwStr%) just by knowing a pitcher’s velocity. Since velocity stabilizes quickly, just a few pitches will give us an idea of the pitcher speed and hopefully the average amount of swing-and-miss from their fastball.
Collin McWho? That was the question I asked in early May when Collin McHugh had made just three starts. But at the time, he had allowed just six runs over those starts, while posting a sparkling 23/4 K/BB ratio in 19.1 innings. It was a small sample size to be sure, but it’s hard to fluke your way into a 30.7% strikeout rate. So we all took notice and wondered where this performance came from.
On Monday I wrote about Chris Tillman’s success the third time through the lineup this season and how that seemed at odds with his established ability to limit hard contact. It turns out there isn’t much of a relationship between those things, so it’s likely that Tillman is due for some regression when facing batters for a third time in a game going forward. It’s likely because excellent research done by Michael Lichtman shows that a pitcher’s past deviations from the typical decline in performance each time through the lineup is not predictive of future performance. He estimates a pitcher would need about eight full seasons of significantly deviating from the average decline each time through the order before that data would become reliable in a predictive sense.
With that said, let’s look at the starters who have been the best the third time through the lineup this year. Most are regression candidates, but there are a few exceptions. Read the rest of this entry »
Blue Jays starter Marcus Stroman has arrived. OK, that’s not entirely factual. Stroman arrived as a starter in late-May, and has turned in an incredibly strong rookie season. But after Monday’s complete game shutout, Stroman has been hard to brush aside. Over 114.2 innings, the 23-year-old Stroman has a 3.53 ERA and a 2.87 FIP. Those are numbers we expect to see from a long-time veteran, not a rookie. While he still has a few more starts left, it’s worth it to look at how well Stroman compares to some of his more recent colleagues.
