If you happen to be a FG+ subscriber, and you happen to have visited Justin Masterson’s page, and you happen to have read his 2014 FanGraphs+ Profile, you saw these lines: “Fantasy owners will look at his 2010-11-12-13 roller coaster and be nervous. I’ll be buying at the discounted price and laughing all the way to the fantasy-value bank.”

As the author of those lines, I feel it is my responsibility to address what has been an all-around putrid start to the season from the supposed ace of a playoff-contending staff. Besides, I own Masterson across multiple leagues and my own nerves would probably benefit from some analysis.

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We know very little this early into the season. Your Roto position matters little, your sleepers struggling doesn’t mean a great deal (unless it can impact playing time, and closers, well, we know about as much now as we did in the preseason: zilch.

However, the “small sample size” caveats will, eventually, begin to fade. And in fact, there may actually be some information we can glean from the early going, at least as it pertains to pitcher strikeout rates.

Strikeout rates are among the first statistics to stabilize. “70” is not a magic number, but after about 70 batters faced, a majority of the future variance (R2=0.5) in strikeout rate can be explained by strikeout rate to date. That is, after 70 batters faced, pitcher strikeout rate has begun to “stabilize.”
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Tony Cingrani has one pitch, or at least that’s how our conversation started. Michael Pineda has two, or at least that’s why I’ve been skeptical of him. Maybe thinking about these two pitchers can help us understand the relative importance of each type of pitch a little better.

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Prior to the season, I wrote an article in which I warned fantasy owners to stay away from Yovani Gallardo on draft day. I cited his velocity decline, his decreased strikeout rate, his decrease swinging-strike rate, and his increasingly-ineffective curveball. I mentioned how he could experience a bounce-back season, but the right-hander would need to reverse a couple of those worrisome trends.

After a trio of starts this year, however, Gallardo has thrown the ball brilliantly. He’s tossed a quality start in every outing. He owns a 0.96 ERA and 2.23 FIP, and the Milwaukee Brewers have won all three of his starts. He also has a .333 OBP at the dish, which is largely irrelevant, but I love when pitchers aren’t inept at the plate and it does mark the first time the hurler drew a walk since 2011.

So, where did the preseason analysis go awry? To put it differently, where has Yovani Gallardo shown improvement and what didn’t I see coming into this season?

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On Thursday, I discussed the American League starting pitchers who have experienced the largest changes in their fastball velocity since last season. Although still extremely early, and at a time where velocities are at their lowest points of the season, the data stabilizes rather quickly and still provides a ton of insight. Today we’ll check in on the National Leaguers.

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Pitchers tend to post a better ERA in April than any other month. That’s usually blamed on various factors ranging from weather to hitters working on their timing. Even though April is a good month for pitching, it doesn’t mean everyone pitches well. Some good pitchers have struggled this April, and you might be able to acquire them cheaply.

Let’s reflect on human nature. We all know not to overreact to a couple bad starts. Yet according to experiments, we can’t help but frame a player’s value based on his performance. I may know that Cliff Lee is a great pitcher going forward, but his 6.00 ERA may still trick me into selling low on him.

Here’s a big old dashboard of the 38 starting pitchers with an ERA of 4.50 or higher through April 9. Or you can head straight to the dashboard itself.

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We’re only a week and a half into the season and therefore no American League starting pitchers have started more than two games. With such a tiny sample size to work with, there simply isn’t enough data to analyze that would yield any sort of insight. However, we know that velocity stabilizes very quickly and so it would therefore be worthwhile to check in on the biggest velocity surgers and decliners. Velocity gradually increases as the season wears on, so it would be most accurate to compare current velocities with last April. However, too many pitchers came up later in the year and had no velocity readings to compare to. So to make things easier, I am comparing to the full season.

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Padres pitcher Ian Kennedy is ready for a rebound. After just 11 innings, it’s starting to look like his move to San Diego will pay off. Kennedy opened the year as a late-round flyer in most fantasy leagues. After three years of consistent production in Arizona, everything seemed to fall apart for Kennedy last season. Kennedy not only walked more batters, but also saw his home run rate jump to obscene levels. This continued even after a mid-season trade to one of the largest parks in the game. When the dust settled, Kennedy’s ERA was a disappointing 4.91. Since he wasn’t an elite option before the drop-off, Kennedy became nothing more than late-round fodder. Based on what he’s shown thus far, it looks like the old Kennedy is back.

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Week 1 is in the books, and with the tiny sample size comes the emergence of several deep league options, overlooked on draft day, who are providing hope that they can help owners in the immediate term.
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Nathan Eovaldi followed up his 2014 debut — three runs, six hits, eight strikeouts, no walks in seven innings — with another strong performance Sunday. He lost the game, but eight strikeouts against no walks in seven innings is impressive, even when set against three earned runs on six hits. Is he a must-acquire suddenly? After all, he’s averaging over 96 on his fastball.

I remain skeptical, but I’m always willing to admit I’m wrong, so it is without biases that I try to appraise Eovaldi’s 2014 arsenal.

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