So far this season the MLB average Zone% among starters is 41.6%. It’s slightly less among relievers at 40.9%, but we’re not concerning ourselves with those guys in this study. I recently heard a broadcaster say something along the lines of, “He’s throwing strikes, he’s keeping them in the game”. It’s not a direct quote and I don’t even remember who said it, but I do remember that the statement made me think. Does throwing the ball consistently in the zone make a starter more likely to record the win?

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When a highly touted pitcher comes into the league in this day and age, he usually has a few pitches that look like they are being enchanted by some wizard sitting in the stands. Kind of like how he-who-must-not-be-named did Harry that one time. GIFs, tweets, and threads get sent out pumping the young pitcher up. Pitch model scores, many of which are not standardized, get thrown out without explanation, and everyone pays too much in auction bids.

Stuff+ is nice because we have a dedicated glossary page to help explain it. I am curious about the pitchers who have great Stuff+ scores but do not perform. There’s a clear relationship between this year’s ERA and overall Stuff+ scores when looking at starting pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched:

In this post I will investigate the outliers; those who have bad Stuff+ scores and solid results by ERA and those with great Stuff+ scores, but poor results. We’ll start with the group showing decent results and doing it with mediocre stuff:

Bad Stuff, Good Results
Perhaps I could conclude the article here with a simple statement; don’t walk batters. None of the good results pitchers are walking more than 2.6 batters per nine innings and all of the bad results pitchers are walking more than 3. The question is, are these pitchers just getting lucky or are they control artists who put the ball in play and let their defense take over?

Eduardo Rodriguez: 84 Stuff+, 105 Location+, 100 Pitching+
His xERA is higher than his ERA but his Location+, which you can assume relates to walk rate, is what is fueling his success. E-Rod does have a solid slider by Stuff+ (104.0), but the rest of his pitches are below 100 Stuff+ and his fastball dips all the way down to 73.0. Remember that “Location+ only looks at actual locations and implicitly assumes the intent is generally the same across the league in certain counts with certain pitches” and Rodriguez has done a decent job of limiting walks with a 6.1% BB%.

Bryce Elder: 75 Stuff+, 100 Location+, 97 Pitching+
It’s very possible that Elder has simply been lucky in 77 innings pitched so far this season as his ERA of 2.69 is significantly different from his xERA of 4.01. His best pitch by Stuff+ is the slider and, according to Pitcher List it is below average in O-Swing%, Zone%, and CSW%. But, the other aspect of Elder’s game is a 100 Location+, and much of that score has to do with his ability to get groundballs with his sinker.

Bailey Ober: 83 Stuff+, 104 Location+, 102 Pitching+
What stands out in Ober’s stat line? A 5.6% HR/FB% and that is a volatile metric, especially in the early part of the season. His ERA (2.61)/xERA (3.53) shows he likely got lucky on a few balls that stayed in the yard, but he like Elder has decent Location+ measures and his 102 Pitching+ is the best of these four starters. As is written in the Pitching+ section of our glossary:

Pitching+ has a lower RMSE when compared to on-field results (ERA) than most projection systems. In season, Pitching+ begins to beat pre-season projections by around the 400th pitch, or four or five starts in.

Ober may not be racking up strikeouts and his above-average fly-ball rate is a little worrisome, especially as air temperatures warm up, but his Pitching+ measures give some indication that he could realistically be a 3.50 ERA pitcher the rest of the way.

Kyle Freeland: 64 Stuff+, 102 Location+, 92 Pitching+
Locating pitches with poor-performing stuff seems scary from a fantasy standpoint. But, Location+ isn’t Zone% in that it doesn’t just mean he is throwing strikes all the time. He’s placing the ball in the right location given the situation. Unfortunately, he has the highest HR/9 and the lowest K/9 in this group. His actual ERA is creeping up near 4.00 and there’s nothing in his profile that makes you think he can stay below 4.00 for much longer.

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Good Stuff, Bad Results
Here we have talented pitchers whose stuff is off the charts but who find themselves with ERA’s above 6.00. These are the pitchers who will get you strikeouts, but will also hurt your ratios. Take a young pitcher like Grayson Rodriguez for example. His cutter has a low Stuff+ score of 76.0, but his four-seamer is well above average at 110. Just look at the slash lines (BA/SLG/wOBA) of opposing hitters on the two:

Cutter – .333/.889/.533
Four-seamer – .395/.750/.508

Opposing hitters got to the four-seamer in Rodriguez’s short stint at a near .400 average and he put the ball in the zone often:

So what gives?

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Grayson Rodriguez: 103 Stuff+, 99 Location+, 102 Pitching+
Here are some metrics from G-Rod’s last three starts in AAA:

On June 3rd, he walked too many batters once again, but didn’t give up a home run and only gave up one hit. Then, in his last two starts, he gave up a home run in each game, but limited walks and increased his strikeouts. There is a pattern between when Rodriguez puts the ball in the zone and when it gets hit out of the park and in 2023, his four-seamer has left the yard six times and his cutter three times. His four-seamer may have a decent movement profile, but it’s getting hit very hard 62.7% of the time. His slider (107), curveball (119), and fastball (110) all grade out above average from a Stuff+ perspective, but he needs to command each pitch more effectively to take a step forward:

To be honest, I’m not sure why his four-seamer has such good Stuff+ metrics and gets hit so hard, but it may have something to do with that 99 Location+ measurements. It’s clear that he is putting his secondaries where he shouldn’t and perhaps that fastball needs to just come up in the zone a little further to be effective.

Graham Ashcraft: 124 Stuff+, 97 Location+, 100 Pitching+
Ashcraft’s slider Stuff+ is an insane 162 and is better than every starting pitcher with at least 60 innings pitched. Yet, Ashcraft has the third-worst ERA (6.78) in that group. Simply put, he has poor command as shown by his Location+ and Savant heatmaps:

His 2023 sinker has an xSLG of .756 and though his slider is excellent from a Stuff+ standpoint, it’s given up five home runs so far this season. Match that with his high 4.15 BB/9 and you have a recipe for a high ERA.

Jameson Taillon: 101 Stuff+, 103 Location+, 102 Pitching+
I think Taillon’s curveball savant heatmap tells a story:

When it’s left up in the zone, it gets tacked. When he locates it down, it’s a very useful pitch. If he can bring down his 3.17 BB/9, he could start to see his ERA of 6.70 fall back in line with his xERA of 5.57.

Nick Pivetta: 110 Stuff+, 98 Location+, 101 Pitching+
With only 40 innings pitched so far this year, Pivetta has huge Stuff+ numbers on his slider, curveball, and fastball. But he has the highest BB/9 out of this sub-group. His Location+ tells us that he’s not commanding his pitches. His four-seamer is catching too much of the zone:

Like G-Rod, he could benefit from elevating just slightly. If he can do that and start to develop a decent-looking splitter, he could start to bring more fantasy value to the season.

Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence.

A few general schedule notes first:

• The Cubs and Cardinals play in the MLB London Series next weekend which means they’re both off on Friday for travel. The last time teams played in England, the Yankees and Red Sox combined for 50 total runs across two games. The dimensions of London Stadium are particularly small — it would be the shortest center field fence in the majors — so avoiding the four pitchers scheduled to start this series would be prudent.
• They aren’t the only team with a weird travel schedule next week. The Nationals and Diamondbacks are scheduled to play a make-up game on Thursday. That means Arizona will play in Milwaukee to start the week, head to Washington for a single game, and then fly all the way across the country to San Francisco for their weekend series.
• Teams with more traditionally tough schedules include the Angels, Braves, and Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani manages to avoid pitching in Coors Field but he still has to face the Dodgers offense in his start next week. Based on his struggles recently, you’re probably better off sitting Spencer Strider in both of his starts next week. Atlanta plays in a couple of hitter friendly venues against teams who are playing particularly well recently.
• I’ve only been calculating these matchup scores for a few weeks now, but the Reds somehow managed to pull a zero in their series against the Braves. That’s pretty incredible. Just for reference, that means they’re facing the best road offense and the best offense over the last two weeks in the worst venue for home runs in the majors.
• Teams with easier schedules include the Pirates, Tigers, and Twins. All of Minnesota’s rotation has been a must-start for practically the entire season, but they’ve all got pretty cushy matchups next week. Detroit’s and Pittsburgh’s rotations are a little hit-or-miss, but there are some key contributors who should be easy starts next week.

Notable two-start pitchers:

• Tyler Glasnow
• Gerrit Cole
• Pablo López
• George Kirby
• José Berríos
• Garrett Whitlock
• Merrill Kelly
• Michael Wacha
• Alex Cobb
• Framber Valdez
• Max Scherzer
• Corbin Burnes
• Clayton Kershaw
• Bailey Ober
• Johan Oviedo
• Ranger Suárez
• Aaron Civale
• Michael Lorenzen

The “ability” of a pitcher to consistently beat his ERA estimators will always be a discussion top. Today, I’m going to put context on who has suppressed their ERA for two straight seasons and how they performed in the third season. I’ve been trying to see if I have missed anything while digging into under and overperforming starts and found that I might have missed the obvious, the starter’s team.

Before getting to the team context, here are the baseline chances for starting pitchers to consistently beat certain ERA benchmarks. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s continue reviewing rookie starting pitchers with a dive into another group.

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Let’s review some of the rookie pitchers, all of whom were top prospects heading into the season.

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It’s not quite sh*tposting, but it’s close: I post a cryptic poll on Twitter and just let it do its thing. It is, to frame it in this week’s Internet meme jargon, my “beige flag,” my desire to sow chaos by dripping a drop of blood into shark-infested waters.

Here’s my most-recent artistic masterpiece:

miller

— Alex "Oxlade" Chamberlain (@DolphHauldhagen) June 11, 2023

It seemed like Mason, Bryce, and Bobby all tied or set some kind of record this season, each of them one-upping his predecessor from the the prior week or month or whatever it was. It’s all happening so fast, these Millers.

The poll went exactly how I expected: Read the rest of this entry »

There are few things worse than a big bust with one of the first starting pitchers you drafted. Not only because of the practical value they return (or rather, don’t return) but often so much of draft strategy depends on who you choose as your SP 1/2. And when they go belly up, so too quickly can your entire team.

With that said, let’s take a peek at the pitch mixes of a trio of pitching heartbreakers who were elite fantasy options in 2022 and were drafted as such in 2023 but have come crashing down to earth for the first third of the season, possibly blowing up our chances for championships along with them. But instead of the overall, let’s focus on the worst of the worst. That is, which of their pitches have most been the Fredo to our formerly Sonny rosters. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.

I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence.

A few general schedule notes first:

• After working through a tough schedule this week, the Twins have a couple of easier matchups next week at home; the Brewers are much weaker on the road and have been really struggling recently and the Tigers have one of the worst offenses in the league no matter where they’re playing. The Braves also have a pretty nice schedule next week, with three in Detroit and then four games at home against the Rockies.
• The Astros and Rangers both have a pretty tough pair of home series next week. Houston will host the Nationals and Reds, both of which might seem like easy matchups, but both teams have been hitting pretty well recently. Texas hosts the high powered Angels and Blue Jays offenses and trying to avoid matchups against those two teams seems more justifiable. Still, with the way they’ve been pitching recently, you’re probably not going to sit Nathan Eovaldi or Jon Gray right now.
• The Rockies head out on the road next week but they’ve got two really bad matchups lined up which means you’re probably sitting their starters if you happen to be rostering any of them.
• Good luck trying to figure out which starters to start in that Dodgers-Giants series next weekend. Both teams have extremely low matchup ratings, a confluence of the home run friendly ballpark, the strength of San Francisco’s lineup on the road, and the always dangerous Los Angeles offense.

Notable two-start pitchers:

• Pablo López
• Zack Wheeler
• Zach Eflin
• Logan Gilbert
• Charlie Morton
• Jesús Luzardo
• James Paxton
• Tanner Bibee
• Jon Gray
• Hunter Brown
• Chris Bassitt
• Joe Musgrove
• Tony Gonsolin
• Logan Webb

Yesterday, I discussed six fantasy relevant starting pitchers who have most underperformed their SIERA marks. Now let’s flip over to the overperformers.

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