Conclusions first: Those who drafted Zack Greinke didn’t do so to have him sitting on their bench for half of his starts. Those who have invested either the draft pick or the talent it would take in order to get him via trade, should be getting the full value out of him and starting him every time the Brewers give him the ball, because even when he’s not pitching well, he’s still seldom that far below average. His two worst starts of the season happen to have come on the road: His 3.2 IP, 8 ER effort in Chicago and his 2.1 IP, 7 ER shelling at the hands of the Diamondbacks were both aberrations even for his road struggles. While he hasn’t set the world alight in his other sojourns away from Milwaukee, he’s hardly pitched the Brewers out of those games.

Still…it’s unusual that Greinke has been so much worse on the road than he has been at Miller Park, right? Read the rest of this entry »

Two youngsters this week, one a corner bat off to a dreadful start and another a starting pitcher yet to throw a big league inning…

Ike Davis | 1B | Mets | Owned: 38% Yahoo! and 27.0% ESPN

Things seem to be slowly coming around for Davis, who at -0.8 WAR, is no longer the worst player in baseball (Brennan Boesch at -1.1 WAR). He has a neat little eight-game hitting streak going that includes a monster three games against the Rays — 6-for-11 with a double, a homer, three walks, and two strikeouts — and has raised his OPS nearly 100 points. More importantly, his batted ball profile is starting to look like a power hitter’s…

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Last week, I decided to compare the SIERA marks of starting pitchers over the last 30 days with what they posted in April. The idea here was to identify potential RoS breakout candidates whose ERAs still might be hiding major improvement over the last month. Today I will look at the opposite side of the coin, those starters whose skills have declined over the last month. These pitchers might still have good ERAs and may still command a nice return in trade.

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A week ago, I looked at the 10 pitchers with the largest difference between their ERA and SIERA marks; those whose ERAs have outperformed their SIERA. These were the pitchers you can expect to disappoint in the near future. Today I look at the opposite end of the spectrum, the potential improvers whose ERA has underperformed their SIERA marks.

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Though I have no math to back this up, anecdotally (is that a word? the red underline of death is appearing underneath it as I type!) it seems as if pitchers suddenly improve mid-season much more frequently than hitters. In other words, the light bulb goes on and a pitcher’s skills will surge in a hurry. I decided to compare SIERA over the last 30 days with SIERA in April for all starting pitchers (this was originally meant to only include American Leaguers, since I’m the AL SP man, but my mind was apparently elsewhere and I forgot to filter, oops) to see who has enjoyed the biggest declines in the metric. This is a great way to identify RoS breakout candidates by looking beyond just the ERA leaders for the month.

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Last season, en route to their surprise division championship and NLCS appearance, the Diamondbacks got 24 starts out of the rather unheralded Josh Collmenter. As a starter at the back end of the rotation, Collmenter could hardly have been better for the Diamondbacks, giving them a 1.07 WHIP and 3.38 ERA over 154 innings, but he left fantasy owners in something of a conundrum. Yes, his rate stats were a great asset, but he had more than five strikeouts in a start just twice during the season; in the vast majority of his starts, he struck out four or fewer hitters. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s deep league waiver wire highlights an outfielder I am somewhat shocked still has such a low ownership percentage and a pitcher who you should get an early jump on.

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It may surprise some, considering this high ERA and low strikeout rate compared to his career average, but Josh Johnson actually has the seventh highest WAR of any pitcher in baseball. Despite having a similar FIP and xFIP as he has over the past number of years, his ERA has ballooned to 4.27, which makes me see a great buy low opportunity in Johnson.

As mentioned, his strikeouts are down compared to his career average. His 20.1% strikeout rate is certainly low for a pitcher with the kind of stuff and history that Johnson has, as he has struck out 22.1% of batters for his career and 25% in his last season of 180 or more innings, but he has complimented his lower strikeout rate with a lower walk rate as well. With his fastball velocity down to 93 miles per hour from the 94.9 its as in 2009, he has had to alter the way he pitches. In his two previous 180+ inning seasons, his walk rate was lower than it is now, but his current 7% walk rate is lower than the 8% mark he has for his career. This has allowed him to net a 2.87 K/BB rate, slightly better than his career 2.76 ratio.

Where Johnson is getting killed is in his BABIP, which currently sits at .360. Although there must always be a disclaimer of potential scoring bias when looking at line drive rate, his line drive rate of 25.4% does correlate with a higher BABIP, but the substantial increase seems unwarranted.

Owners will notice that he has a 3.16 ERA over his past four starts, but that does not mean that he cannot be acquired for a discounted price. If a team is pitching deep and owns Johnson, they could be willing to move him for something else at this point, as his overall performance has not quite lived up to expectations — though he did get drafted at a discount due to his injury history.

The injury history is certainly always a worry with Johnson, but it is good to see him go through the first third of the season unscathed. He is on pace for 207 innings, which would mark only his second season above the 200 inning threshold. The opportunity for injury is always there, which could also be played into the equation when attempting to acquire him. Is he the most attractive target ever due to his recent success and his injury history? No, but he still has been a similarly productive pitcher as when he posted a 2.64 ERA in 453 innings between 2009 and 2011. The fact that he has more-or-less pitched just as effectively but seen poor results should help any pitching starved team looking to acquire a potential ace-type reliever at a lower cost than usual.

Every so often, I like to look at the difference between starting pitchers’ SIERA and ERA marks and rank them to determine who has been luckiest and unluckiest according to the former metric. This is an especially important exercise to do during trading season, both when looking to identify pitchers to trade for and which pitchers you own you should be looking to sell. Today I present the SIERA outperformers, those whose ERA is most below their SIERA marks. These are your potential sell high candidates.

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His start today against the Cardinal’s right-handed heavy offense will certainly be a very big test, but I still like J.A. Happ for the rest of the season.

Happ has improved most of his meaningful, predictive numbers. His strikeout rate is way up, at 23.1% (9.05 K/9) against a career average of 19.2% (7.39 K/9) and his walk rate has actually dropped to 8.5% (3.34 BB/9) against a career rate of 10.3% (3.99). The improvement of his strikeout and walk rates have allowed him to record a reasonable 2.71 K/BB, which is significantly better than the 1.85 mark he has for his career. While a 2.71 K/BB rate is not a tremendous number, it does show that he has improved.

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