Yesterday, the Phillies announced that they simply couldn’t go any longer without Juan Pierre and so they decided to acquire his clone, Ben Revere. It cost them Vance Worley, which opens up a rotation spot for a new face. We still have a long ways to go in the off-season, so the team could very well sign another starter to replace Worley. But for this piece, let’s assume they replace him internally and check out their options.
How many times have you had to rely on Joe Blanton? You don’t have to be ashamed, just admit it, we’ve all been there. It’s the last day of your fantasy matchup, and you’re looking for the one spot-starter who could give you a slim advantage. No matter what stat you try and sort by, Blanton always seems to top the list. Desperate, you take the chance and hope it doesn’t come back to bite you. In his career, Blanton has been the perfect AAAA player in fantasy leagues. Good enough to either be the last man on your roster, or the top choice on the waiver wire. Does joining the Angels change his value?
The Washington Nationals found a new one-year pitcher to replace Edwin Jackson. This time, it’s Dan Haren coming to the capital for $13 million for the 2013 season. The projections up on this site are upbeat about his chances at a bounce-back, but those projections aren’t privy to the doctor’s reports. Neither are we, really, but we do know that there are problems with Dan Haren’s body.
Thanks to two excellent researchers, we have two different pitcher xBABIPs nestled within the posts on this site.
Matt Swartz has an xBABIP that’s part of SIERA. He was nice enough to re-run it with all pitchers with 40 innings pitched or more for 2003-12. He did not adjust for usage by weighting pitchers with high IP more heavily, but he did regress BABIP using factors that his research has shown to influence the number. His pitcher xBABIP formula is:
BABIP = .290 + .045*GB% – .103*K%.
Steve Staude used batted ball data to find a pitcher xBABIP in the Community Blog a while back. Of course, the weakness of a model using line drive percentage is the fickleness of that stat from stadium to stadium and year to year, but it does make a lot of sense intuitively: give up fewer frozen ropes and you’ll give up fewer hits. His regression led him to the following pitcher xBABIP formula:
xBABIP = 0.4*LD% – 0.6*FB%*IFFB% + 0.235
On Wednesday, I dove into the recently published Bill James projections and examined how they compared with the actual performances of some of this past season’s biggest surprises on the hitting side. Today I check into some of the most surprising starting pitchers of the year.
On Monday, I looked at the top hitters according to the recently added Bill James Handbook Projections. Today, I will see how the projection system sees the pitchers performing this season.
In 2009, Ricky Nolasco was the poster boy for performing well below your predictors. His ERA ended at 5.06 while his FIP suggested 3.35. This disparity was in large part due to his high strikeouts and modest walk rate which collided with an abnormally low strand rate and piles of hits allowed. He was a classic buy low kind of guy in fantasy circles, with most expecting a major improvement in 2010.
Nolasco did improve, but not by a whole lot. And what’s happened since then is he has continued to underperform his FIP, and yet he has very much declined in performance. This can be summed up pretty quickly:
Here’s a quick recap of the whirlwind last 12 months or so of Jeremy Guthrie’s life, and you tell me which of these items seems to jump out at you the most:
For me, it’s that last point that immediately stands out. Three years! For the age-34-to-36 seasons of Jeremy Guthrie! You might say that it’s another case of “Dayton Moore being Dayton Moore”, and you might be right, but with the way the market seems to be going in the world of inflated television money, that might just end up being the going rate for someone of Guthrie’s skill. That’s terrifying to accept, though it’s part of a conversation that is far larger than just Jeremy Guthrie. Read the rest of this entry »
There were quite a few reasons to be concerned about Hiroki Kuroda last season. At age-37, he was reaching a point where few pitchers are able to remain at the top of their game. He was also moving from the NL West to the AL East, and a home ballpark that is friendly to hitters. Despite all of those concerns, Kuroda was masterful once again. Over the past three seasons, Kuroda has been as consistent as they come. Kuroda’s good for a mid-3.00 ERA, with solid strikeout, and low walk, totals. While that level of consistency is uncommon with a player of his age, the now 38-year-old pitcher hasn’t shown any signs of decline just yet.
David Price was awfully good in 2012. So good, that he earned himself some hardware which has been hotly debated in recent days. Fortunately, I’m not here to contribute to that conversation (argument). I’m simply here to wonder if we’ve yet to see the best from Price, and if not, what we might reasonably expect in his follow up to a career season.
Looking back over the last twelve American League Cy Young winners, it appears that it’s more the norm to underperform your Cy standard. This is far from scientific, it’s merely an observation, and a small sample observation at that: