In early February, I wrote a post for “FG+” that endeavored to sniff out starting pitchers who either over-performed or underperformed their inherent strikeout ability. Inspired by Zack Greinke, Tommy Hanson, and Anibal Sanchez, among others – there were many starters that saw pretty massive fluctuations in their strikeout performance between 2010 and 2011. Being the curious human I am, I wanted answers. Or at least a direction on the path of finding an answer.

Specifically, this little study sought out to create an “expected” strikeout rate by controlling for their prior year K%, current year (2011) K%, SwStr%, and fastball velocity (definitions of correlations and the r-squared of the model at the bottom of this post). The results were pretty interesting, should you happen to have access to the full piece.

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Welcome to an all Padres, all the time edition of the deep league waiver wire. As you all know, Padres pitchers are the ones you want. And given how starters are dropping like flies recently, it is likely some of you are hunting for someone with a pulse, with the hope that this someone may not actually kill your ratios.

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Drew Smyly wasn’t supposed to be here. Going into the season, it was the more heralded Jacob Turner that was supposed to move into the Detroit Tigers’ starting rotation. But then shoulder woes felled Turner, and the young southpaw with the happy last name and 46.1 innings in the high minors got the call.

The response was muted. Smyly was supposedly the kind of polished college lefty that would give Minor League hitters the fits — but then possibly have muted upside in the Major Leagues. His fastball is low nineties, not mid nineties. Maybe his secondary stuff isn’t the whiffiest. Maybe he’ll be forced to come into the zone more in the Majors.

So far, though, he’s been smiling in the face of his detractors. Well, he did have a bout with lesser control in his debut, but since then he’s been in a groove. Should we re-evaluate his upside? Should mixed-leaguers be picking him up?

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Philip Humber had quite the weekend. After throwing the 21st Perfect Game in Major League Baseball history, there’s a good chance fantasy owners have already taken notice. After a strong breakout last season — in which he posted a 3.10 ERA — Humber struggled during the second half, lowering his draft stock this season. But after his strong start this year, Humber has jumped back on the fantasy radar. While it’s just been two starts, Humber is working with a new approach that could make him a valuable fantasy asset.

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On Saturday, I took an early look at the 10 starting pitchers who have seen their average fastball velocity increase the most. Since velocity tends to gradually increase into the summer, I wanted to only capture the pitcher’s last start, and decided to use the “Last 7 Days” Split filter. In fact, there is a far greater number of starters whose velocity is down than whose velocity is up. Today, I will use that same method, but instead focus on the 10 starters whose velocity has declined the most. This is not the list you want to see your fantasy starter on!

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Fastball velocity is one of the most important numbers to focus on in a pitcher’s statistical toolbox. It has a high correlation with strikeout rate and when we saw an increase in velocity, good things should follow. Early on, we have heard about many starting pitchers suffering from a loss in fastball velocity, but some are actually enjoying a spike. I decided to only compare a starter’s velocity using the “Last 7 Days” filter so as to hopefully capture just the pitcher’s last start (or maybe two in some cases), since velocity does tend to increase throughout the season. These are the 10 pitchers with the largest increases so far:

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As usual, pitching performances in the early going have run the gamut from complete domination to shockingly bad. It’s poor starts like these that make me swear to never pay more than $10 for a pitcher. But alas, most starters have pitched just three games and still have another 180 innings of baseball left to throw. So with that said, here’s a look around the American League.

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While the disabled list is starting to fill up with in-game injuries and Tommy John surgeries, we’re finally reaching the point in the season when players are actually coming off the DL to fill in some of the gaps being left by newer injuries. Here are a pair of starters who started the season on the shelf, but either have already or will soon rejoin their respective teams. Read the rest of this entry »

Before the season started, fellow writer Chad Young examined a few starter eligible relievers. He had some great recommendations like Alexi Ogando and Alfredo Aceves. Today, I am going to examine a few more SP qualified relievers that Chad did not look at in his article.

(Owned rates are ESPN and Yahoo)

Brett Myers (91%, 53%) – Myers looks to be the Cadillac of relievers that are starter qualified because he is the only one currently picking up saves. On a starter’s off day, Myers can just be plugged into the starter’s roster spot thereby giving a team an extra slot picking up saves. While Myers is not playing for a team that will rack up a ton of wins for him to save, they are still saves. If he is able to close for the entire season, his number of saves should be around 30.

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It’s time for our first American League starting pitcher update! Let the small sample size analysis begin. I was bored at work today and decided to compare fastball velocity with last year already. Not surprisingly, there were a ton more pitchers with down velocity than up. I think this simply reminds us that pitchers are still building up arm strength and it should not automatically trigger alarm bells if your ace is not throwing as hard as last year. Of course, it’s something to monitor since it should gradually creep up through the rest of the month.

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