Earlier this week, I shared and discussed starting pitcher velocity gainers on Monday and Tuesday, and then relievers yesterday. Now let’s flip to the fastball velocity decliners. My level of concern for the pitchers on this list, and for those who missed the cut but have also suffered declines, is lower than my excitement for the velocity gainers. Given the abbreviated spring training, it’s understandable if some pitchers are still building up their arm strength, and we’ll see their velocities gradually rise closer to what we expected. Surprisingly however, leaguewide velocity is actually up! During the same date range of Apr 7 – Apr 12, 2022 fastball (four-seam, two-seam, sinker) velocity is actually up from 93.4 MPH in 2021 to 93.6 MPH in 2022. So it’s hard to use the blanket short spring training as an explanation, but I’m sure every pitcher is affected differently. Bottom line is while this group is certainly worth monitoring and a trip to the IL with an injury shared could certainly be announced, I wouldn’t panic just yet.

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The season has begun and we are back with Throwing Heat! For those who didn’t read these articles last season, this is a weekly article that focuses on pitchers who are pitching well. When we are further into the season it will be based on a pitcher’s previous three starts but for now, it will just be their most recent starts.

The beauty of this article is how it highlights all types of pitchers from the best in the league to pitchers who are barely rostered. If someone is on a hot streak they will be in this article, we will then break down their recent starts and let you know if it is real or a facade.

Tylor Megill, NYM

Last two starts: 10.1 innings pitched, 0.00 ERA, 0.58 WHIP, and a 30.6 K%

Tylor Megill, you are a bad bad man! In his first two starts of the season, Megill has looked phenomenal as he cruised through both the Phillies and the Nationals’ offense. He has yet to surrender a walk, has a 30.6 K%, and a 16.0 SwStr%.

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Let’s continue reviewing the starting pitcher velocity surgers, as finding those breakouts will give you a huge leg up on your league winning journey. Yesterday, I shared and discussed six names, so let’s do another five today. As a reminder, these velocities are after just one start, and because the majority of starts have been abbreviated so far this season, the sample size of pitches is smaller than usual. While velocities stabilize rather quickly, they do fluctuate from start to start.

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There’s not a whole lot to analyze at the beginning of the season aside from playing time, but there is one metric that stabilizes rather quickly and gives us extremely useful information — pitch velocity. I always monitor velocities during spring training and then early in the season to potentially get a leg up and find breakouts before they occur. So let’s review six velocity surgers after one start. To make data comparisons easier for me, I used Baseball Savant’s search tool and lumped all three fastball types (four-seam, two-seam, sinker) together and compared the average velocities of all three pitches for each pitcher to last season. Note that these velocities differ from the two velocity tables we have on FanGraphs. The absolute velocity is far less important than the increase in velocity, so the fact that the velocities don’t match isn’t an issue.

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Yesterday, I published 15 starting pitcher blurbs, just because. It involved a long prologue behind the what, when, and why of the matter. In short, I spent much of the offseason secluding my digital self from outside noise (fantasy baseball articles, Twitter opinions, etc.), forcing myself to develop opinions on as many relevant players as possible. I isolated my brain from outside analysis and biases, leaving me with only my own. I wanted to document my thoughts, both to have a point of reference during drafts and to have a record of those thoughts for accountability’s sake. If nothing else, be accountable to yourself.

At the end of yesterday’s article, I solicited recommendations from readers for more pitchers to feature. That, my friends, was an enormous mistake. Although I alleged I would pick names at random, instead I combed through 85 comments (and counting) and tallied up the most combined recommendations and up-votes. Those are the ones I’ll present here.

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This offseason I set out on a personal journey. Sentences like that usually precede stories of enlightenment, and I suppose this story features some enlightenment of its own. We won’t know how much enlightenment until after the 2022 season concludes.

I’m not asked this question often, but I have been asked it often enough to have a stock answer for it. It’s some variation of, “What’s the best thing someone can do to improve as a fantasy baseball player?”, to which my answer is some variation of, “Develop an opinion about every player—well, not every player, but you know what I mean.”

This is something that, when I had more time on my hands, I used to do. But in 2020 I became a work-from-home/stay-at-home father navigating a pandemic, and I burned out. Although I managed sporadic success and positive returns on investment in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, I was lucky to escape unscathed—I was all but flying blind. I was, and still am, fortunate to have years and years of watching baseball and playing fantasy baseball to have built an encyclopedic knowledge about most players.

It’s easy, however, to miss the big changes—the breakouts, the fall-offs, the rookies. It’s easy to dismiss them, and easier yet to enter a draft room and ignore them all together. Indeed, you can build a winning team without deeply investigating these types of players, instead relying on existing knowledge about existing players. You can do it, but it’s difficult, and it’s foolish.

So, I dedicated myself to the task of developing opinions about nearly every player.

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The first inning of any spring training game should come with tempered expectations, but I always find myself like the kid in the bleachers whose parents thought it would be a good idea to just get the ice cream out of the way before the first pitch is thrown. With a chocolate-smeared face and wide eyes, I find myself taking in every pitch as if I’ll never see another game again. So, maybe that’s why my reaction to Clarke Schmidt’s first inning against the Phillies motivated me to write about the Yankee righty, or maybe, he’s a pitcher that should be on your radar in keeper and dynasty leagues. Let me preface this article with the mutual understanding that I am not a prospects guy, I’m just a kid watching from the bleachers taking in the sunshine with chocolate on my face, excited to see baseball again.

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We’ve got lots of guys to talk about, so let’s get right to it. Check out the start of last week’s article for an explanation of what we’re doing and how we do it. The pitchers are listed in descending order of likelihood that they’ll do what the stats we’re looking at suggest they’ll do. In other words, we list unlucky guys in ascending order of our pessimism about our optimism, and lucky guys in ascending order of our pessimism about our pessimism.

UNLUCKY STARTING PITCHERS

Kyle Freeland: Hesitant as we are to recommend, and for that matter to draft, Colorado pitchers, we are making an exception for Freeland, whose 2018 was unquestionably the best single season ever by a Rockies pitcher. The only thing that went wrong for him last year was that he was suddenly unable to get left-handed hitters out. Since he’s never had that problem before, we envision that he won’t have it again, at least not this season.

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Here’s my first run from New Year’s Eve and those of you subscribed to the podcast’s Patreon have had access to mine & Justin’s ever-evolving rankings as the winter wore on (and thank you all so much for the support!). Now it’s time to dive deeper into the SP pool. I won’t have a comment on every single pitcher listed, but please feel free to ask questions in the comments about anyone – even if they have a comment!

ACES

The best of the best.

I understand the narrative of Cole and the sticky stuff ban because he had a 4.12 ERA from that point forward, but it came with a 3.39 FIP and 32% K rate. Even with a couple September duds mixed in, his FIP was 2.95 in the second half. The skills remain truly elite.

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For the first time in my fantasy baseball career, I think I’m going to employ the pocket aces strategy. You can learn more about the strategy by reading Mike Carter’s synopsis on SP Streamer. The idea, however, is simple; take two starting pitchers with your first two picks. In my home league (10-team, 5×5, ESPN, Roto) I’ve been given the 10 spot to draft in a snake draft format. I’ve never employed this strategy because, like many others, the volatility of pitching scares me. The injury risk scares me. I usually want good hitters who steal bases early. But this year I’m going to try something new. Plus, I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to get Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. Remember what I said about injury risk? I’m throwing caution to the wind. If something changes and my league drafts differently than I expect, my strategy may change. But, one look at the visual below makes me want to get two pitchers with my first two picks.

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