Yesterday, I reviewed the starting pitchers who experienced an early season GB% surge to find out if those spikes were sustained over the rest of the season. Today, let’s now review the early season GB% decliners. Did their GB% marks rebound or remain down, increasing the risk of gopheritis? Let’s find out.
Four more starters as I work my way through the list. Here are the ones I’ve already done.
Starting and Relievers, Part 1 & 2($$):
Deep League Starting Pitchers
Steven Matz (301 ADP)
I probably spent way too much time digging into Matz and eventually came to the conclusion that he’s a fine starter. His profile begins and ends with his pitch mix.
| Pitch | SwStr% | GB% | Pre-IL Usage | Post IL Usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sinker | 7% | 45% | 47% | 56% |
| Change | 14% | 50% | 24% | 23% |
| Curve | 11% | 38% | 17% | 17% |
| Slider | 9% | 41% | 12% | 4% |
His sinker and change got a good number of swings and misses compared to similar pitches. Also, it was a good idea for him to move away from the slider and throw the curve as a third pitch after coming off the IL. The problem there was that he threw his sinker more and the strikeouts dropped.
Today, let’s move over to review early starting pitcher metrics and whether the surges or declines stuck around over the rest of the season. Unlike for hitters where depending on the type of hitter they are, the optimal batted ball profile is easier to determine, it’s not as straightforward for pitchers. So this isn’t necessarily a “good” list to be on, but it could change the shape of the pitcher’s performance. More grounders should result in fewer homers, but likely more hits allowed and a higher BABIP. So let’s get to the names of those that had increased their GB% by at least 10% through Apr 19 and see whether their GB% spikes were sustained.
As baseball history keeps telling us, a pitcher’s ultimate success often starts with the heater, providing a base of core strength for their pitch-mix body on which the glamor muscles of the breaking stuff can better be supported.
With that in mind, let’s look at the best fastballs from starters in 2022 according to Run-Value (per 100 pitches) before looking at three possible draft-day bargains. While Run Value is by no means the end-all measurement of overall quality, (nor necessarily predictive), it does give us a solid snapshot of the overall results that a pitch returned while sending up flares for where further investigation might be warranted.
For this exercise, we will be looking at starting pitchers and their NFBC ADP as of 11/29/21. It’s always interesting to see how the crowd thinks, who they seem to value, and how fantasy managers are shaping their drafts. For instance, how many pitchers are going in the first round? How many fantasy managers are grabbing two starting pitchers in the first three rounds? A lot to unpack and a lot of different aspects to analyze. We will go by round and after each round, we will discuss briefly what we are seeing! To note: this is based on Draft Champions which is a 15 team format with about 14 completed drafts.
2021 is over and we turn the page to 2022. Here are my current ranks for the outfield position for 2022, my second of the offseason. I will post updates as things change with signings, injuries, or news in Major League Baseball.
You can review my ranks for other positions here: https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/category/rankings/ Read the rest of this entry »
Today, I complete my review of the early starting pitcher velocity changes to see how whether it was an early sign of what their velocities will be over the rest of the season. We’ll finish our reviews up with another set of velocity gainers.
I recently took over an Ottoneu team for the upcoming 2022 season. If you are unfamiliar with Ottoneu, it’s keeper league where you get to make trades from mid-November to January 31st. Any players left on your roster after that you keep, using the auction draft to fill in the missing pieces. Taking over someone else’s team kind of feels like moving into an empty office. There are a few cobwebs in the corner, the previous owner left a really cool pen in the desk drawer and there’s a very stinky sandwich in the staff refrigerator that you somehow feel like is your new responsibility.
The fun part is taking stock of what you have and trying to decide what you want to keep (cool pen) and what you want to cut (stinky sandwich). In this series of posts, I’ll write about the decisions I have to make, how I go about analyzing the data before making my decision, and then what decision I plan to make. You too could be doing this kind of thing, all you have to do is take over someone’s abandoned team and search through the desk drawers when you move in.
Let’s continue reviewing the early season starting pitcher fastball velocity changes. Today, we’ll look at the decliners through the first start and compare those velocity readings to what each posted through the rest of the season. Were these first start declines early warnings to sell while you can or did the pitchers quickly bounce back?
I’m just going to keep grinding my way through the starting pitchers hoping to find a couple of gems.
For reference, here are the pitchers I’ve already profiled:
Starting and Relievers, Part 1 & 2($$):
Deep League Starting Pitchers
Trevor Bauer (308)
Even before the recent criminal charges, Bauer was a divisive player with the recent incident leaving him with no support. He’s such a hot topic, I about skipped him over. Read the rest of this entry »