The latest episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Jeremy Hefner, New York Mets

Interview

• Highlight of career
• Game preparation
  • Preparing players for the mental & physical aspects of the game
  • Is game planning more about having players pitch to their strengths, or about exploiting weaknesses of your opponents ?
  • In-game management
    • 3rd time through the order
  • Use of an “opener”
  • How “first-in” and “next-in” pitchers coming out of the bullpen are decided

• Health
  • Keeping pitchers healthy throughout the season
  • Extended rest between outings – good or bad?
• Analytics
  • How best to use analytics as a coach
    • Objective vs. subjective view
  • Analytics vs. Gut
    • Pulling Blake Snell in the World Series
    • Trusting analytics, and when to go with your gut
  • How are stats/analytics used to help players on the major league level?
    • Which are the key stats/indicators that you look at?
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Rule changes in baseball
  • Universal DH
  • 3 batter minimum rule for pitchers
  • Extra inning runner on 2nd base rule
• Position players pitching in baseball
  • Effectiveness of Ariel pitching in the major leagues

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xFIP is an underlying metric that can be used as a predictive ERA estimator. By definition of Fangraphs: xFIP is a regressed version of Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), developed by Dave Studeman from The Hardball Times. It’s calculated in the same way as FIP, except it replaces a pitcher’s home run total with an estimate of how many home runs they should have allowed given the number of fly balls they surrendered while assuming a league average home run to fly ball percentage (between 9 and 10% depending on the year).

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Another dive into pitchers going after pick 300 in the NFBC. Here are the arms I’ve already examined.

Starting and Relievers, Part 1 & 2($$):

• Alzolay, Quantrill, J. Suarez, Thompson, R. Suarez, Thompson, C Hernandez
• Javier, Lamet, Rasmussen, Steele, M. Perez, Cortes, Espino, Stripling, Long, Houck

Deep League Starting Pitchers

• Kaprielian, Taillon, Carrasco, and Ober
• Bauer, Plesac, Kikuchi, Gonsolin, and Greinke
• Matz, Megill, Sanchez, and Walker
• Lauer, Hernandez, Heaney, and Flexen

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Another dive into pitchers going after pick 300 in the NFBC. Here are some arms I’ve already examined.

Starting and Relievers, Part 1 & 2($$):

• Alzolay, Quantrill, J. Suarez, Thompson, R. Suarez, Thompson, C Hernandez
• Javier, Lamet, Rasmussen, Steele, M. Perez, Cortes, Espino, Stripling, Long, Houck

Deep League Starting Pitchers

• Kaprielian, Taillon, Carrasco, and Ober
• Bauer, Plesac, Kikuchi, Gonsolin, and Greinke
• Matz, Megill, Sanchez, and Walker

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Yesterday, I reviewed the early season starting pitcher SIERA underperformers and discovered that the majority did indeed improve their ERA marks over the rest of the season, some significantly so. Now let’s flip over to the list of SIERA overperformers. Were these pitchers able to sustain their magic or did the force of regression prove too powerful?

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Pitching coaches can make a big impact on starting pitchers in real life as well as in fantasy. Just take a look at Carlos Rodon and Dylan Cease last season with Ethan Katz. Katz stepped in and both of those pitchers took a step forward. About a month ago the Arizona Diamondbacks hired a new pitching coach in Brent Strom. Following this introduction, we are going to look at a few of the pitchers on the Arizona Diamondbacks and see who has the potential to take a step forward.

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Today, I’ll review my favorite in-season ERA estimator, SIERA. This was the list of SIERA underperformers through May 3. The idea here was that absent a significant change in underlying skills (K%, BB%, batted ball profile), these pitchers should post much improved ERA marks the rest of the way as their luck metrics (BABIP, HR/FB, LOB%) normalize. Let’s find out if that did indeed happen.

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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.

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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($$):

• Alzolay, Quantrill, J. Suarez, Thompson, R. Suarez, Thompson, C Hernandez
• Javier, Lamet, Rasmussen, Steele, M. Perez, Cortes, Espino, Stripling, Long, Houck

Deep League Starting Pitchers

• Kaprielian, Taillon, Carrasco, and Ober
• Bauer, Plesac, Kikuchi, Gonsolin, and Greinke

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.

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.

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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.

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