Let’s move over to the pitching side where I’ll start my 2020 forecast reviews with strikeout rate, or K%. As a reminder, there is never, ever, ever a reason to evaluate K/9 instead of K%. A denominator based on outs is at risk of being heavily influenced by BABIP, walks issues, field errors, HR/FB rate, etc, because higher numbers in those metrics extend innings and result in additional batters faced, giving the pitcher more opportunities to strike out a batter, even though the denominator has remained the same. That can’t happen when your denominator is total batters faced, like in K%, as more batters faced in an inning will reduce K%, as it should, as opposed to having no effect on K/9.

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The biggest trend in pitching right now is moving away from the fastball. With another 2-point drop, fastballs account for just half the pitches thrown, down from 64% back in 2002 when we started keeping the data. It slowly trickled down to 58% by 2011 and held there for five years before the current downturn that has seen at least a 1-point drop every year since 2016.

We are going to look at the pitchers with the biggest drops in usage and see what’s going on and how well it served them. Looking at 131 pitchers from 2020, just one pitcher added 10 points to his usage (Nick Margevicius 64%) while a whopping 24 shaved 10 points off from their previous season (some missed 2019 so I compared to their 2018). Six came from the Pirates (Joe Musgrove, Chad Kuhl, Derek Holland, Trevor Williams, Steven Brault, and Chris Stratton) as the departure of pitching coach Ray Searage seemed to foster a change away from heaters.

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I’m continuing my attention on fringe starters. They are the starters who once the season starts, managers are going to have to make a quick decision on adding or dropping. These pitchers will be in play all season. I’m using NFBC’s ADP and starting at the bottom and selecting any starter drafted by half the teams. Here is an evaluation of eight more starters (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7).
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If you were to dabble in the fantasy baseball community on Twitter you would find many analysts and writers posting interesting, compelling, and sometimes unbelievable statistics. Ones that sometimes bring forward hidden gems. Often they are lists that combine multiple metrics. Last offseason Kenta Maeda was on a lot of those lists.

He backed up all of his underlying metrics from 2019 by producing a fantastic 2020 season and making the entire fantasy baseball community look like geniuses. Since December 1st Kenta Maeda has been drafted as the 46th player overall and the 15th pitcher off the board. That’s some high praise but drafting is about acquisition cost and begs the question, are we taking Maeda at his ceiling leaving little room for any kind of regression?

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Don’t you love it when an MLB team acts like a fantasy team and seemingly acquires or signs everyone good? It’s fun, right? If it wasn’t enough to trade for Blake Snell, sure, why not trade for Yu Darvish as well?! It was first reported on Monday night that the Padres agreed on a trade with the Cubs for Yu Darvish, after a three season run with the Cubs, in which he looked like a young future star improving each year. He was not a young star, of course, but his SIERA improved each season with the team, likely thanks to better health and a recapturing of the elite stuff that made him so exciting in his early years. Now moving to San Diego, let’s consult the park factors to see how the park switch might affect his results.

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On Sunday night, the Rays reportedly agreed to trade Blake Snell to the Padres for a collection of youngsters. With a career 3.24 ERA/3.91 SIERA, Snell makes for a strong addition to the Padres starting pitching staff. But aside from the potential change in offensive and defensive support, how might the switch in home park affect Snell’s results? Let’s check the park factors.

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With news of the Blake Snell trade to San Diego (covered here and here by our fine folks at FG and Podhorzer will have a fantasy piece out Tuesday), there is a lot of chatter about his workload now that he’s out of Tampa Bay. This isn’t a particularly new issue – he didn’t complete six innings once in the regular season – but it all came to a head in Game 6 of the World Series when Snell was removed after 5 1/3 brilliant innings, allowing just a run on two hits with nine strikeouts and zero walks in 73 pitches.

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I’m continuing my attention on fringe starters. They are the starters who once the season starts, managers are going to have to make a quick decision on adding or dropping. These pitchers will be in play all season. I’m using NFBC’s ADP and starting at the bottom and selecting any starter drafted by half the teams.

Here is an evaluation of a few more starters (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7).

570: Brendan McKay

McKay got hit around (.331 BABIP, 1.5 HR/9) in 2019, but his strikeout (10.3 K/9) and walk (2.9 BB/9) were fine. He never got to pitch in the majors last season and eventually needed shoulder surgery. Reports are that he’ll likely not be ready by Opening Day.

I’m just going to pass on him in all formats. There are other pitchers I’d rather gamble on than prospect coming back from shoulder surgery.
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Patrick Corbin is the king of slider usage. On average he throws his slider 40% of the time. Why? Well, when you have a pitch that is so good why not throw it more? Like a lot more. It worked wonders for Patrick Corbin and his performance level. Here are three pitchers who could benefit from a pitch mix change like this.

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With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being draft on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day.

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