While I have finished reviewing my preseason lists, I wanted to continue the recap theme, but this time looking back at early season results and trends. Did any of the surprises we saw occur early on continue for the rest of the season? We’ll start with my starting pitcher Z-Contact% improvers, a metric that indicates the percentage of pitches inside the zone batters made contact with. The ultimate sign of dominance is when a hitter can’t hit your strikes. Below is the original table with stats through Apr 10. I included 2018 and 2019 strikeout rate to see if the Z-Contact% changes if any, also resulted in strikeout rate changes in the same direction.

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Having watched Gerrit Cole breeze through yet another postseason start in Sunday’s Game 5 of the World Series, I wanted to refresh my memory on how dominant he had been in the regular season. My go-to destination for such things is the Plate Discipline leaderboard right here on FanGraphs. This leaderboard tells me a large portion of what I need to know about how pitchers have performed — how well they’re missing bats by swinging strikes (SwStr%) or avoiding swings in the strike zone (Z-Swing%) and how they are limiting walks by throwing first-pitch strikes (F-Strike%) or getting out-of-zone chases (O-Swing%).

I sorted by SwStr%, and Cole was at the top. Unlike many pitchers who get a lot of swings and misses, he had a slightly lower-than-average Z-Swing%, and he was comfortably above-average at throwing first-pitch strikes and getting chases. He had a lot in common with the pitchers who ranked just behind him, but one of the names near the top of the leaderboard caught me off guard. It surprised me enough that I felt the need to tweet it out.
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Backed by this study supporting the idea that pitcher strikeout rate over spring training does hold some predictive value, I identified and discussed 12 starting pitchers that had posted significantly higher strikeout rates during the spring than my Pod Projection. Let’s see how many, if any, of these pitchers actually outperformed my forecast.

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After looking at the pitchers and hitters who exceeded expectations, it was time to examine the players who didn’t live up to their ADP. I had a good idea this list would be loaded with pitchers who missed a ton of time and I was correct. Of the 48 pitchers featured, 39 spent time on the IL at some point last season.

To determine who disappointed, I collected the information on any pitcher who saw more than a $10 decline in value from their draft-day price. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. I just analyzed the pitchers who had a positive draft day value.

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Today, I finish my comparison of Pod ERA projections vs Steamer with the downside guys. Given that league ERA was at its highest since 2006, this should be an easy win for Pod. But, I only listed and discussed four pitchers, probably because on the whole, Pod was more bullish on ERA than Steamer was (oops), so there were fewer pitchers I was projecting for a significantly worse ERA. Let’s see how the for performed.

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Rawlings announced the finalists for the Gold Glove Awards on Thursday, and some teams who collectively scored well on defensive metrics were rewarded with several nominations. Conversely, several teams who scored poorly on those metrics were either shut out or left with a single nominee.

Six Cardinals have been nominated for Gold Gloves. As a team, they compiled the third-highest defensive runs above average, and their pitching staff registered the majors’ fifth-lowest BABIP (.283). The Athletics were one of five teams to have four Gold Glove nominees, and no team finished with a higher total of defensive runs above average. Correspondingly, only two pitching staffs had a lower BABIP than their .278.
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Today, I review my ERA upside guys, which included 13 names I was projecting for an ERA significantly better than Steamer. Let’s find out how these pitchers performed and which projection was closer.

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A couple of weeks back, I examined why the industry might have missed on some breakout hitters. It was tough to find anything actionable with the hitting breakouts. It’s now time to see any useful information that can be extracted from the pitching side.

I collected the information on any pitcher who finished the season with positive production in a 15-team league and saw more than a $10 jump in value from their draft-day price. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. In all, 46 pitchers made the cut

There were several more categories than hitters butseveral are actionable. One item I ran into was an issue with where to draw a line with the change. Bradley Newman pointed out the mechanical changes Giolito went through to see his production drastically improve.

https://twitter.com/PhillyStars27/status/1187056648877154305

The changes were the root cause but if his plate discipline stayed the same, the adjustments wouldn’t have mattered. Also, it’s tough for the average fan to find out about these adjustments in real-time. The linked article was taken from late-May after Giolito was already universally owned. It was useless for any fantasy owner.
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There’s somewhat of a tradition to interview the annual winner of the Ottoneu Champions league.  This year I have the honor of picking the brain of the first ever repeat winner, Josh Jessar, who also happens to be the first back to back champion of the league.  You can see a full breakdown of his winning roster here.

Q: How long have you been playing fantasy baseball? Ottoneu?

I’ve been playing fantasy sports since the late 80’s, starting with football teams based on Christian Okoye and Barry Word.  I became the only east coast Chiefs fan I knew. Baseball followed shortly after. My collection of friends have played on and off ever since across a variety of platforms.  I started playing Ottoneu in 2013. Longtime readers of your work may remember an interview with previous Champs winner Keith Smith…I recruited him to join the Ottoneu movement.  It was a natural extension of our after school sessions from back in the day.

Q: How did you stumble upon Ottoneu?

Another longtime friend from back in those early leagues brought me to it.  We’d actually kicked around the idea of starting our own fantasy site complete with termed-contract players in the early 2000s.  When he told me of this great site he’d discovered with a lot of the same concepts, we decided to try it out and were both hooked immediately.  He’s a great player who was in Champs B for a while, but after his fourth kid arrived he went into retirement. I’m hopeful he’ll one day make a triumphant return.

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10/13/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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NEWS

• The playoff ball

2020 DISCUSSION

• Two Key Takeaways from 2019 
• Stephen Strasburg (44 Too Early ADP) v. Jack Flaherty (43)
• Frankie Montas (165) v. José Berríos (81)

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