5/10/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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• @sporer – Host
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Fireside Chat

• Yu Darvish (1:55)
• Joe Musgrove (13:15)

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I’ve been writing some variant of this pitcher transformation article from the beginning of spring training containing information from spring training velocities to pitch mix changes. With a new pitch or extra velocity, a pitcher can quickly change from one talent level to another. With the season now in full gear, the major preseason changes are known but now it’s time to start finding those pitchers who are slowly transforming themselves mid-season. Every week I hope to focus on these pitchers.

David Price

The 33-year-old Price continues to be a fastball/changeup pitcher. He keeps hitters off guard by throwing three different fastballs (cutter, sinker, four-seam). As his velocity has dropped, he’s started relying on his changeup increasing its usage from 14% in 2017 to 22% last year and finally 29% this year. The pitch has been dynamite with a 21% SwStr% and helped propel his strikeout rate from a 9.1 K/9 last year to career-high 10.5 K/9 this season. He’s pulling the old-man trick of throwing his non-fastballs more to stay relevant.

Rant: I’m not sure why pitchers wait until they start declining to make the change. Why not make the change immediately and become an ace.

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Lucas Giolito is just 24 years old. It might seem like he’s older due an effect called “prospect fatigue” as he’s been in the baseball consciousness since being drafted back in 2012. He went 16th overall to the Washington Nationals thanks to concerns about his elbow that eventually led to Tommy John surgery. He cruised through the low minors and soared up prospect lists, eventually landing top 5 before his MLB debut in 2016. He sputtered through 21 innings as a 21-year old and was subsequently dealt that winter with Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning for Adam Eaton. His prospect stock fell a bit on the heels of the ugly debut, but he was still a solid top 25 prospect as he joined the Chicago White Sox.

It these last three years with the White Sox where the fatigue has set in. A modest full season effort in Triple-A gave way to a positive seven-start run to cap off 2017, though the skills didn’t marry well with the 2.38 ERA/0.95 WHIP combo. A brutal 2018 (6.13 ERA/1.48 WHIP) left him as an afterthought on the fantasy landscape coming into 2019, but now he’s worth a closer look. He opened his season with a gem against the Royals, followed quickly by a pair of four-walk efforts that fueled nine runs allowed in 9.3 innings. He was dealing again versus the Royals in his fourth start before a hamstring injury cut him down and led to a two-week IL stint.

That brings us to the intriguing portion of this young season.

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After a 2018 breakout season, Kyle Freeland gave us a lot to be confused about on draft day. As a rookie in 2017, Freeland defied conventional wisdom about Rockies pitchers, posting a lower-than-average HR/FB ratio at Coors Field (10.3 percent), and then he did it again last season (12.6 percent). He even took a relatively modest 92.0 mph average exit velocity on flyballs and line drives (EV FB/LD) at home and lowered it to 91.2 mph. While Freeland had been especially effective at limiting homers with his four-seam fastball, last season, he was able to hit another level by getting more whiffs on his cutter.

We owners didn’t know exactly what to do with a pitcher who had consistent success at Coors Field. We didn’t treat him like the top 25 starter that he was in 2018, and for good reason. Skepticism about his home splits aside, Freeland benefited from an 82.8 percent strand rate that he was almost sure to regress from significantly. He had earned enough trust to be among the top 175 players taken overall on average, according to both FantasyPros and NFBC ADP. Even with a lower strand rate on the horizon, Freeland’s 3.67 FIP and 200-plus innings showed the potential value he could have for owners this year. To buy into the FIP and the innings, though, you had to buy into his homer-thwarting abilities.
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On Thursday, I discussed some of the statistical oddities and extremes on the hitter side after a month of play. While we preach not to make rash decisions based on small sample randomness, it’s because it could lead to some really fun, weird, and extreme results. Let’s dive into some of the weird and extreme starting pitcher stats.

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After taking last week off, I’m back to make a brief examination of some pitchers who worry me with their declining velocity. There is no good news today. It’s just some pitchers who could be headed for a demotion or the IL.

Some quick housekeeping. The entire list of pitchers and their fastball changes are available on this spreadsheet. With more data available, I examined at the past two weeks of data for the in-season information. Finally, an injury value of -100 is bad and +100 is good.

Note: Sorry for the short article but real life got in the way and I want to make sure I have time to go through the AL lineups tomorrow.

Carlos Rodon
2018 FBv: 93.0
2019 FBv: 91.5
Last two week: 90.6

Note: This was written before he went on the DL

The 26-year-old seemed to have finally righted the boat after dealing with injuries and wildness for several seasons. In his first five starts this season, he had a 2.89 ERA and 11.3 K/9 (huge jump over 8.8 K/9 career value). Two blowup starts came against offensive powerhouses Detroit and Baltimore and now he has a 5.19 ERA fueled by a 4.4 BB/9.
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Pardon my delay on “The 10” this week, but we’ve got a good one today! I recently released my May SP rankings and today I’ll highlight 10 of the biggest movers and explain their move in more detail.

5 UP

Jerad Eickhoff, PHI | 56 spots to 51

When I released my previous SP rankings on April 18th, Eickhoff didn’t have a rotation spot just yet. He had a fantastic 4-inning relief appearance two days earlier and joined the rotation three days later with a start in Coors Field. He held his own with a 6 IP/4 ER outing that did see him allow 11 base runners (7 H, 4 BB), but also net eight strikeouts. He followed it up with seven shutout innings against Miami. Obviously beating up the Marlins isn’t exactly a huge feat, but those innings count in all formats!

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We are a month into the season and the pitching landscape is a mess. The top tier has been shaken to its core with several studs struggling their way through the month while streaming feels damn near impossible with they way the ball is flying out of parks. Of course, there have been bright spots and I do my best to highlight those while also being careful not overreact too much.

I look at my in-season rankings in 4-6 week blocks so the potential innings limits facing some of the younger arms rated highly aren’t really that important right now. Given that so much is going to change in the next month let alone the next five, I don’t see the point in pretending that these updates are viable for the rest of the season.

Pay attention to the tier! If I didn’t rank someone as high as you thought I should, but they are still a must or usually start, then it’s probably not worth freaking out too much. Those tiers mean they are in the rotation pretty much all the time. I’m open to debating slotting, too, but worrying about a 4-spot difference between two guys in the same tier is probably a waste of time.

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4/24/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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• @sporer – Host

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STARTING PITCHER ARSENAL CHANGES

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4/18/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

Read the rest of this entry »

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