Did You Know? (Pitching Edition)

Yesterday I put a list of 20 hitting tidbits covering topics and players you might’ve overlooked two-plus months into the season. I’m following that up with a pitcher version today and I was considering doing these on a weekly or bi-weekly basis depending on how useful y’all found them. Let me know in the comments what you think.

Did You Know…?

• OK this first one is crazy. Grab a seat for this doozy. You’ll never believe that Clayton Kershaw is the top pitcher in baseball so far!
• Ervin Santana has a .153 BABIP… One. Fifty. Three. No one has ever come close to posting a full season at that clip
• Sid Fernandez’s .196 BABIP is the best single-season mark (min. 100 IP) since 1960

• Robbie Ray sits eighth on ESPN’s Player Rater despite a 5.67 ERA at home in six starts
• Ray counterbalances it with a sparkling 0.64 ERA in six road starts; this is essentially an extreme version of his career (5.45 home, 3.31 road)
• Only Phil Hughes (44%) has a higher Hard contact rate than Ray’s 43% mark
• Rick Porcello (42%), Corey Kluber (42%), and Chris Archer (39%) are also in the bottom 15 for Hard contact
• On the other end you won’t be surprised to find out that Dallas Keuchel is pacing the AL at 20% and Alex Wood leads the NL at 21%, but other interesting standouts include Jordan Montgomery (4th at 24%), Andrew Triggs (7th at 25%), Jaime Garcia (9th at 26%), and Joe Biagini (11th at 26%)
• If we lower the minimum innings to 30, then Jose Berrios rockets to the top with a 20% mark, edging Keuchel by three-tenths when push the decimal out (19.8% to 20.1%)
• Montgomery also sits third to only Zack Greinke (38%) and teammate Michael Pineda (37%) with a 36% O-Swing rate (swings outside the zone, or essentially a “chase” rate); I wrote more about Montgomery earlier this week
• By Pitch Values, Montgomery a top 15 changeup (12th), curveball (13th), and cutter (15th)
• Jaime Garcia (3rd), Antonio Senzatela (7th), and Kyle Freeland (8th) are interesting standouts on the fastball Pitch Value leaderboard
• Masahiro Tanaka sits eighth in O-Swing with a 35% rate, but that’s actually a career-worst (38%, 37%, and 37% in his first three seasons)
• Of the 84 qualified SPs this year, there are 24 with a 1.5 HR/9 or higher; just 9 of the 71 qualified arms
• Jason Vargas is still a Top 10 pitcher by performance this year and while no one thinks the 2.18 ERA continues, he can still be valuable as a mid-to-high 3.00s ERA given that the league average SP ERA is 4.37, highest since 2009
• Some interesting names in the top 20 of K-BB% (min. 40 IP): Jeff Samardzija (3rd at 26%), Alex Wood (6th at 24%), Luis Severino (8th at 22%), Drew Pomeranz (11th at 21%), Nate Karns (14th at 21%), and Trevor Cahill (20th at 20%)
• Severino is essentially Michael Pineda 2.0, virtually matching him across the board with fewer homers
• Sean Manaea has the fifth-best SwStr% rate at 15%
• Kershaw and Max Scherzer were dead even atop the league last year at 15% (well, 15.3% if you want to be a Technical Tommy)
• A velocity spike (career-best 95 mph fastball, +4 mph on his sldier to 86) and pitch mix change (-12% slider, +8% changeup) have yielded big returns for Randall Delgado early on as he’s getting ahead more (career-best 67% first pitch strike rate), generating more chases (32% O-Swing, 4-year high), and limiting righty power (career-low .101 ISO)
• Delgado’s only made three starts, not yet finishing six innings in any of them, but he has 15 strikeouts and just two walks in the 15 IP of work; could be a solid deep league play
• Felipe Rivero is toting a career-best 98 mph fastball while also cutting his walk rate in half from last year to 5%
• Rivero also has his best swinging strike (15%) and groundball (64%) rates ever, meanwhile the Pittsburgh closer’s just opened up with Tony Watson getting removed
• While Seung Hwan Oh has gotten back on track of late, Trevor Rosenthal is outclassing him across the board save a tiny BB% advantage for Oh; Rosy should get the role back eventually
• Joe Smith is striking out 40% of the batters he has faced with the skills to back up the surge (SwStr%, O-Swing%, and F-Strike% improvements)
• Carl Edwards Jr. will give up some walks (13% this yr; career 12%), but he is virtually unhittable with a 2.4 H/9, even better than last year’s filthy 3.8 mark
• Wade Davis has been fantastic in his own right, though, so Edwards is unlikely accumulate any saves, but he holds real value as a middle reliever
• Corey Knebel is essentially what Edwards might look as a closer with a bit of a walk issue, but amazing strikeout and hit rates
• Brandon Kintzler has the third-most saves in the league with 16, but his biggest asset has faded with his groundball rate is down from 62% to 48%
• I wonder if Tyler Duffey could push him for that role; Duffey has added 2 mph to his fastball while spiking his K% (25%) and GB% (51%); he’s currently the 7th inning guy, but he’s an interesting saves spec