Five Starting Pitchers With Strikeout Rate Upside

It’s been a little while since I last used my xK% equation to identify pitchers with strikeout rate upside. So now that we’re about a third of the way into the season, it’s time to take another look. The five pitchers discussed below all have xK% marks well above their actual K% marks. My equation isn’t perfect, of course, just like all formulas that act as skill estimators, but it should work pretty well at the extremes at predicting the direction of future stat changes.

Tim Lincecum | 18.6% K% vs 22.6% xK%

Lincecum’s strikeout rate trend isn’t pretty. In fact, the rate has declined every single season since 2009. It has also almost perfectly followed his fastball velocity, aside from a temporary rebound in 2011. For a pitcher that came up averaging in the mid-90s with his fastball, it’s sad that his velocity is currently sitting at just 87.4 mph. That’s down more than two miles per hour from last season, the largest decline he has ever experienced from one season to the next.

Fortunately, Lincecum has always possessed good secondary pitches. And throughout the velocity declines, he has continued to induce swinging strikes at above average clips. Even this year while pumping fastballs in below 90 mph, his SwStk% sits right around his career average and above 11%. That’s exceptional, and pretty amazing considering what he has become. While I would continue to shy away from him due to poor control in shallower leagues, an improved strikeout rate could allow him to maintain NL-Only value. He’ll have to increase that strikeout rate though to prevent his ERA from skyrocketed toward his 4.00+ SIERA.

Ian Kennedy | 22.7% K% vs 26.3% xK%

Kennedy has essentially been the same pitcher as we have seen since coming over to the National League in 2010. Yet, he sits with an inflated 6.60 ERA. Why? Look no further than a crazy 25.5% HR/FB rate. He’s never posted a mark above 13.2% in a season, so issues with fly balls leaving the year hasn’t been a chronic problem. Last year, Kennedy posted a career best strikeout rate. This year, it has regressed a notch, but xK% thinks his strikeout ability is even better!

You don’t even need to check the Baseball-Reference statistics to discover what’s driving this. His SwStk% is at a career high, and so is his S/Str rate, the metric actually used in the equation. Since even a good Kennedy is more like a high-3.00 ERA pitcher, I don’t think he makes for a great shallow league target. Though if he was dropped in your league, I would absolutely pick him up. Instead, he makes for a great target in deep and NL-Only leagues. He shouldn’t cost much given his up and down history, but there’s no reason to think he shouldn’t be able to post the 3.81 ERA Steamer is projecting for the rest of the season.

Garrett Richards | 19.0% K% vs 21.9% xK%

Coming off a breakout season, naturally there were questions about whether Richards could sustain that type of performance. Specifically, could he maintain that huge jump in strikeout rate, or most of it? Then he hurt his knee and we had yet another thing to figure out — how is he going to recover and will it affect his performance? Although his strikeout rate has declined, it does remain higher than in did pre-2014. Furthermore, his SwStk% is nearly identical and his S/Str is actually sitting at a career high.

His rate of called strikes is about the same, though his rate of foul strikes is down. Perhaps what batters had fouled off in past years and now being swung at and missed. There we legit questions heading into the year, but his xK% suggests that he’s in for improvement. Given his history, I’m not sure how much his walk rate declines, but overall this has the potential to be a very solid skills package.

Nick Martinez | 14.1% K% vs 16.9% xK%

Ohhhh, Nick Martinez, you magician you. Has the magic act come to an end? After having not allowed more than three runs in a start all season, the luck Gods finally turned an evil eye and Martinez imploded in his last start, giving up seven runs in just 3.1 innings. Fantasy owners were playing with fire when they picked him up after a run of good fortune. But wait…there’s strikeout rate upside? Apparently so! It still doesn’t equal anything exciting, but if he could move that strikeout per nine rate up to around 6.0, then perhaps he won’t be completely worthless in AL-Only leagues the rest of the way.

Julio Teheran | 18.4% K% vs 20.8% xK%

Teheran has endured the type of season that makes you wonder if he’s pitching hurt. His strike percentage is down significantly, which has increased his walk rate, and his velocity is down two and a half miles per hour since he debuted in 2011. His velocity also dropped a mile per hour last year and it hasn’t recovered any. It’s all led to a 4.87 ERA and 4.35 SIERA.

But it’s not all bad news. His swinging strike metrics still look good and his slider has induced the highest SwStk% of his career. It appears to all come down to his sudden loss of control. I have no explanation for why he isn’t throwing strikes at anywhere near the rate he has in the past. But that’s probably hurting his strikeout rate and making fantasy owners cry. I don’t think I would bother trying to buy low since there are legit questions here, plus he started out so overvalued to begin the season that a slow start may have only brought his value down to where it should have been in the first place.