Getting Rolled Over by Low K% Pitchers

We’ve all heard about Sisyphus, the wicked trickster, and tyrant who first angered the Greek gods with his general bad deeds but then really got on their naughty list by cheating his punishment of death, not once but twice. These misdeeds earned the former king not just a place in the bad part of town underground but an extra special sort of eternal torture forever tasked to roll a boulder up a mountain. But upon nearing the summit, the boulder would roll right back down from whence it came and Sisyphus would have to start all over.

This seems like a pretty terrible way to spend eternity but that’s what always comes to mind whenever I think about the fantasy power of pitchers with low strikeout rates. Sure, you can make your way up the value mountain while pushing a low K%, but the lower that rate, the steeper things get.

Returning good fantasy value with a low strikeout rate isn’t impossible but it’s certainly a hard knock life. Maybe “hard” is the wrong word. How about less predictable? When you roll with a low-K% pitcher, you simply need a lot of other things to go right in categories that are less in a pitcher’s control.

We’re past needing to explain why wins are often in the hands of the luck gods, yeah? If not, I’ll just direct you to Jacob deGrom’s win totals over the years. And while the ratio categories (ERA, WHIP) aren’t on the level of wins when it comes to talent not necessarily always translating to good results, they certainly aren’t luck-free zones. This is why we have lovely ERA evaluators like FIP, xERA, xFIP, and SIERA that can help us judge how much of an ERA is “deserved” and what might be expected in the future. Not that these are perfect statistical Zoltars but they are often quite helpful in separating the wheat from the chaff.

Really, it’s about trust. And once we’ve seen a decent amount of innings out of a pitcher, the strikeout rate is what I’m willing to put my trust in. At least far more than wins and ratios. And honestly, more so than any category for both pitchers and hitters, in terms of talent being the supreme arbiter of results. Runs and RBI? Where are you batting and how good is the team around you? Stolen bases? Speed is obviously a big factor but so are opportunities and general team philosophy. Batting average? Batted-ball luck is a thing, whether you want to put stock in it, or not. Home runs? What baseball is being used, what park are you in, what’s the weather like, etc. Variables on top of variables.

Now sure, there are extraneous factors for strikeouts too, whether it be the man in the mask who frames behind the plate, the man in blue behind him who calls the zone, or a host of other environmental factors. But there are no offenses and bullpens to give you and then hold a lead. There are no fielders needed to make every play. There is only the man and his whiffs. And this is what I’ll trust the most over a season.

Getting Ground Down By K% Gaps

The pandemic shortened year is what I think got us a little too comfortable with the risk inherent in the little whiffers. The season just didn’t last long enough for the differences in K-rates to properly further the value gaps that will show up between the haves and the have-nots over the course of a full season.

Over the course of just two months, crazy things can happen in terms of inflating the value of some low-strikeout pitchers who picked up a (relative) pile of wins and/or ran likely unsustainable ratios. Zach Davies can post a 2.73 ERA and 1.07 WHIP with seven wins that tie for the second-most in baseball; Brad Keller can finish with a 2.47 ERA and 1.02 WHIP. Marco Gonzalez can be a top-15 SP and claim he invented the question mark. The short season was a hell of a drug.

Using the FanGraphs auction calculator (values calculated through June), we can better see how low-K% pitchers have fared at the top end of the overall value scale over the past five seasons. As well as how different 2020 went.

Here are the top-25 starting pitchers by total value from 2017-2021. No names, though, just the K% percentile for that season according to the value slot.

Since 2017, only one starter has returned top-10 overall value with a K% below the 50th percentile (Miles Mikolas, 2018). Only four have finished in the top-10 with a K% less than the 80th percentile. Looking at just 2021, eight of the current top-25 starters have a K% in the 70th percentile or lower, which is the same number as in 2020. But there were just four in 2019, three in 2018, and two in 2017.

Here’s how the rest of the top-25 has fared, according to 10-percentile groupings, starting at the 70th percentile.

 

Now that I’ve come down from the mount to bring you the gospel that strikeouts are, in fact, good, let’s imagine a world where we know how the strikeout demographics of the top-25 starters will shake out, using the average number of players from 2017-2019.

So while there are currently seven players in the top-25 with a K% below the 70th percentile (as there was in 2020), we’ll pretend to know that there will ultimately only be three. Basically, we’ll be saying that the full season will once again allow high K% pitchers to fully press their advantage and boot out the types of short-sample all-stars that snuck in last year.

Since there are only three hypothetical spots, we’ll look at the seven players below the 70th percentile and see who has the best chance of sticking around the top-25.

Aaron Civale, CLE (SP 24, 19.8% K%, 30th percentile)

Our three-year averages say there won’t be a player in the top-25 with a K% below the 30th percentile. Currently, there is one. Placed on the IL last week with a finger injury, the bulk of Civale’s value is being carried by his 10 wins that are tied for the most in baseball.

He has a 3.32 ERA (4.27 FIP) and 1.07 WHIP but a 4.20 xFIP and 4.22 SIERA don’t inspire confidence in him jumping his ratio values in the future, while a 9.6% SwStr% and 25.8% CSW% don’t speak to a jump in strikeouts coming. So unless you think that Civale is going to win another 10 games, I’d put his chances of finishing in the top-25 at near nil.

Kyle Gibson, TEX (SP 17, 20.9% K%, 37th percentile)

Increasing to the 40th-percentile, the averages say we still won’t have anyone in the top-25 but we currently have two, with the Kyle Gibson renaissance joining Civale. Gibson’s new cutter (13% usage) has served him well but the biggest changes in his mix concern the large increases in vertical movement on his sinker (34%) and changeup (14%). The changeup is being thrown slightly harder but is getting over two more inches of drop, with his 4.7 inches above average (compared to pitches thrown at similar velocity and extension) sitting at an elite level and up from 2.2 inches in 2020. And his sinker is getting 3.5 inches more sink than it did in 2020, which is 2.6 inches more than average – up from -0.6 inches below average last season.

Even buying those changes as positive, repeatable things, the bulk of Gibson’s fantasy value is coming from a 2.00 ERA over 90 IP. But a 3.31 FIP doesn’t look quite as shiny and a 3.91 xFIP and 4.17 SIERA don’t seem to bode well for the future. As the ERA corrects course, his value will sink, so I’d put the chances of him finishing as a top-25 starter far below those of him turning back into a Kyle Gibson-shaped pumpkin. A useable pumpkin but pumpkin, nonetheless.

Marcus Stroman, NYM (SP 25, 21.6% K%, 41st percentile)

Moving our threshold up to the 50th percentile, we finally have a real contender, with Marcus Stroman entering the competition. The strikeout rate may be low but his bulk of innings lets him compile more strikeouts than you’d expect. With six wins and a 2.44 ERA (3.60 FIP), his value has been fairly balanced across the categories, besides a below-average 1.12 WHIP. The peripherals say his ERA could be coming up (3.50 xFIP, 3.90 SIERA) but Stroman continues to cruise. Since allowing five earned runs in six innings to the Marlins on May 16, he has a 2.01 ERA over eight starts and 42 innings, with a 25.0% K%.

It is worrisome that he left his last start with a sore hip but the MRI came back clean and he’s not expected to miss time once returning from bereavement. Although, it is the Mets so he might also need a full hip replacement. But I’m an optimist and will bet on his status as a national treasure keeping him healthy enough to stay in the top-25.

Anthony DeSclafani, SF (SP 22, 23.4% K%, 52nd percentile)

As we move up to Anthony DeSclafani we’ve found another contender for staying in the top-25. He’s not the home run bingo machine he was in 2020 (1.87 HR/9) with just a 1.07 HR/9 in 2021 and he’s back up to a 45.6% GB% after dipping to 38.9% last season. The total number of strikeouts are actually above average, (even if the rate is below), his K% is back around his career norms after dropping all the way to a 15.8% K% in 2020, and his CSW% and SwStr% are also both back up (or improved) from previous years.

He’s not start-proof and will certainly still have the occasional home run-fueled blowup but DeSclafani should continue to be a high floor, top-25-ish starter.

Chris Bassitt, OAK (SP 19, 25.2% K%, 66th percentile)

Like a better compiling version of Stroman and DeSlafani before him, Chris Bassit’s 25.2% K% (66th percentile) may only be above average but he’s done it over 106.2 IP, compiling 109 strikeouts along the way (17th-most). The rest of Bassit’s value comes from his nine wins, as his 3.04 ERA and 1.03 WHIP are both average rates, relative to his peers. The ERA is probably coming up, as his xFIP and SIERA are both near 4.00 but I’d bet on plenty of more wins considering how deep he goes into games and the amount of offense that Oakland can provide.

Still one of my favorites, Bassitt has a really high floor and could sneak into the top-15 if the wins continue to pile up.

Walker Buehler, LAD (SP 7, 25.4% K%, 67th percentile)

With his 25.4% K% bumping right up near our threshold and currently a top-10 starter, Walker Buehler is an obvious choice to remain in the top-25. The strikeouts are down from last year but his 29.6% CSW is just a half-tick down from where it’s been the past two seasons and his 5.5% BB% is right back where he was in 2019, after rising up to 7.5% BB% in 2020.

However, he is a Dodger and, like most of the rest of his teammates, is losing spin in a hurry. Since June 2, his four-seamer (-148 rpm), cutter (-138 rpm), curveball (-168 rpm), and sinker (-112 rpm) have all seen significant drops. But even if he doesn’t get back his strikeout rates from the past two seasons, the rest of his package is more than enough to cover his relatively average K%, as he’ll continue to be in line for plenty of wins given the quality of the Dodgers offense and the fact that Buehler has yet to pitch fewer than six innings in a start this season.

John Means, BAL (SP 18, 25.7% K%, 69th percentile)

I’d love to tell you that I believe in Means but he’s still on the IL with a shoulder injury and isn’t expected to return until sometime after the All-Star break. I’m always extra cautious with shoulder injuries so assuming he’ll come back and immediately return top-25 value is a pretty big ask. That means Means is a mean pass for me.

Teasing It

Next time, we’ll pull back further and look at the players who are currently in the top-50 for starting pitchers and see who has the best chance of moving on up and those whose K% might relegate them right on out. Until then, wet your beak with some of the current contenders.

*Values are calculated for a 12-team league with a classic 5×5 format. All values and numbers are through Tuesday, June 30. Included in the table is 2021 K%, and the percentile ranks of their K% from 2017-2021: