Minor & Estrada: Turnaround or Staying Down

Mike Minor

A few days back, I released my latest pERA grades and Minor was projected for 3.47 ERA while his actual ERA (5.59) is two runs higher and one run higher than his FIP (4.41) and xFIP (4.32). His SIERA is the lowest at 3.85. Which metric should be believed?

Starting with the lucky pitcher trio (BABIP, HR/FB, LOB%), not one stat sticks out though each one is above average.

BABIP: .324
LOB%: 68%
HR/FB: 12.9%

Many pitchers are performing worse in one of these stats, but it’s tough to excel with all three being off. Going through the pitchers with 40 IP or more, here are some similar to Minor.

Of these pitchers, the difference between pERA and ERA is the highest for Minor. So should owners just expect immediate regression? Oh, not so fast.

Minor has one major issue, he can only get lefties out who are just hitting .192/.200/.360 against him. Righties, on the other hand, are hitting .287/.353/.552 with all his eight home runs allowed.

Teams know this and are stacking the lineup against him with righties. Leaguewide, 59% of the plate appearances have been by righties. Minor has faced righties 87% of the time and they’ve owned him.

Here a shot of Yuli Gurriel taking his fastball deep.

via Gfycat

While the pitch was up in the zone, there is nothing but straight flight into the heart of the plate. Six of his eight home runs have come off the fastball. Here’s how batters are hitting against each of his pitches (h/t to Brooksbaseball.net).

Holy .364 ISO and .442 BABIP. He needs to quit using that fastball against righties, almost to the absurd level of 20% to keep them from sitting on it. It’s not like his fastball is the only pitch in can throw for strikes. His slider has a 60% Zone% on the season and his change is at 49%. To check up on Minor, follow his pitch usage against righties with this graph.

I think Minor is unusable until he finds a way to keep right-handed hitters from squaring him up. His fastball is way too hittable and he just keeps throwing it. At some point, he’s going to have to change his pitch mix or head back to the bullpen where is fastball plays up.

Marco Estrada

As soon as I saw Estrada show up when I filtered the ERA-pERA leaders, I knew his ERA must be inflated by home runs. His heavy flyball nature has caught up with him with 2.0 HR/9 with a 12.6% HR/FB which is up for the 3rd straight season (8.7% to 9.9% to 11.2% to 12.6%).

Normally, high flyball pitchers have a suppressed BABIP and he did in 2015 (.216) and 2016 (.234). In each of the last two seasons, it has jumped to .295. At the same time, his low 3’s ERA has jumped to near five.

Without considering the good and bad results, here is a simple breakdown on Estrada pitches.

1. The 34-year-old righty throws a sub-90 mph fastball.
2. He throws an above-average change with a 15.5% SwStr% this season.
3. That’s basically it for his pitches. He throws a horrible curve (no swinging strikes this season, 3% last season) and cutter each less than 10% of the time.

He’s a two-pitch pitcher with a college fastball. Most of the pitchers (e.g. Chris Archer and Michael Pineda) who try to excel with just two pitches at least throw hard. Not Estrada. He must like a challenge.

Estrada deals with the same major issue other two-pitch pitchers, times through the order penalty.Here are his stats over the past 2.25 seasons.

With his repertoire, Estrada seems to only navigate the order once. He should be a team’s long reliever, not a starter. Until Estrada develops and uses a average third pitch, he’s unownable in all formats.