pERA Rankings With Starting Pitcher Sleepers
I’ve decided to update my 2018 pERA rankings since I’ve been diving for some starter sleepers. Usually, this procedure helps to find underperformers with inflated ERAs. This time, it was mainly under the radar pitchers.
If anyone is unfamiliar with pERA, it combines the swinging strike rate and batted ball data from each pitch along with the walk rate into an overall ERA estimator (full explanation). Besides the few pitchers listed below, here is a link to the full 2018 values.
The top starters are as expected:
Rank. Name: pERA
1. Max Scherzer: 2.34
2. Chris Sale: 2.44
3. Jacob deGrom: 2.52
4. Noah Syndergaard: 2.57
5. Ross Stripling (w/ RP stats): 2.65
6. Trevor Bauer: 2.75
7. Gerrit Cole: 2.83
8. Justin Verlander: 2.88
9. Patrick Corbin: 2.91
10. Dereck Rodriguez: 2.92
If anyone has followed me over the past couple weeks, they know I’ve completely fallen for Dereck Rodriguez. With the skills he’s shown, he needs to be owned in all leagues. He may not keep it up but from what I’ve seen, there is nothing but upside.
Felix Pena: 2.97 pERA (3.62 ERA)
The 28-year-old righty wasn’t even on my radar until I saw him on this list. He’s been productive with 10.9 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, and a 3.63 ERA. His ERA estimators are about a half run lower just over 3.00. Additionally, he’s keeping the ball on the ground with a 51% GB%.
Digging into his pitch transformation, he’s made several changes which seem to be working out.
1. He’s developed an above average sinker with a 60% groundball rate. He’s never featured this pitch before 2018.
2. He’s pitching backward by throwing his devastating slider (28% SwStr%, 55% GB%) more than his fastball.
3. The improvement hasn’t come with added fastball velocity which has hovered around 93 mph.
4. The Angels have limited his workload by not letting him reach the 6th inning or throw over 85 pitches. With basically just two good pitches, they are limiting his exposure to the lineup a third time.
In all Pena is probably not a 3.00 ERA pitcher but the Angels are trying to hide his weaknesses and use his strengths.
Jeremy Hellickson: 3.11 pERA (3.81 ERA)
What is Hellickson doing now to finally not suck? It probably involves a dead chicken and some candles.
First, he’s barely walking anyone with a 1.6 BB/9. He’s never walked batters so this isn’t the change.
Also, he’s pitching backward by throwing his change and curve more than fastballs this season.
Both non-fastballs create an above average number of groundball and swinging strikes. He’s making a last grab at relevancy by minimizing his sub-90 mph fastball. It’s working for now. It’d be nice if his fastball did something besides getting clobbered. Beggars can’t choosers at this point with him.
Nathan Eovaldi: 3.13 pERA (3.35 ERA)
Jose Urena: 3.70 pERA (4.13 ERA)
There isn’t too much to get excited about a possible 3.70 ERA but it would rank 35th among qualified starters. He’s making himself relevant.
Urena came into the season as a streaming option but then he did this:
Career highs in strikeout and ground ball rates and a career-low walk rate. To make these improvements, I have him …. just producing more groundballs.
His overall swinging strike rate has gone from 8.0% to 8.6% to 8.2% to 8.6% over the past four seasons. His fastball velocity is barely up (0.2 mph). One item I’ve noticed from past seasons is that his pitches are each getting an extra 1.2 inches of sink. This explains the more groundballs but has nothing to do with the lower walk rate and more strikeouts.
While on the surface, Urena seems to have improved his game, some of the underlying numbers suggest otherwise. Right now, I see him as a bench streaming option as his true talent level becomes more apparent.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Can you put column names on the spreadsheet like you do for past years? Kinda incomprehensible otherwise (though for those wondering, it appears column A is pERA)
Sorry, fixed
Thanks, Jeff! Very interesting work as always
Do you do ROS rankings, or would you consider these rankings to be commiserate with how you would evaluate SPs moving forward?
cahill with a 2.22!?
Yes, for now. He’s not half bad when healthy.
Urena has slight improvements in other areas as well. Higher first pitch strike % by a tick, but also highest swing % (and zone swing %), with higher outside contact % and lower zone contact %. so the improvement in movement seems to have led to a bit more chase and perhaps weak contact out of zone, while also leading to less contact in zone.
Toss out his season opener in March and he has a 3.84 ERA, 3.26 FIP, 3.54 xFIP, 3.66 SIERA and 53.4% GB%. And a 7.42 K rate. In 17 starts. Last 13 starts even higher GB rate over 54% and ERA of 3.55. Bad team but a good park. I’d have said a good (bad) division too, but Phils and Braves have surged a bit this year.
Pena I mentioned in comments to Paul Sporer’s July starter rankings, and he went and had another nice sub-6 IP outing since then. And with Richards now hurting again looks like he’ll stick around. The fastball may not be up in velocity, but then again he’s starting now and not relieving, without suffering a huge drop-off He may be less likely to need a 3rd pitch since the 2 good ones aren’t fastballs, if that makes sense.
pERA also seems to like Luis Castillo, even more than SIERA, xFIP etc. Although he’s in there with others like Tanaka, Jon Gray, Domingo German beloved by peripheral-based stats and not so much in reality due to park, homer-proneness, etc. With Tanaka and German, a little flyball luck coupled with that team should result in a bunch of Ws. High variance but if you need to gamble could go on a run. especially Tanaka, who was damn good post-break last year.
Also some confirmation here for Jordan Zimmermann, Nick Kingham and Tyler Anderson. or, in the other direction, for Sonny Gray, Luke Weaver, etc (although Weaver has had a couple of nice starts in a row).
For relievers and those in holds leagues, look at pre-season fave, early season flame-out to the minors Scott Alexander. Back, getting a lot of holds lately, and beloved by pERA with that heavy sinker getting gobs of GBs. He may be vulnerable to losing the 8th if/when the Dodgers go grab a shutdown guy to pitch the 8th, but he will probably keep the 7th at least and opportunities with men on and Dodgers in need of a groundball.
There, that oughta be enough disinformation for my league-mates. Very nice addition to the pitcher metrics. Also get a nice laugh from how good all these position players are over tiny samples.
Jeff, I transitioned drafting strategy to heavy bats this year to look for sleeper pitching. Dereck Rodriguez is available in my league. I have moncada as a bench bat with dozier starting for me at second. Pull this trigger and dump Moncada for Dereck ?
Jeff, I was curious if the linked spreadsheet auto updates since you’ve posted the stats?