Quality Start Leagues

January 25, 2021

With the recognition now of how wins is a terrible statistic for starting pitchers a lot of leagues have moved to quality starts. Wins for a pitcher has very little to do with their ability. Sure they can put themselves in a position for a win but they are then reliant on both their offense and bullpen to achieve that win. Just take a look at Jacob deGrom (you can probably hear me sigh from wherever you are reading this). Quality starts is something that is more so based on a pitcher’s performance alone. It’s simple, pitch at least six innings with no more than three earned runs and you earn a quality start. Let’s glance at the quality start leaders from last season.

Quality Start Leaders

Rank	Player	QS	ERA
1	Lance Lynn	10	3.32
2	Yu Darvish	10	2.01
3	Shane Bieber	10	1.63
4	Carlos Carrasco	9	2.91
5	Trevor Bauer	9	1.73
6	Kyle Hendricks	9	2.88
7	Kyle Freeland	9	4.33
8	German Marquez	9	3.75
9	Zac Gallen	9	2.75
10	Gerrit Cole	8	2.84
11	Lucas Giolito	8	3.48
12	Jacob deGrom	8	2.38
13	Kenta Maeda	8	2.70
14	Adam Wainwright	7	3.15
15	Zack Wheeler	7	2.92
16	Hyun-Jin Ryu	7	2.69
17	Aaron Nola	7	3.28
18	Luis Castillo	7	3.21
19	Aaron Civale	7	4.74
20	Clayton Kershaw	6	2.16

Of course, some of the best pitchers will have the most quality starts like Yu Darvish, Shane Bieber, and Trevor Bauer. What you might notice are some outliers like German Marquez, Kyle Freeland, and Aaron Civale. While performance level matters so do team philosophies. Pitchers have a better chance at acquiring a quality start if their respective teams let them pitch deep into games. Whereas if it’s the opposite like the Tampa Bay Rays, it won’t matter how good a pitcher is they likely won’t let them see the sixth inning. Let’s check out team’s quality start percentage (QS%) and their starting pitching ERA.

Team QS%

Rank	Team	Team SP ERA	QS%
1	CLE	3.17	62%
2	CHC	3.77	50%
3	COL	4.83	47%
4	CIN	3.50	43%
5	HOU	4.26	42%
6	SEA	4.41	42%
7	SDP	3.46	37%
8	PHI	4.08	33%
9	CHW	3.85	32%
10	OAK	4.49	32%
11	STL	3.86	31%
12	LAD	3.29	30%
13	NYY	4.24	30%
14	NYM	5.37	29%
15	TEX	5.32	28%
16	MIA	4.31	27%
17	MIN	3.54	27%
18	WSN	5.38	27%
19	LAA	5.52	25%
20	MIL	4.18	25%
21	ARI	5.04	22%
22	ATL	5.51	22%
23	KCR	4.70	18%
24	SFG	4.99	18%
25	TOR	4.55	18%
26	BAL	5.09	17%
27	DET	6.37	16%
28	BOS	5.34	15%
29	PIT	4.74	15%
30	TBR	3.77	12%

The Indians are way above everyone else and while that can be because of their stellar pitching staff they still let pitchers go deep into games no matter what. Aaron Civale popped up on the first list with a 4.74 ERA seeming like an outlier but that’s because the Indians love for their starters to accumulate innings. You can see a few outliers from the chart above, one is the Colorado Rockies.

Last season they actually let their starters pitch deep into games and while you have to battle the home/away splits they technically could be more valuable in this format. Another outlier is the Seattle Mariners. Marco Gonzales, Yusei Kikuchi, and Justus Sheffield all were top 45 in pitches per game. Unfortunately, the Mariners roll with a six-man rotation but you shouldn’t still discount them because it’s for that reason they are able to let their starters pitch deeper in their starts. Moving on to the major outlier which doesn’t surprise anyone is the Tampa Bay Rays. With one of the better ERA’s in the league they only produced a quality start in 12% of their games.

To quickly recap, in quality start leagues you should move up starting pitchers who pitch for the Indians, Rockies, Cubs, Astros, and Mariners (slightly). Move down any starter who plays for the Rays.

As for individual performance here were your 2020 innings pitched per game leaders.

Innings Pitched Per Game Leaders

Rank	Name	Age	Team	IP/Game
1	Zach Plesac	25	CLE	6.9
2	Kyle Hendricks	30	CHC	6.8
3	Trevor Bauer	29	CIN	6.6
4	Adam Wainwright	38	STL	6.6
5	Lance Lynn	33	TEX	6.5
6	Zack Wheeler	30	PHI	6.5
7	Shane Bieber	25	CLE	6.4
8	Framber Valdez	26	HOU	6.4
9	Yu Darvish	33	CHC	6.3
10	Marco Gonzales	28	SEA	6.3
11	German Marquez	25	COL	6.3
12	Aaron Civale	25	CLE	6.2
13	Gerrit Cole	29	NYY	6.1
14	Brad Keller	24	KCR	6.1
15	Kenta Maeda	32	MIN	6.1
16	Antonio Senzatela	25	COL	6.1
17	Sandy Alcantara	24	MIA	6
18	Dylan Bundy	27	LAA	6
19	Patrick Corbin	30	WSN	6
20	Zac Gallen	24	ARI	6
21	Lucas Giolito	25	CHW	6
22	Aaron Nola	27	PHI	5.9
23	Luis Castillo	27	CIN	5.8
24	Zach Davies	27	SDP	5.8
25	Clayton Kershaw	32	LAD	5.8
26	Dallas Keuchel	32	CHW	5.8
27	Dinelson Lamet	27	SDP	5.8
28	Chris Bassitt	31	OAK	5.7
29	Carlos Carrasco	33	CLE	5.7
30	Jacob deGrom	32	NYM	5.7
31	Alec Mills	28	CHC	5.7
32	Brandon Woodruff	27	MIL	5.7
33	Zach Eflin	26	PHI	5.6
34	Kyle Gibson	32	TEX	5.6
35	Zack Greinke	36	HOU	5.6
36	Andrew Heaney	29	LAA	5.6
37	Hyun Jin Ryu	33	TOR	5.6
38	Sixto Sanchez	21	MIA	5.6
39	Max Scherzer	35	WSN	5.6
40	Kevin Gausman	29	SFG	5.5
41	J.A. Happ	37	NYY	5.5
42	Jesus Luzardo	22	OAK	5.5
43	Justus Sheffield	24	SEA	5.5
44	Nathan Eovaldi	30	BOS	5.4
45	Mike Fiers	35	OAK	5.4
46	Kyle Freeland	27	COL	5.4
47	Kwang Hyun Kim	31	STL	5.4
48	Brady Singer	23	KCR	5.4
49	Jose Berrios	26	MIN	5.3
50	Johnny Cueto	34	SFG	5.3

So here we are, and thus proving our previous short recap, you see four Indians pitchers in the top 30. Out of all of the Indians pitchers, one who sticks out is Zach Plesac. He lead the league in innings pitched per game while also being 11th overall in pitches per game. He actually didn’t have a single start where he didn’t reach six innings. I quickly want to note Aaron Civale as well because even though he didn’t have a solid ERA he still was 12th on this list and was actually 7th in pitches per game last season. He is not only being extremely undervalued in quality start formats but all formats as well.

We also see the Rockies starters on this list with German Marquez, Antonio Senzatela, and Kyle Freeland. Both Senzatela and Marquez are top 25 in pitches per game and seem like decent values for this format. Keep in mind skill of course matters as well but finding people like Senzatela late in drafts makes sense because you are chasing upside anyway.

Some interesting late round shots you might want to take would be with the Royals pitching staff. They let their pitchers throw as well but the quality starts haven’t come due to the skill set. Their pitchers are young and growth could easily come. Brad Keller was 14th in innings pitched per game and 17th in pitches per start. Kris Bubic was 25th in pitches per start. Brady Singer was 48th in innings per start and 40th in pitches per game.

Yes, a top-end skill set matters most for quality starts leagues, but team tendencies can help you find success. Pitchers like Aaron Civale, German Marquez, and Brad Keller could be overlooked due to their lack of either ERA, ballpark, or strikeout upside. When in fact they bring more value to quality start leagues than we think.