SSNS: Bundy, Berrios, Corbin

Every time an analyst uses the caveat “small sample size, but,” an angel gets its wings. And then that angel takes flight and also analyzes a small sample size.

I preach patience when it comes to the first few weeks of a Major League Baseball season, and I try to practice it, too, regarding both early-season breakouts and duds. Aside from transactions related to the disabled list, I have yet to drop any player I drafted who wasn’t legitimately dead weight (like my decaying shares of Melky Cabrera and John Lackey) or, in ottoneu, a roster burden, such as a hapless $7 share of a helpless Alex Cobb.

That said, I can’t simply wait until mid-May or whatever to make meaningful analyses of players. But I also can’t make knee-jerk reactions about 30 innings or 90 plate appearances. I try to reconcile this cognitive dissonance by engaging in what I called last year Small Sample Normalization Services (SSNS). The intent: first, to attempt to find similarly long and (un)productive streaks in a player’s past; second, to evaluate how similar or comparable those streaks actually are; and, last, to slap an appropriate level of excitement or panic to the performance in question. If we can’t say with absolute certainty that we’re watching a player do something sustainable, then maybe it helps to know if he had done something similar in the past. If not, what befell him afterward? And if so, how should we move forward with him?

The original SSNS format wasn’t for everyone, but I liked the spirit of it: an exercise in which I engage routinely to keep my understanding of certain players in check. I’m bringing it back but in a more straightforward format: in this installment, I’ll simply review three starting pitchers, all of whom I’m sure have been heavily analyzed elsewhere, and assess just how jazzed I should be about their stellar performances thus far.

Dylan Bundy, BAL SP

Through five starts (31 innings), Bundy sports a 31.0% strikeout rate (K%) to a 7.0% walk rate. This, he more or less accomplished in about a dozen games in mid-2016 and about half a dozen games in late 2017. The former, longer streak did not boast the same swinging strike rate (SwStr%) as in 2016, however, peaking at 13.6% compared to his current 17.4% rate. In fact, Bundy has never had a better whiff rate in any 5-start stretch during his MLB career.

Last September comes close, though, at 16.5%, and it’s close enough in proximity to suggest something clicked last summer. Indeed, Bundy ramped up his slider usage from roughly 19% through his July 6 start to 24% in his next four starts, and to 29% in his final six starts, peaking at 36.0% and 35.5% slider usage in his final two starts of the season. For Bundy, great news. Among all pitches thrown at least 600 times in 2017, Bundy’s slider notched the 6th-best swinging strike rate. To be absolutely clear, that’s among all pitches, not just sliders. It trailed only five other pitches, all of which were also sliders thrown by aces (Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke).

Bundy has continued to feature his slider prominently, throwing it 27% of the time this year. It won’t sustain its current 37% whiff rate, but if it can come reasonably close to last year’s 25% — and, thus, allow an incredibly modest and delightful .212 weighed on-base average (wOBA) — then that’s the ticket. The more he can lean into his certifiably elite pitch, the better.

Jose Berrios, MIN SP

Berrios has pitched out of his mind through four starts. Remember when Jeff Samardzija did this for 14 starts last year with the same whiff rate but without the good luck on batting average on balls in play (BABIP)?

Maybe I’m feeling weird about this because obviously Berrios hasn’t done this before. (Although, in my opinion, he may have looked better from a peripherals standpoint in late 2017.) Equally obvious, though, is the overall swinging strike rate is not nearly high enough to warrant such an optimistic strikeout rate, nor can anyone maintain such a pristine walk rate. It’ll all regress, and I’m sure Berrios will be OK in spite of it. But the whiff rate on his sinker won’t stick in the double-digits, and while his curve looks better, most of the whiffs came in one game. He has scraped together better single-game whiff rates on his curve and come away not even two games later looking completely different.

What I do like — and I don’t know if it means anything, but maybe it does — is his sustained release point. He absolutely struggled in 2016 but came back the next year from a completely different slot*, a change that he carried over into this season. I’d like to think it helped him get back in track last year, and maybe it’ll keep him to continue progressing on his journey toward staff ace. But I can’t help still feeling lukewarm about the overall package, even though I want so badly for him to become the future ace I (we) once saw.

(*Confession: Sometimes, I’m not sure if I interpret release point information correctly. If his vertical release point is roughly the same, but his horizontal release point changed dramatically, does that mean he simply moved to a different spot on the rubber? Anyway, I’m sure there are mechanics experts who would be quick to correct me on a mechanical adjustment I’m claiming to see in the data. Let’s consider re-positioning on the rubber an approach adjustment.)

Patrick Corbin, ARI SP

(Note: This is being written during Sunday’s start — two innings, two strikeouts, no hits.) It probably won’t surprise you to learn Corbin has never accrued this kind of whiffage before. He came close at the end of 2016, but it came in relief. It also relied heavily on his wipeout slider, which, before 2018, Corbin had to rely on almost exclusively to get by. And that’s fine. It was, and is, a really good pitch. But it’s a lot to ask of one pitch, especially if it breaks for a night or two three. His story is similar to Bundy’s, and like Bundy, Corbin’s learning to lean into his best pitch, even though that pitch likely won’t sustain its currently level of success. (A 33.6% whiff rate for a full season would be literally historic. I’m reluctant to already consider Corbin’s slider better than the big five I mentioned in Bundy’s write-up.)

That’s why I would like to announce, informally, a Very Good Development^TM: Corbin’s throwing a slow curve. It’s above average, and only minimally, in terms of whiffs, but it’s suddenly his 2nd-best pitch. And its difference in velocity and movement might be playing up the effectiveness of what used to be his only breaking pitch (the slider). By itself, and relative to the league, his curve isn’t that great of an offering. But he’s doing his best to optimize what tools he has — or, perhaps in this case, should have purchased at ye olde tool store a while ago.

Corbin has had one truly bad season, in 2016. Otherwise, he has been a 3-WAR — aka an above-average — starting pitcher. Now, with the introduction of a good-enough curve to supplement his excellent-enough slider, he might be a 4- or even a 5-WAR pitcher. He’s not your staff ace yet — his whiff rate has room to fall 5 percentage points, and he will eventually start giving up home runs — but there’s no reason to think he won’t continue to surpass all expectations this year. I’ve seen this comparison pop up a few times in Twitter, so: I like Corbin more than Berrios rest-of-season.