Stuff and Location: Ceiling and Floor?

Stuff and location have become key parts of pitcher analysis in recent years. It is something I have used a lot in my writing, and I believe it can be a great indicator of success when applied correctly. This can be particularly useful in fantasy when looking to identify pick-ups or diagnose regression.

The relationship between stuff and location is symbiotic, but not exactly equal. To understand this correlation, we can look at how 2026 starting pitchers have performed across metrics and what we can learn through a macro lens when building our pitching staffs across formats. In this chart, we have Stuff+ on the y-axis and Location+ on the x-axis. The higher the pitcher, the more ‘Stuff’ they have, and the further to the right of the chart they are, the better they are at locating their pitches. If you hover over or tap a dot, you can also see how many innings they pitched and their xERA for 2026.

First, we can see that the concentration of orange and grey dots below the reference line is much greater than the concentration of blue dots above the line. The mean Location+ is actually above the ‘100’ average, sitting at 102.4; conversely, Stuff+ is at 98.5. Stuff is harder to find than location. And while roughly a point and a half either side of a 100 doesn’t seem like a lot, it highlights how much easier location is to find than stuff, which raises the more important question of whether the two are weighted equally in value at all.

The simplest way to show the importance of stuff is that generally, and I stress “generally,” Stuff+ correlates to a lower xERA. Of course, many things contribute to a pitcher’s xERA, but xERA goes down at a more significant rate as Stuff+ increases than it does as Location+ increases. That is why Stuff+ on the vertical axis should garner more attention. In fact, Stuff+ carries about three times the weight of Location+ in explaining xERA.

But Stuff+ does not guarantee success, and the ability to have elite stuff while also being able to locate and command your pitches is critical. Eury Perez, this season, has been someone who, despite elite stuff, has not been able to match that with location. The fastball that he throws 47% of the time is left over the plate too much and is hit hard 47.7% as a result. This is the cause of Perez’s issues, even though his four-seam has a Stuff+ grade of 122. And at 15%, his Barrel% is one of the worst in the league, and with a fly ball rate close to 50%, that is a recipe for a ballooned ERA, even with some great stuff, and the ability to strikeout hitters 27% of the time, it is not enough to mitigate consistent location issues.

But Stuff+ and Location+, while they can be great indicators, can never tell the full story. Payton Tolle, for example, has a nearly identical Location+ to Perez, yet his xERA is in the 2’s, while Perez’s sits almost at 5. Even with a similar flyball rate, the difference is that Tolle’s HR/FB ratio is 5% lower, a pretty significant gap, and he can limit hard contact.

The stress point with Location+ is its relationship with contact quality for the pitcher. This is clear with the likes of Zac Gallen, Michael McGreevy, and Miles Mikolas, who can have elite location on paper, but there is little to no impact on how hitters react. Without the velo, movement, or deception to miss bats, hitters in this league are good enough and powerful enough to punish well-located pitches.

Where Location+ can be of great use is often in providing the floor. When assessing young pitchers in particular, we can use Location+ to gauge their reliability, as it correlates well with walks. Just as Stuff+ correlates much more strongly with xERA and strikeout rates, Location+ correlates with walk rate at -0.54 against Stuff’s -0.15. If we look at the six pitchers in the table, drawn from either end of the chart, this plays out clearly.

The three command-heavy arms, despite some of the worst xERAs in baseball, all suppress their walk rate below 7 percent against a league average around 8 percent, while the three stuff-heavy arms miss bats at far higher rates but give back the command edge. The lack of swing-and-miss is the problem; the command arms don’t have the velo or movement profile to challenge hitters, so good location still leads to contact, and hard contact. While Misiorowski has been on a different planet, Pérez and Yesavage are two promising pitchers with great stuff who have proven not to be reliable fantasy assets, as they lacked command in 2026.

Now, how can we apply this to our fantasy decision-making? Well, firstly, I think it is safe to assume that, in isolation, Stuff has to be weighed more heavily than Location. This might seem to contradict my earlier point and the title of the article, about Location raising the floor.

But from a fantasy perspective, it is Stuff that provides a safer source of value. Of course, this can vary with team needs in a specific format, but as a general baseline, Stuff has much greater value. While we spent some time on the pitchers at either end of the chart’s spectrum, it is Tolle, Pérez, and Yesavage who hold considerable fantasy value, not Sugano, Gallen, and company. They have the potential to be high-end fantasy assets because of their Stuff. If we look at the names on either side of the reference line, for the most part, it is the ones above it that deserve consideration. Even without strong Location numbers, these are still the arms that could be buy-low candidates, because the Stuff provides a baseline with a ceiling attached. It is also why an arm like Roki Sasaki can be both so tantalising and so frustrating. Stuff in isolation does not equate to success, but it offers both floor and ceiling, whereas Location, on its own, offers little. Draft the ceiling and wait on the command.