Archive for Jacob deGrom

Over the last several weeks, I’ve scoured Baseball Prospectus’ PitchF/x leaderboards for the league’s underthrown pitches. We’ve covered two different pitch types each week starting with four-seam fastballs and sinkers in the first installment, cutters and curves in the second, and sliders and changeups last week. This week, we put it all together. Now that we’ve identified the most underthrown pitches, who should consider overhauling his entire pitch mix to make the most of his electric stuff?

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Two weeks ago, I went searching for some of the league’s underthrown pitches. Which offerings by virtue of their paucity, despite excelling at inducing whiffs and weak contact, should be thrown more often? We’ve seen it so many times in the past, when a pitcher of whom we think a known quantity, suddenly leans on one pitch just a little more heavily and reinvents himself. Last week, we looked at the league’s underthrown four-seam fastballs and sinkers. This week, we turn to cutters and curves.

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Identifying pitching breakouts as they happen can be hard. Anticipating them, even harder. Savvy readers of sites such as this rely on plate discipline metrics, batted ball data, and other indicators designed to tease out luck from results in order to uncover which performances have staying power and which are fleeting. And while we’ve arrived at the point in the season when most pitching rates have stabilized, a simple change in pitch mix can render those indicators obsolete. Think Matt Shoemaker and his splitter, Jake Arrieta and his cutter, Max Scherzer and his curveball, or Sonny Gray and his slider.

If you can spot a pitcher pulling unexpected arrows from his quiver as he does it, then cheers to you. But it’s difficult to do that at scale. While trying to anticipate a change in pitch mix before it happens may seem futile at times, doing so is a bet on potential. And what we talk about when we talk about “stuff,” is really potential. One of the components upon which that potential relies, aside from command and health, is an optimal pitch mix.

To identify which pitchers could benefit by throwing their more effective offerings a little more frequently, we have a number of tools at our disposal. Today, we’ll use some of those tools to identify the league’s underthrown four-seam fast balls and sinkers and the pitchers who underthrow them.
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Last week of the regular season! Like the real baseball, I am sure many of you in fake baseball are still sorting through your playoffs. Here’s hoping that this info can be of help and use to you. Let’s get to it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the utter sadness of Jose Fernandez’ untimely death. We have discussed his injuries here in the MASH Report before, but this is just a gut punch for sure. The exuberance with which he played the game is something we will miss. After dealing with TJS in 2014 and a shoulder issue last year, he was putting up the best numbers of his young career. While not 100% back into a sound mechanical groove, he was, in my opinion, starting to show improvement. Too bad we won’t get to see the next chapter. What a career cut short. Prayers for the family.

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The Mets continue to find new ways of being “Amazin’,” albeit this reference is to Jacob deGrom and his bothersome elbow. Recall he has TJS in 2010, and for whatever reason scar tissue has enveloped parts of his elbow, especially around the ulnar nerve. Recall from your anatomy classes that the ulnar nerve is also the “funny bone.” About as poorly named as “Microsoft Works.” Anyway, also recall how that feels when you hit that nerve….try throwing a baseball and hitting your spots with your elbow feeling that way. Point being is that he is most likely done for the year. Surgery, albeit minor, is required to clean the elbow up of scar tissue. No hesitations as of now for 2017.

Let’s get caught up with our friend Stephen Strasburg, shall we?

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Another great Monday to you all! I don’t have as many specific players to go over, but the ones I do have listed I want to go into a little more detail on.

To start with, let’s go with Stephen Strasburg and his curious elbow/forearm.

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Despite the small sample, the pitching trend continues (as of 4/11):

Strikeouts are up. Offense is down. The MLB ERA as it stands is 3.39! You can read why in the The Hardball Time’s Baseball Annual 2015: Jeff Sullivan looks at whether or not sabermetrics have tipped the balance of power toward pitching and defense — it has. PITCHf/x evaluation is one major reason.

More and more, pitchers know what works within their own repertoires, and we can then tell some “reperstories” based on their pitch characteristics (movement and velocity) and outcomes (swinging-strike and groundball induction).

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It has begun! May your leagues bring you much joy. What follows is one approach to auctions that should bring you future joy.

I participated in two auction drafts. In both, I decided to spend little on pitching. In The Fake Baseball’s Friends and Family League (TFBFFL), I spent almost the minimum on our (co-own the free team with Zach Sanders) rotation and bench. I spent $16.00 on 12 pitchers ($2 max), but the results were not horrible: Drew Hutchison, Homer Bailey, Carlos Martinez, Henderson Alvarez, Shelby Miller, John Lackey, Sean Doolittle, Carlos Rodon and Rafael Montero. I dropped Chad Qualls already for Zach McAllister. We have enough bats to upgrade.

In my next auction, I wanted two better pitchers, but I still gave myself a $40 cap. I wound up spending $45 on the following:

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On Monday I took a look at pitchers that all three of Steamer, ZiPS and Mike Podhorzer’s projections like more than their ADP. Today I’ll look at pitchers that all systems like less than their ADP. I’ve also looked at hitters that the projections like more and like less. To turn the projections into ranks I used the Auction Calculator and the z-score method. Below are the three starters with the biggest difference between the projections and their ADP. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I ran the 2015 Steamer projections through Zach Sanders’ Fantasy Value Above Replacement system and compared them to early NFBC ADP data to identify potential sleepers and busts. This week we’ll do the same with starting pitchers. We’ll start with busts today.

Mat Latos, Miami Marlins

Latos is being drafted as the 45th starting pitcher off the board, which is basically just above the cut line for guys that have to be owned in all shallower mixed leagues. Once you get past the top 50, you’re pretty much in streaming territory. But Steamer doesn’t think he’s anything more than a potential streaming option as he comes in 84th in the projection rankings. Read the rest of this entry »