Archive for madison bumgarner

A little more than a year ago, Alex Chamberlain and I looked into what type of impact a slew of Statcast measures had on a pitcher’s overall BABIP rate. Hard-hit rate and exit velocity on ground balls (EV GB) had the strongest correlations, but it seemed unlikely that the latter would have much to say about which pitchers would be best at limiting hits on flyballs in play. In general, it seems that BABIP could be influenced by different factors depending on the type of batted ball.

So let’s test that out. This column is the first in a series of four where I will be looking at the impact of various measures on flyball BABIP and ground ball Avg, both for pitchers and hitters. I’m kicking this off with an analysis of flyball BABIP for pitchers.
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Here’s my ballsiest, way-too-early, 2015 Fantasy Baseball Prediction: Trevor Cahill becomes a fantasy asset again at age 27: the magical-mystery-kind.

For only the second time of his career last year, his FIP was sub-4.00, but his left-on-base rate was only 62.6% and his BABIP was 65 points higher than his career rate (.350 vs. .285). He was the trifecta (unlucky HR/FB rate as well) away from a 6.00+ ERA season.

The outcomes were bad. However, the outcomes on the pitch level were still impressive at times:

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On 7/18, Madison Bumgarner changed his positioning on the mound. Eno noted it and Madison Bumgarner confirmed it. Bumgarner has worked to make his pitches (and I presume his release point) very similar through video and in front of a mirror “making sure he sets up in in the right places.”

Eno summed it up: “Bumgarner is ready to make the most of his old playbook. Throw lots of fastballs, cutters, and curves, all from the same release point, all with similar spin, and all exploding out of a slow, deliberate delivery.”

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I spent an hour trying to find something relevant to say about the last two weeks of the season but was unsuccessful. Or at least there was no topic worth spending several hundred words on. If you’re looking for a two start streamer in what is likely the last week of your H2H playoffs, look at Blue Jays Marcus Stroman and Drew Hutchison. They’re the most talented pitchers owned in less than 50% of ESPN.com leagues in terms of K-BB% and OPS allowed on balls in play (aka limiting hard contact). Instead, let’s spend a few hundred words quickly running through a way too early top 10 SP list for next year. Read the rest of this entry »

In last year’s Bold Predictions, I strongly advocated Jean Segura and Jarrod Parker, while steering people away from Starlin Castro. Those surely helped fantasy owners to various extents. However, we’ll ignore the fact that I predicted Brett Anderson to be a top-30 starter. Sorry about that.

Let’s get to the bold predictions for 2014.

(1) Chris Carter will hit at least 40 home runs and be a top-25 outfielder.

Earlier this offseason, I noted how Chris Carter’s hitting profile compared favorably to that of Chris Davis from a year ago, leading one to believe the power spike could be possible. Carter has also hit 39 homers in a single season before in the minors, so it’s not as if we’re worried about the requisite power being present. Furthermore, the 27-year-old slugger didn’t do the one thing everyone thought he would do last season: mash the baseball in Minute Maid Park.

Minute Maid Park is extremely friendly to right-handed hitters, largely due to the Crawford Boxes, and Carter did little damage there. If his numbers bounce back at home and he’s able to continue his power-hitting ways on the road, we could be looking at one of the biggest power breakout seasons of the year. Considering he’s currently going 193 overall in drafts — behind the likes of Jed Lowrie, Kendrys Morales, and Alejandro De Aza — I’m buying hard on Chris Carter as we head into the 2014 regular season.

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Madison Bumgarner is only 24 years old, but he’s already established himself as a stud starter in fantasy circles. For the second-consecutive year, he was a top-15 starter in standard rotisserie formats and even catapulted himself into the top-10 in 2013 with a stellar 2.77 ERA in 201.1 innings. Owners appear to be valuing him properly, too, as his ADP had him the 13th-highest starter drafted coming into the 2013 season.

When turning our attention to future performance, very little stands out in a negative sense. We can perhaps be concerned about the .251 BABIP from last season, but Bumgarner still compiled a 3.05 FIP, which would still be better than average. Aside from the BABIP caveat, fantasy owners have to covet his consistency. His fastball velocity is firmly planted at 91 mph, his innings totals hover around the 200 mark, his ERA roughly dances between 2.75 and 3.25, his ground-ball percentage is either 46 or 47 percent, and his OSwing% has remained above 30% (and increasing).

Most of the time, pitchers in their early-to-mid 20s are projected to improve in key areas. Perhaps they’re supposed to add velocity or improve their command/control, but the overarching assumption is that young pitchers will take steps forward until their prime, where their performance will then stabilize. While all such generalizations will never be 100-percent factual, Bumgarner appears to buck the trend. He is what he is, and he’s largely been the same pitcher for the past three seasons with some fluctuations in BABIP and HR/FB.

For fantasy owners, such consistency for a starting pitcher is attractive. We’ll never be able to perfectly project year-to-year production, but with guys like Madison Bumgarner, we can at least feel confident in what we’re getting on draft day. His teammate, Matt Cain, was much the same from 2009 to 2012, which is why the right-hander’s abysmal performance in early 2013 was so alarming for many owners.

Bumgarner has been consistent, but it’s notable that his strikeout rate increased from 8.25 K/9 in 2012 to 8.90 K/9 last year. That’s the highest mark of his career, if we don’t include the 10 innings he threw for the Giants in 2009. If the southpaw is going to take the next step forward and become a bona fide ace, I believe it will happen because he begins to miss more bats. It happened last year, and a specific trend makes me wonder if it could continue.

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Ugh. Four games. Options are obviously limited today. And once you start looking at prices and match ups, the pool of available players shrinks a little more. For example, Cliff Lee will cost you a ridiculous $20,543 today. Paying that price really makes it hard to fill out a lineup full of guys who will actually play today. And Lee’s match up isn’t even that great. The Padres have the 5th best wRC+ against left handed pitching and are only 17th in K% vs. LHP. In fact, there aren’t many good match ups to be found for starters today. Here is a chart showing each probable starter along with the wRC+ and K% for their opponent against pitchers of the same handedness. Read the rest of this entry »

When picking hitters, the quality and handedness of the opposing pitcher are probably the most important considerations aside from whether the hitter himself is any good and likely to be in the lineup. And it makes sense to be very mindful of the opposing pitcher; the hitter will probably face the starter for most of his plate appearances that day. But starting pitchers are averaging 5.89 innings per start this year, which means that a full third of most games is handled by other pitchers to which we give no consideration. When you consider the fact that most pitchers you choose to start hitters against are below average, the bullpen probably factors into closer to four innings of each game as opposed to just three.

I decided to figure out which bullpens are the most hitter friendly in Draftstreet contests. To do this I had to figure out how many points each reliever has allowed to this point in Draftstreet contests. I pulled all of their batting against statistics, added up all the positive scoring events for hitters and then subtracted all the negative scoring events for hitters. The formula was this: (1B + (2B x 2) + (3B x 3) + (HR x 4) + (HBP x 0.75) + (BB x 0.75) + (R x 1.5) + (RBI x 1.5) + (SB x 2) + (SAC x .75)) – ((K x 0.75) + (GDP x 0.75) + CS). Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine the panic if Madison Bumgarner started the season with results from his last six starts. Bumgarner has twelve games started under his belt and over the last half of them, he has put up a 5.54 ERA, resulting in four losses. But these last six starts are kind of a case study in why people got sick of standard 5×5 leagues, because his results and how well he pitched aren’t really inextricable.

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In early February, I wrote a post for “FG+” that endeavored to sniff out starting pitchers who either over-performed or underperformed their inherent strikeout ability. Inspired by Zack Greinke, Tommy Hanson, and Anibal Sanchez, among others – there were many starters that saw pretty massive fluctuations in their strikeout performance between 2010 and 2011. Being the curious human I am, I wanted answers. Or at least a direction on the path of finding an answer.

Specifically, this little study sought out to create an “expected” strikeout rate by controlling for their prior year K%, current year (2011) K%, SwStr%, and fastball velocity (definitions of correlations and the r-squared of the model at the bottom of this post). The results were pretty interesting, should you happen to have access to the full piece.

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