Archive for starting pitchers

Though he is owned sparingly in fantasy leagues, Sam Gaviglio is a slightly above-average American League pitcher in terms of ERA, WHIP and strikeout rate. His current season, however, is nothing short of extreme.

The typical pitcher in 2018 is less attached to the strike zone. Over the previous eight seasons, Zone% had largely held steady year-to-year, ranging from a low of 44.2 percent in 2013 to a high of 45.8 percent in 2010. So far in 2018, the major league average Zone% is down to 43.1 percent.

While the average pitcher has slightly loosened his grip on throwing in the strike zone, Sam Gaviglio has been radical in his eschewing of the zone. Over 74.1 innings in his rookie 2017 season, split between the Mariners and Royals, a control-minded Gaviglio threw exactly half of his 1,126 pitches in the strike zone. This year, with the Blue Jays, the 28-year-old righty has gone wild, locating only 38.3 percent of his pitches in the zone.
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As we are not even two weeks into the season, it is ridiculously early to draw many conclusions from season-to-date stats. Still, most of us aren’t just standing pat with our opening day rosters, and it’s not just injuries and playing time trends that are guiding our add/drop moves.

It’s certainly not mere coincidence that Jakob Junis is coming off Monday night’s scoreless seven-inning performance against the Mariners and he is atop the most-added lists on ESPN and CBS for starting pitchers. Owners have not been scared off by Junis’ total of nine strikeouts over 14 innings, as they have been drawn in by his 0.00 ERA and 0.50 WHIP.
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At the midway point of the season, it’s always interesting to see how teams are utilizing their pitching staffs. I’ve been examining workloads through the metric I created, called Fatigue Units. This metric accounts for days between appearances, stress during pitching, and time between pitches – you can read more about it here. TLDR; Fatigue Units appear to be a more accurate indicator of “overworked” pitchers than pitches, or innings pitched.

To start off – what does the midway point indicate about a pitcher’s workload? It doesn’t necessarily indicate what the workload will be by season’s end, but it does say that the pitcher has worked hard in the first half. It definitely says that the team has trusted that pitcher, and, that pitcher is very good. Here’s what the halfway point workloads looked like in 2016.

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Velocity changes between seasons, or even games, are well reported on thanks to Jeff Zimmerman’s velocity tracking document.

Fastball Velo changes, ’16 adjusted up

C Anderson +2.4
Estrada +1.8

Cain -3.2
Santiago -2.8
Adleman -2.4https://t.co/Qr33MW0GYN

— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) June 7, 2017

Velocity is very important to the success of pitchers – as I’ve written about with respect to my Stuff metric, and as highlighted in this great article by Mike Fast from 2010, every little bit of velocity matters. Within pitchers – those who lose velocity become shells of their former selves – like Eno Sarris wrote about Matt Harvey before this season started. While a Velocity drop between games is an indicator that someone might be hurt, a velocity drop within a game might indicate that a pitcher is becoming fatigue – a big sign of possible future injury.

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A pitcher’s excellent performance early in the season can obscure poor performance later on, as his stats slowly converge toward expectations. If you held onto Jordan Zimmermann too long, you suffered the consequences. The same applies for the opposite scenario; Matt Shoemaker has been one of the baseball’s better pitchers since mid-May after an atrocious start to the season.

Alas, the deeper we get into the season, the more important it becomes to check recent leaderboards. With the way player performance ebbs and flows during a season, a span of five or six starts can probably be considered a small sample size. Still, keeping an eye on these small samples can illuminate interesting trends.

For whatever reason, there seem to be a lot of unfamiliar or unexpected names on FanGraphs’ xFIP leaderboards under the “last 30 days” split. Let’s break them down!

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The summer is heating up which means the standings are starting to solidify in your league. Big trades are going down and you find yourself uncharacteristically indecisive – do I make this deal or not? Will it actually improve my team enough to matter?

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It’s September, so innings limits, pitch limits, etc. tend to be a topic of discussion. Some teams are going the way of a six man rotation a la the Mets (well, until Matt Harvey gets shut down for the regular season) or moving starters to the bullpen such as the Nationals and Joe Ross. Regardless of the route teams decide to opt for, here are a few relievers who I suspect will get at least one or two starts in the final weeks.

Tyler Lyons, Cardinals — This is the first name that jumps to my mind when I think of RP/SP guys. He’s already made seven big league starts, and while the Cards aren’t set on a hard limit for Carlos Martinez, both he and Jaime Garcia would probably benefit from an occasional extra day or two of rest, or even a skipped start. Lyons is largely unowned, and is available in over 98 percent of CBS, ESPN and Yahoo! leagues. For someone who owns a 8.07 K/9 (20.2 percent) and a 4.39 FIP/3.91 xFIP in 100 1/3 innings career as a starter, he has uses in deep leagues where you’re looking for a win.
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At 6′ 4″, 225 pounds calling Jake Arrieta a little man isn’t exactly accurate, but Queen didn’t really have a lyric that fit his description. Even still, Arrieta’s impact 2014 created fantasy ripples that was anything but little. Despite making just 25 starts spanning 156.2 innings, the right-hander proceeded to breakout with a 2.53 ERA backed up by a 2.73 xFIP and 2.83 SIERA. Factor in the 9.53 K/9 (27.2% strikeout rate) and you have yourself a fantasy ace.
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It’s been a few years since Doug Fister was first able to legally drive a car, however 16 still represents a significant number for the right-hander. Last year he accrued 16 wins en route to being ranked as the 19th best starting pitcher, while torpedoing one of my Preseason Bold Predictions. Fister managed to crack the top-20 mark despite a weak 5.38 K/9, the second lowest mark seasonal average of his career, minimum 100 innings pitched.
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It is no secret around these digital pages just how big of an Andrew Cashner fan I am. That being said, yet again his season was cut short due to injury. This year it was elbow soreness that caused him to miss three weeks in late May and early June. Just two starts after being activated, Cashner once again found himself on the disabled list, this time with inflammation in his shoulder. Given his extensive history of shoulder issues, the San Diego Padres played it safe and kept him on the shelf for over two months.
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