Archive for SwStr%

A few weeks ago, I took a deep dive on Luke Weaver, budding Cardinals No. 2 and Adam Wainwright torch-taker. I came out of it reluctant to invest in him at his hefty asking price: per National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) average draft position (ADP) data, 27th among starting pitchers and 105th overall. His lackluster swinging strike rate (SwStr%) indicated to me he could not sustain his lofty 28% strikeout rate (K%) when pitchers of similar SwStr% caliber had strikeout rates ranging from 18% at worst to 25% at best. The best, in that instance, was Aaron Nola. I doubted Weaver could compare so favorably, primarily because Nola steals strikes in a way few others can.

What I failed to do — what I should’ve done — is check. Duh! I should’ve checked how often Weaver earns called strikes. So I did, and I came away feeling even more scared than before. Turns out, I’m an idiot who botched some simple arithmetic: Weaver falls just outside the top quartile of pitchers in stealing strikes, as opposed to literally 3rd-worst like I claimed in the previously linked Tweet. That would’ve been really bad. Still, this miscalculation and subsequent mischaracterization of Weaver’s ability sent me on a quest of ultimately marginal value.

The more I looked at Weaver’s plate discipline peripherals, the more I realized Weaver doesn’t coerce many swings-and-misses out of the zone. He’s actually pretty bad at it. That means he generates most of his success in the zone, which, to me, seemed unusual. I was nervous that thriving by threading the needle — i.e., pounding the zone (assuming some semblance of command) and hoping for whiffs — might be a dangerous way to live, or that, at the very least, a young pitcher for whom the proverbial book on him isn’t out yet might be subject to regression in this particular area. The freshly FanGraphs-retired Eno Sarris thought thriving in the zone is better than thriving outside the zone:

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More often than not, I write to hype a player who has wowed me in one way or another. Sometimes, I have to put a damper on things. Through 20 National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) drafts, Luke Weaver’s average draft position (ADP) stands at a pearly 111th overall and 28th among starting pitchers.

Weaver’s 36-inning debut freaked me out a bit. It was evident he could capably prevent baserunners, or, through 20% of a season, he could at least fake it. His 3.34 xFIP suggested as much, even in spite of his abhorrent 31% ground ball rate (GB%). Everything else stunk — all the luck metrics broke the wrong way in a small sample — but it was enough to suggest a bright future for the former 1st-rounder was imminent.

I planned to avoid Weaver at all costs in 2017 because of his fly ball tendencies exclusively; I simply did not want to suffer the wrath of a juiced ball because some small-sample strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB) goodness seduced me. Turns out, batted ball metrics can also feel the wrath of randomness in small samples, as his ground ball rate spiked to an above-average 50%. Some of the luck metrics tempered a bit, and the result was a 29% strikeout rate (K%) and defense-independent metrics that suggested he should nearly have a flat 3.00 ERA. It’s almost like there’s a reason why this 24-year-old kid was drafted in the 1st round or something.

I’m here to pump the brakes. I’m not sold on Weaver’s peripherals. I’m willing to let you convince me otherwise, but allow me to explain.

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I planned to include Rhys Hoskins in my blind résumés post from Monday, but I couldn’t find any realistic comps for him. Part of the problem is no one does for a full season what Hoskins did for 50 games. Part of the problem, also, is no one does for a full season what Hoskins would be expected to do for a full season, based on his peripherals. It’s a fairly unique skill set (although let’s not conflate “unique” with “the best” or any kind of superlative like that… yet).

Hoskins had himself a real, real nice debut. This isn’t the first time you’ve read about him in the last couple of months and it will be far from the last. Andrew Perpetua, for all intents and purposes, regressed his batted balls from 2017 and he still would’ve had an awesome season. In Eno Sarris’ heart, as well as mine, Hoskins was the runner-up National League Rookie of the Year to Cody Bellinger.

Hoskins had himself a real, real conveniently sized debut as well. His playing exactly 50 games prevents me from arbitrarily choosing a cutoff and having to justify it. A cutoff for what, you ask? Well, Hoskins, in exactly 50 games, posted a .359 isolated power (ISO) while swinging and missing only 7.1% of the time. He struck out a fair deal, but he also walked a ton. Take this snapshot of a season and, as aforementioned, you’ll be hard-pressed to find comps.

Which is exactly why I set out on a very pseudo-scientific quest to find any of Hoskins’ contemporaries who have done this — this, being the aforementioned 50 games of a .350-ish ISO and a 7%-ish swinging strike rate (SwStr%) — at any point in their careers (or within windows of their careers that I’ve curated). I’m winging it here, plucking names from my brain who have elite power and at least above-average plate discipline (assuming Hoskins might, but it’s not a foregone conclusion) and scouring their careers for similar streaks. Any omitted hitters are a product of my lack of memory or imagination, not of malice. Except for Giancarlo Stanton.

Mike Trout

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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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There are a sundry of middle/set-up relievers that can succeed in the closer role if given the opportunity. A few obvious: Wade Davis if something happens to Greg Holland… Wil Myers for James Shields and who?!; Ken Giles if the Phillies can somehow find a trade partner for the grundle-grabber; and Brad Boxberger if not Jake McGee. I assume David Robertson signs elsewhere and Dellin Betances steps in.

Lets’ look at potential closers using reliever outcomes. Here are the average contact and balls in play-related outcomes for all relievers that qualified and specifically relievers with 10+ saves:

Our Filters: 

• Contact-related outcomes: For K-BB%, Ct% and SwStr%, I filtered simply by the general relief pitcher averages. Everyone below average in these 3 categories was filtered out.
• Command-related outcomes: For zone% and first-pitch-strike%, I used 1 standard deviation below average and 1.25 SD’s below average in BABIP as filters. 1.25 SD allowed me to omit only the relievers that had career BABIP’s higher than we would like to see for a closer or in general. I didn’t want to screen out Jenrry Mejia (1.24 SD below the mean) or Tim Stauffer (1.19 SD below), because there’s a possibility for BABIP regression.
• Balls In Play-related outcomes: I was lax on the balls in play outcomes. I went with a 40% Grounder rate and 45% Flyball rate as my filters versus the averages that you see above because below average fly-rates don’t mean much in places like Tampa (where Boxberger is elite but below average in fly-rates); and above average grounder-rates don’t mean as much with atrocious defense behind you (hence Corey Kluber’s unlucky BABIP, which should have been closer to .299 per end-of-season xBABIP/Inside Edge data), but I digress.

Using these filters, we’re left with a robust list of above-average relievers beyond just closers (scroll down for the noted filters):

What happens if we use the command (K-BB%)/contact (Ct% and SwStr%) related averages for relievers with more than 10 saves this year? 

…We’re left with some elite closers and then a few interesting names.

Last year, Danny Farquhar (just missed the list this year) had a top 20 swinging-strike rate – about a percent better than Fernando Rodney, but it was masked by his BABIP and left-on-base rate that killed his surface stats (4.20 ERA vs. 2.40 xFIP). This year, he actually outperformed his xFIP with a 2.66 ERA. After an early season MASH Report on Rodney’s velocity, I eyed Farquhar. At least keep him in mind next year if anything does happen to Rodney.

Josh Edgin (Mets for those of you that don’t know) has a top 65 contact-rate sandwiched between Mark Melancon and Jake McGee and even induced grounders 50% of the time. He has a pretty extensive repertoire as well. In order of usage: Fourseamer, Slider, Curve, Change, Cutter and Sinker. According to his Brooks Player Card, he has great swing and miss rates on his Curve (>56%), Cutter (50%), Slider (>42%) and Sinker (33%). Even his Change approaches 30%. This isn’t the case on his Fastball, but at 93+ MPH, it induces a decent amount of grounders (1.8 GB/FB). Keep in mind he had late-season elbow issues which effected his velocity by a MPH or so, but he could be called upon to get Mejia out of a jam. I like him better than an unhealthy Bobby Parnell and Jeurys Familia from a command perspective for another year.

Zach Duke did his best Craig Kimbrel impression prior to the R2M monster hitting him in August. Prior to 8/1, Duke had a 34.9% K-rate and 27.3 K-BB%. Kimbrel ended the year with a 38.9% K-rate and 28.3 K-BB%. I think August and September brought him back to his realistic value (~2.50 ERA, 1.15 WHIP). It will be interesting to see who closes for the Brewers if they let Francisco Rodriguez go. Both Duke and Will Smith have above average (even for RP w/ 10+ saves) swing-and-miss. Will Smith should have additional command next year, but Zack Duke induces grounders better which I like in my closers/in Milwaukee. They also have Jonathan Broxton. The hierarchy seemed to be K-rod-Broxton-Smith late last season. If that’s the case, they should use Duke more (former starter) and in higher leverage situations. He was equally solid against both lefties (.258 wOBA) and righties (.262 wOBA).

Oliver Perez everybody! I thought I could filter him out by his splits being a lefty, but like 2012, he was more effective vs. righties (and faced 44 more of them). The D-backs have Addison Reed, up-and-comer Evan Marshall as well as Daniel Hudson caught touching 97 MPH so if not by outcomes or splits, we can filter Perez out by opportunity.

Darren O’Day and Andrew Miller is part of one dominating Baltimore bullpen – one that gets referenced by anyone who thinks the Orioles can beat the Tigers in the ALDS. Notice that Zach Britton didn’t make either of the above lists! He was filtered out by his below average K-BB% (13.70%). It’s his 75+% grounder rate (hence the 81+% left-on-base rate and .215 BABIP) that keeps him elite in Baltimore. The only concern you can have with O’Day is a fastball velocity almost 2 standard deviations below the mean for relievers, but his arm angle combined with that slider still induces a 30+% whiff-rate on both pitches. Miller’s slider though is a world apart from O’Day’s: only Pedro Strop, Will Smith, Jake Diekman, Greg Holland and Oliver Perez induces more whiffs than Miller’s 55% according to Baseball Prospectus’ Pitchf/x Leaderboards.  I doubt we’ll see a closer-transition next year in Baltimore unless Britton’s GB/FB ratio takes a drastic dive because his HR/FB ratio, which approached 18%, could be an issue.

An xBABIP review

On the last day of the season, @jeffwzimmerman provided me with Pitch xBABIP based on inside edge data. Let’s look at some of the bigger xBABIP differentials to keep in mind:

The last column depicts the z-score for BABIP differential. Francisco Rodriguez was expected to have a BABIP about 120 points above his actual BABIP. I highlighted (red/bad; green/good) the xBABIP z-scores as well so that you know whether or not to actually be concerned meaning sure Aaron Sanchez has the 5th biggest BABIP differential (over 2 standard deviations from the mean), but a .239 xBABIP is still utterly elite (3.34 SD’s from the mean). On the other side of the equation, it’s nice to see Evan Marshall, Carlos Martinez and Adam Ottavino (albeit in Colorado) with large BABIP differentials. Marshall and Martinez even have xBABIP’s over .5SD from the mean.

The last bit of fun

It was a very fun year to be doing bullpen reports for RotoGraphs. Aroldis Chapman broke the single-season strikeout rate of 2012 Craig Kimbrel (50.2%). He struck out 52.5% of the hitters he faced. Andrew Miller (42.6%) and Brad Boxberger (42.1%) also made the top 10 seasons ever. Dellin Betances (39.6%), Wade Davis (39.1%) and Craig Kimbrel (38.9%) made the top 20. Chapman’s swinging-strike% of 20% beat ’12 Kimbrel by .8%, but he couldn’t pass ’04 Lidge, ’03 Gagne, ’04 Gagne, ’02 Gagne or ’05 Lidge. Chapman, Miller, Doolittle, Boxberger, Betances (Wade Davis and Kenley Jansen close behind) all had historical, top 20 K-BB rates. Relievers dominate this list: only ’99 Pedro Martinez (#12), ’00 Pedro Martinez (#21), ’01 Randy Johnson (#27) and ’01 Pedro Martinez (#28) make it into the top 30, but it’s clear that we have a growing list of elite relievers.

From a fantasy perspective, thanks to 45+ saves totals out of Holland and Kimbrel, we had two relievers ranked in the top 20 pitchers. If Chapman didn’t miss time and Betances and Davis consumed the closer role, we would have had 3 others. Last year, Craig Kimbrel and his 4 wins, 50 saves, 98 SO’s, 1.21 ERA and .88 WHIP campaign made him the 3rd most valuable pitcher. This year with Kershaw, Cueto, Felix and Kluber, it would have taken even more.

If we combined the 3 more dominating performances exclusive of saves this year: Aroldis Chapman’s K-rate (52.5%) and saves total (36), Dellin Betances IP (90) – who was dominating in his own right, Wade Davis’ ERA (1.00) and Wins total (9) and Sean Doolittle’s WHIP (.73) – let’s call this guy Aroldellin Dooldavis, we would wind up with a 10.95 z-sum…just above Corey Kluber (10.72), but under Clayton Kershaw (13.74), Johnny Cueto (12.95) and Felix Hernandez (12.50). Even 50 saves wouldn’t have done the trick (12.43 z-sum):

I’ve stolen from the movie before. I’ll do so again…

Guarantee? If you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your fantasy teams’ sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about listening to quality content from me.

If you don’t know where this reference is from, then well…just ring your call button, and Tommy will come back there and hit you over the head with a tack hammer.

I actually will play guarantee fairy here, specifically for deep leagues since there are no uber-exciting names that jump out in my below grid. So here goes…

So long as they pitch to a qualifying level of innings without getting hurt or losing velocity (not ballsy enough to leave out these contingencies), I GUARANTEE these starters won’t be any worse next year (although in the grid below I highlighted in different strengths of green/red both starters and relievers):

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Of starters who have thrown a fastball at least 200 times this year, Yusmeiro Petit’s average velocity (89.13 MPH according to Baseball Pro’s Pitchf/x leaderboard) comes in at #167 of 173. Yet, only Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale and Yu Darvish have better K-rates than him. Only Kershaw, Francisco Liriano, Masahiro Tanaka, Sale, Tyson Ross and Carlos Carrasco have a better swinging-strike rate than him in general.

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