The FanGraphs 2022 pVal Competition Results

• 2022 pVal Check-In #1.
• 2022 pVal Check-In #2.

How do you really know how well a pitcher’s fastball will perform before the season starts? You don’t. You basically just make an educated guess. Choosing good fastballs from the previous year seems to be a good way to go. But, choosing changeups that performed well in the past can bite you. While it may seem silly to get this micro, this niche, it can be a lot of fun to make picks before the season begins, and then forget about them. There’s no IL, no waiver claims, and no bench to ride. It’s just your preseason picks and the ever-rolling season and when it ends, you get to look back and either ask yourself, “What was I thinking?”, or, you get to puff your chest out and spend the winter months assuring yourself that you are a pVal prediction wizard. Pitching coaches should really be calling you when spring training kicks off again. Let’s take a look at where each of us FanGraphs contingent pVal competition participants finished out the 2022 season. As a reminder, here are all the picks you can make, provided to us by our friends at Pitcher List.

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*Note: Values in red were replaced with values in yellow in totaling out final scores as reserve pitches replaced poor performing pitches.

Luke Hooper

Placement: First (162.3 total points)

Luke’s dominance was fueled by a few excellent picks. It was his belief in his fastball picks and his disbelief in Adam Wainwright repeating his 2021 sinker pVal that soared his points totals to the top. For a while, it was looking like Luke wouldn’t be able to cash in on a great reserve pitch in deGrom’s fastball, but the pitch slowly crept back up to take over Ober’s slider. Most of us used our reserve picks to cover negative pVals. Luke used his to cover a positive pVal, which basically means his only “bad” pick was Sandoval’s changeup.

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Alex Chamberlain

Placement: Second (131.4 total points)

Similar to Luke, Alex had practically no “bad” picks. Castillo’s poor-performing changeup didn’t add to his totals as he designated it as a reserve, and Houser’s negative sinker was replaced by deGrom’s slider. Alex made a great pick, betting against a Jose Suarez changeup repeat and Yu Darvish’s slider is still good.

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Nicklaus Gaut

Placement: Third (117.0 total points)

It’s hard to believe Joe Musgrove had the season he did while tossing up negative pVals on both his slider and curveball, but it goes to show how pVals don’t really explain a season as a whole. No-no-Joe’s best pVals came from his fastball combination (sinker, four-seamer, cutter). Nicklaus really shined in the reserve spots, winning that category overall with his picks. You may have finished in third Nicklaus, but you won the reserve award!

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Lucas Kelly

Placement: Fourth (95.9 total points)

Nicklaus may have won the reserve award, but I took the slider trophy. Sure, I had some Walker Buehler injury woes and I don’t know what happened to Lucas Giolito’s changeup this season (I’m sure someone has, or will, write about it), but at least I nailed the Matt Harvey pick, right?

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Paul Sporer

Placement: Last (73.4 total points)

Is this the end for Zack Greinke’s changeup? I certainly hope not, but the pitch returned a positive value (5.9 or better) in each of the 7 years prior to this season’s sad display. Maybe batters finally started listening to his call outs? It’s hard to say. What isn’t hard to say is that Kyle Wright had a good curveball in 2022 and Jesus Luzardo didn’t throw a slider (not sure what happened there). Woodruff and Montas were no doubt disappointments in pVal competitions.

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Congratulations to Luke Hooper, this year’s FanGraphs pVal competition champion. He put together an insane pVal roster and he holds the crown because of it. Now we just need to go out and find a crown.