The SP Omnibus

I’m sure no one noticed but I took last week off and am now back in the saddle. I needed to catch up on starting pitchers to see who is or isn’t performing as expected. Here are some my thoughts while catching up on the news.

Joe Ross and Michael Pineda will need Tommy John surgery

I was a little surprised to see both of these injuries happen during the All-Star break. After reading the news, Ross’s injury shouldn’t have been a surprise for someone paying attention with him exiting his July 9th start early. His fastball velocity for the start was down 3 mph compared to earlier in the season.

As for Pineda, the injury did come out of nowhere. I wonder I Pineda was throwing with the injury for a while. Possibly, the Yankees ran tests on all their pitchers over the All-Star break and then found the injury. Pineda might have hurt his elbow in early May when his velocity dropped.

Either way, both pitchers are probably out for the rest of this season and likely all of next season with the current 14-month Tommy John surgery return time frame.

Velocity update

A complete velocity change table is available online but here are a few pitchers with recent velocity changes.

Madison Bumgarner: After returning from his motorcycle accident, his velocity is down even though the results were good (three runs over seven innings). All his pitches lost velocity with his fastball down 2.7 mph, cutter 2.1 mph, change 1.7 mph and curve 0.4 mph. He was only able to strike out 18% of the Padre hitters who have averaged a 26% K%.

He may have been rushed back before he being 100% ready but his 80% effort is probably useable to the Giants. He’s probably startable pitcher in all leagues but I would not be surprised if it takes him a while to ramp up to his pre-injury production. I would temper my expectations with him until the velocity rebounds.

Jim Johnson: His velocity is down 2.5 mph. It might be time start eying other options in the Braves bullpen. According to our latest Bullpen Report, owners may want to start grabbing Jose Ramirez, Sam Freeman, and Arodys Vizcaino.

Tanner Roark and Sean Manaea: The pair is experiencing the largest midseason velocity bumps of any starters. The increase is over a 1.3mph for each and any extra production can be helpful for this middling starters.

pERA Standouts

Note: For reference, here are the articles in which I created the framework for the metric (full list).

Asher Wojciechowski (3.62 pERA)

Another flyball pitcher the Reds can’t utilize, like Tim Adleman, since their home park is a launching pad. Wojciechowski posted a 28% GB% rate while starting which is the league’s second lowest value. The high number of “juiced” fly balls led to 3.1 HR/9 rate which is the league’s 4th highest.

So he’s given up a ton of home runs but he has some other encouraging results. His 15.6 K%-BB% is the league’s 55th best value around such pitchers as Sonny Gray, David Price, Marco Estrada, and Jose Berrios. The decent number of strikeouts (7.8 K/9) and walks (1.6 BB/9) just couldn’t keep his starter ERA (7.79) reasonable. All of his pitches post a below average groundball rate but his fastball posts a 10% SwStr% and his rarely used change is at 20% SwStr%. It’s just not a good time to be a flyball pitcher, especially for Cincinnati.

Rick Porcello (3.94 pERA)

While many expected Porcello to regress from 2016, I spotted some changes which led to a successful 2nd half mainly less reliance on a horrible sinker. This pitch does nothing useful. Its 4% SwStr% is below average and its 43% GB% is horrible for a sinker. And he has thrown it more than any other pitch this season. Hitters are posting a .361 AVG and .639 SLG against the pitch with 10 HR allowed. On the other hand, his fly ball including fastball has a .267 AVG and .393 SLG against (2 HR).

In 2016, he dropped the usage of his ineffective curve ball (8% SwStr%) and used his slider (16% SwStr%) and change (12% SwStr%) more. Now this season, he has thrown his curve more than his other two breaking pitches.

In starts this season when he throws his sinker and curve less than 45% of the time combined, he has an ERA of 4.18. When the combined usage is over 45%, his ERA is 5.15 (5.98 ERA when over 55%). Porcello seems to believe his sinker and curve are good pitches and once he gets over that, he will likely see improved results.