Were Early Season Locators Just Hot Hands?

In my first article for Rotographs, I dug into a premise that always puzzles me at the beginning of the season. What do you do with the seemingly low end starting pitchers who are off to hot starts? 

I noted how sometimes, they can stay hot for the full season, citing Rick Porcello’s Cy Young season in 2016 and more recently, 2025 standouts like Kris Bubic, Shane Smith, and Tyler Mahle. 

I set the parameters for this type of pitcher around a variety of the statistics that fantasy managers look to when determining the staying power of a starting pitcher. 

“We want to find pitchers who are suppressing runs and locating, but who may be considered unsustainable due to underlying metrics, specifically around the GIF making Stuff+ and K-BB%. To capture this, we’ll focus on pitchers with Stuff+ below 100, a Location+ above 100, a K-BB% of 17% or less, and an ERA below 3.00.”

Here was that list as of May 1 this season. 

How did they fare the rest of the way?

“Between Martinez, Griffin, Elder, Keller, and Meyer is where I think a league-winner is most likely to emerge for this season” was my prediction at the time, mainly because all presented a chance at providing strikeouts on top of their low ratios. Martinez, Elder, and Meyer were the trio I highlighted as being the most likely to reach some upside, though Meyer’s injury history was notable. 

McGreevy also caught my eye. “Some Savant frequenters may point to McGreevy’s 5.06 xERA as cause for concern. I’d point to his 36.8% hard hit rate and the fact that he generates a 44.7% ground ball rate as evidence that he should be one of those guys who can beat his peripherals. If you have xERA fans in your league, this may be the best time to buy, especially in Dynasty and Keeper formats.”

Wacha and EdRod felt like solid, if uninspiring veterans, and Rodriguez had a BB/9 above 4, which worried more, despite a low hard hit rate. 

Here’s how they fared the rest of the way. 

Besides Meyer, each pitcher had their ERA increase. And only Meyer, Wacha, Martinez, and Rodriguez kept their ERAs under 4. Interestingly, the entire group kept their strong Location+ starts rolling through the rest of the season, suggesting that perhaps Location+ is a relatively sticky statistic within a season. 

Wrobleski could also be considered a solid contributor the rest of the way, keeping his ERA at a respectable 4.25 and increasing his Location+ to a group-leading 116. 

Griffin falls into the same category, with perhaps the most dominant streak of the bunch prior to the trade deadline. With Cleveland, Griffin fell off the wagon, as poor outings pushed his ERA from 3.06 to 5.19. The underlying statistics are mixed, but FIP and xFIP point to some bad luck, as does his greatly diminished strand rate and improvements in his HR/9, K/9, and Location+ as a Guardian.

Was there anything that was notable about the “success stories” compared to those who reverted in the expected negative direction?

Limiting Hard Contact

Besides Wrobleski, all of the “success stories” had a Hard Hit% below 35%. Besides Wrobleski, this group all had a HR/FB below 15%. Besides Wrobleski (starting to see a trend?), these pitchers all had a Barrel% below 8%. 

This isn’t to say that the story of this group of Location+ standouts was that low home run rates early on kept their ERAs artificially low, and that they allowed more homers in the second half. 

Outside of Rodriguez, all of the pitchers had a Blast Contact rate a few points above league average (14%). All of the “success stories” had a HR/9 of .95 or higher, all the way up above 1.50 for Wacha and Wrobleski. The bigger story is that allowing homers can be separated from limiting hard contact if you generally locate well. Plus, limiting hits and walks helps you keep your ERA down even if you allow some homers. 

We already knew that, or could’ve guessed it without much thought. 

But it is nice to see a bit of proof. Because next time we see pitchers like this in April, with low ERAs and little besides a strong Location+ backing their strong starts, we can start to differentiate which are the likeliest to be real by looking at hard contact suppression metrics.

Not that hard contact suppression will hold up exactly, but it is a positive indiction of something that is likely to remain the case, at least directionally. Successful pitchers of this strike-throwing, soft-tossing archetype largely maintained contact suppression from half to half this season, even if home run luck kept their ERAs a bit lower early on. 

Does April Location+ Hold Up Rest of Season?

Another question that came up for me while reviewing these pitchers was whether or not Location+ from April held up across the rest of the season for most starting pitchers. Put differently, is early Location+ indicative of true talent, at least for one full season?

Taking the 110 starting pitchers who threw at least 20 innings through the end of April and at least 40 innings from May 1 through the end of this season, there is a moderately strong positive correlation (r-squared = .30) with Location+. 

This suggests that looking at the early season locators can be worthwhile, or at least it was this season, but that it also shouldn’t be taken as gospel. 

Just look at Davis Martin. 

The best practice with these sort of pitchers is to ride the wave until they give you a reason not to. And not to hold on too long when all of the signs, besides perhaps ERA, point to regression. Starting your year with 10 strong Bryce Elder starts is helpful, but holding him for the next 10 isn’t.