Examining Pitching+ :: Three SPs to Watch
A close look at three sneaky SPs who stand out in the world of pitch modeling.
There is no boredom when you have a family and a blog. There is always something to do, and today instead of being bored I have chosen to rock out another MLB DW post.
As I wrote about the other day in the daily notes, I have now started scraping FanGraphs Stuff+, Location+, and Pitching+ data since my other data provider isn’t able to provide me updates anymore. So we can look into this stuff and find some interesting names.
Pitching+ is a machine learning system that grades every pitch thrown based on all of its movement and location properties, using a several-year history of pitch data to determine what kinds of pitches work well and which do not. It’s a pretty good stat for evaluating a pitcher with one number.
There is a lot of randomness in baseball, especially at the individual game level, but even with that, we do see a relationship here between Pitching+ and fantasy production.
Here is the average number of fantasy points scored from outings in each Pitching+ bin:
110 or better: 21.7 fantasy points
105-110: 19.3
100-105: 16.9
95-100: 15.0
90-95: 13.0
Below 90: 10.2
The better your Pitching+, the higher your expected fantasy production.
Allow me to set us up here by just giving you the whole current top 25. I’m using at least six starts here since that will get us above 500 pitches for most guys.
Paul Skenes 111
Nick Pivetta 111
Jared Jones 111
Corbin Burnes 109
Zack Wheeler 108
Tanner Houck 107.5
Tarik Skubal 107
Joey Estes 107
Tanner Bibee 107
Dylan Cease 107
George Kirby 107
Tyler Glasnow 107
Grayson Rodriguez 106
Bryan Woo 106
Kyle Bradish 106
Yoshinobu Yamamoto 106
Ryan Pepiot 106
Kevin Gausman 106
Yusei Kikuchi 106
Logan Webb 106
Aaron Nola 106
Brandon Pfaadt 106
Sonny Gray 106
Chris Paddack 105
Cole Ragans 105
So it’s mostly a list of known stud pitchers. Let’s take a look at some of these more surprising names in the top 25.
Joey Estes
Nobody expected to see the 22-year-old Estes showing up here, but he has made a whole bunch of quality pitches this year.
He has had two starts with a Pitching+ above 110, which is not easy to do. The vast majority of starts come in between 90 and 110, it’s a pretty tight distribution:
He’s been below 105 just once:
Estes doesn’t have a very good SwStr% at 11.7%, but the Strike% remains very strong at 51%. That’s the 10th-best Strike% in the league for pitchers with at least five starts.
The fastball velocity is mediocre, but nonetheless it’s gone for an elite 53% Strike%. That probably has to do with the 107 Location+ he has posted on the pitch. He clearly has strong fastball command.
He has the same Location+ of 107 on his slider as well, and given the 31% Ball% and 6.1% BB%, I think we can call him a command pitcher.
The reason for concerns about his fantasy abilities in the short term would be the mediocre whiff ability. His season strikeout rate sits at 21.5% right now, which does take off a considerable amount of ceiling. The other striking thing in the profile is the wild lack of ground balls. His 18% GB% is the lowest in the league, and honestly that numbers doesn’t even make sense. I’ve never seen a ground ball rate under 20% in my life. Second-lowest in the league is Verlander way up there at 26%. So this means two things
He is going to get more ground balls soon, 18% just isn’t sustainable
He is going to give up home runs
The Coliseum is a good place for fly balls, and we have already explored the fact that low walk and high fly ball pitchers typically put up solid WHIP, so there’s hope that he can be a positive on fantasy teams the rest of the year. I think it’ll be a pretty terrifying proposition to have him when the A’s are playing in that minor league stadium next year, but we’ll have to explore that at a later date.
For now, I’m picking up Estes in any 14-team league or deeper. The command seems legit, and I do think at the very least this guy can help your team’s WHIP.
Brandon Pfaadt
After that late-season and postseason run he went on for the Snakes last year, we thought this would be a bust-out season for the young righty. It hasn’t gone that way thus far, however:
13 GS, 78.1 IP, 4.60 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 23.4% K%, 4.6% BB%
He deserves better than a 4.60 ERA with that 19% K-BB%, and the pitch modeling stuff likes him as well:
Data in table format:
So the Stuff+ is actually pretty solid, and the command is very strong as well. This shows you some of the different ways to get to a high Pitching+. You can have great stuff and decent command, great command and decent stuff, or decent in both categories.
The pitch mix:
He came up last year with a good sweeper but a fastball that needed work. Midseason last year he added the sinker and it seemed to help, and it looks like this year he’s improved the 4-seamer at least a bit with a strong 52% Strike% on the pitch.
He has also generated weak contact overall this year with just a 5.6% Brl% and .279 xwOBA.
So where is this bad ERA coming from? It’s not BABIP (.288), and it’s not bad HR luck (10.2% HR/FB). It’s not even a high strand rate (61%). So this is just strange. In fact, I’m somewhat at a loss for words here.
So maybe I’ll just wrap Pfaadt up and tell you he sports a 3.54 SIERA, a 3.61 xFIP, and a 3.51 FIP. All the indicators say this is an above-average Major League starter, and yet here we are with the 4.60 ERA. Weird stuff, but better times are ahead for Pfaadt. buy low!
Chris Paddack
Paddack is pitching like a man who wants to win a walk rate title lately. He has a 4.5% BB% on the season and a 3.5% mark in his last five starts.
The stuff isn’t anything to get excited about, he’s been consistently around 85-90 this year on that, but the command is really strong. His 106 Location+ is among the best in the league, and that has brought this overall Pitching+ score into the top 25.
Unlike Pfaadt, it is fairly easy to see where his bloated 4.79 ERA has come from, and that’s the .338 BABIP and 11 homers he’s allowed. The 9.7% Brl% is high, and just recently got under 10%.
The 12% SwStr% is about league average, but with a strong 34% Ball% you would expect some nice starts from Paddack - especially given how good his four-seamer has been this year with that 55% Strike%.
He just needs to get the changeup working a bit better. It’s been good (110 Stuff+, 106 Pitching+), but not quite the elite put-away pitch it once was.
I see a lot of things to like in the profile for Paddack, so while I’d prioritize him third among these three arms, I still think he’s well worth a roster spot in a 14-team league or deeper, and all three of these guys should be at least used as streamers in 12-team leagues or shallower. They all make the cut.
Those are the three names I’m covering today. You can access all the pitch modeling data here if you’re interested in exploring more (or just go right to the source on FanGraphs).