We got a little bit of a break yesterday with just five games being played. That was nice, because I have had to spend my morning up to this point making my projection model work with the new Luis Castillo. That’s right, a different Luis Castillo will be starting for the Mariners today. The MLB data guys are doing their best to help. He’s known as Luis F. Castillo:
I don’t think the guy is any good, so he’s not someone to worry about for fantasy purposes. The lesson to be learned for young coders (aka me three years ago when I was writing this projection model): never base anything off of a person’s name. Find the unique ID and use that. Look up the name later.
Let’s go through yesterday’s pitchers.
We did not have any of these young “on the radar” SPs going, but some interesting things did happen.
Charlie Morton struck out ten. That was pretty shocking. He also gave up five earned runs, but the stuff looked pretty crisp.
That’s still pretty decent velo on the four-seamer. He can still get it into the mid-90s. And the curveball was very good with a 53% Strike%. He did get hit hard a few times, and the 38% Ball% is an issue. I still am not buying into Morton for fantasy leagues, but it was a bit intriguing to see the 14% SwStr%. Maybe he has a little more left in the tank than I thought.
Hunter Brown maintained those velo gains. He is throwing his fastball at 97.7 this year.
And he has turned in double-digit SwStr% on six different pitches (in very small samples). This is a very exciting start to his season. Brown could be taking the next step into acehood… acedom… aceness.
The velo on the four-seamer is still really low, however.
He’s at 90 this year, that’s two miles per hour under last year. Nestor is probably still good enough to be owned in a 15-team league, but you are really playing with fire on a guy that allows this many fly balls and does not have a high strikeout rate. You’ll have some good starts, but you’re also going to have some really bad ones where he gives up multiple homers.
I wouldn’t expect another five-homer performance like that first outing, but it’s no secret that this guy can give up the gopher ball.
Joe Ryan struggled a bit. And he struck out the side in order in the first inning!
5 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 6 K, 0 BB
Still a very nice K:BB, that’s just what the guy does. But he gave up a couple of homers and clearly didn’t have pristine command with a very high 41% Ball%. He threw strikes when it mattered, but he was not his normal self.
Bear with the guy. The numbers at the end of the year are going to be good. He’s a very good pitcher. But he is a very high fly ball rate guy. That’s going to turn into some earned runs, and it might result in an ERA you’re not thrilled about.
I’m not saying Joe Ryan is a Cy Young candidate. An ERA near four is a real possibility, but the strikeouts and WHIP are so nice that he’s pretty easily a top-25 SP in my book.
Nick Lodolo once again turned in an excellent box score result without putting up great peripherals.
6.2 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 R, 4 K, 0 BB
The box scores are great:
The stats I always cite here are not:
Lodolo is a super tall left-hander. The delivery is one that hitters don’t see very often. That could mean he’ll be excellent at generating soft contact. Maybe the ERA will crush the SIERA in this case. It’s not out of the question for a guy like Lodolo. But I would really like to see some strikeouts here. If I had Lodolo right now, I’d be seeing what I could get for him.
Not only do we have the risk of the lack of strikeouts catching up to him, he also has the looming injury risk. The guy has been hurt a lot. Those types are always kinda nice to trade away while they’re healthy.
The 10.1% SwStr%, although it’s very early, is a pretty good sign to me that Lodolo isn’t going to put up the type of season you’re going to be kicking yourself for trading away. Maybe he stays healthy and puts up decent numbers, but if he’s really going to be at 10-12% SwStr%, I think it’ll be a middling season at best.
On the hitting side, Kristian Campbell deserves a mention. He hit his second homer of the season and now sports a .417/.500/.833 slash line with an 18% K%.
Kristian Campbell Early 2025 Data
It’s a .290 xBA and a .397 xwOBA. So everything looks pretty legit. The 75% Contact% doesn’t quite match up with a K% under 20%, but I doubt the strikeouts will be a big issue for him.
The worry is that pitchers find some weak spot and exploit it. Big league pitchers are pretty great at doing that.
You have to be pretty thrilled with him so far. I would say that in a redraft league, you may want to see what you can get for him. I think there will be some struggles along the way. Very, very few hitters come up and just hit consistently from the jump. So if someone is willing to give you an established stud hitter (or something close to that), that’s probably something to consider.
And if the baseballs have really been altered to get more home runs (I still kinda doubt it, but maybe), we might see Aaron Judge hit 65 bombs or something. And who knows, man, maybe that Barry Bonds 73 isn’t completely out of reach.
The one weird number in Judge’s profile so far is an 11% BB%. He was at 19% in each of the last two years. And honestly, with Soto gone and Stanton on the long-term IL, I thought that would go up rather than down. And I absolutely expect it to get above 15% pretty soon. Pitching to Judge this year with decent but beatable hitters behind him does not seem like a wise choice.
Note that my main dashboard does not account for intentional walks. So in the case of guys like Judge who get a bunch of those IBBs, their walk rates are going to be very wrong there.
The reason for that is that the baseball savant dataset is pitch-by-pitch. One row of data for every pitch thrown. And since they did the dumb thing where you don’t have to actually throw the four balls for an intentional walk, those PAs just do not appear in the data at all. The numbers should be correct in the MLB & MiLB Stats Dashboard, because that uses the box score results rather than pitch-by-pitch.
That’ll have to do it for today! I won’t be around to do the slate preview today, but Stu should get you some props later on. It’s a family weekend for me, so content will be lighter this weekend, but the projections and dashboards and reports and all of that business won’t stop.
Pitcher Reports
Algo SP Ranks - Yesterday
1. Hunter Brown
2. Charlie Morton
3. Taijuan Walker
4. Nestor Cortes
5. Antonio Senzatela
6. Nick Lodolo
7. Joe Ryan
8. Tanner Houck
9. Carlos Carrasco
10. Merrill Kelly
Fantasy Points Leaders - Yesterday
1. Nestor Cortes (vs. CIN): 27.7 Points
2. Hunter Brown (vs. MIN): 26.5 Points
3. Taijuan Walker (vs. COL): 23.1 Points
4. Nick Lodolo (vs. MIL): 20.61 Points
5. Charlie Morton (vs. BOS): 16.45 Points
6. Carlos Carrasco (vs. ARI): 15.79 Points
7. Joe Ryan (vs. HOU): 12.25 Points
8. Antonio Senzatela (vs. PHI): 11.99 Points
9. Darren McCaughan (vs. HOU): 11.3 Points
10. Tanner Houck (vs. BAL): 10.8 Points
Whiffs Leaders - Yesterday
1. Charlie Morton (BAL): 16 Whiffs (98 Pitches)
2. Hunter Brown (HOU): 14 Whiffs (91 Pitches)
3. Antonio Senzatela (COL): 11 Whiffs (92 Pitches)
4. Nestor Cortes (MIL): 11 Whiffs (86 Pitches)
5. Taijuan Walker (PHI): 11 Whiffs (74 Pitches)
6. Joe Ryan (MIN): 10 Whiffs (83 Pitches)
7. Nick Lodolo (CIN): 9 Whiffs (82 Pitches)
8. Tanner Houck (BOS): 9 Whiffs (82 Pitches)
9. Carlos Carrasco (NYY): 7 Whiffs (82 Pitches)
10. Garrett Whitlock (BOS): 7 Whiffs (37 Pitches)
Strike% Leaders - Yesterday
1. Charlie Morton (BAL): 53.1 Strike%, 35.7 Ball%
2. Hunter Brown (HOU): 51.6 Strike%, 33.0 Ball%
3. Nestor Cortes (MIL): 48.8 Strike%, 36.0 Ball%
4. Carlos Carrasco (NYY): 48.8 Strike%, 32.9 Ball%
5. Tanner Houck (BOS): 45.1 Strike%, 42.7 Ball%
6. Antonio Senzatela (COL): 43.5 Strike%, 32.6 Ball%
7. Joe Ryan (MIN): 43.4 Strike%, 41.0 Ball%
8. Nick Lodolo (CIN): 42.7 Strike%, 31.7 Ball%
9. Taijuan Walker (PHI): 41.9 Strike%, 36.5 Ball%
10. Merrill Kelly (ARI): 38.8 Strike%, 38.8 Ball%
Pitches/Out (POUT) Leaders - Yesterday
1. Nick Lodolo: 82 Pitches, 20 Outs, 4.1 POUT
2. Taijuan Walker: 74 Pitches, 17 Outs, 4.35 POUT
3. Nestor Cortes: 86 Pitches, 18 Outs, 4.78 POUT
4. Hunter Brown: 91 Pitches, 18 Outs, 5.06 POUT
5. Carlos Carrasco: 82 Pitches, 16 Outs, 5.12 POUT
6. Joe Ryan: 83 Pitches, 15 Outs, 5.53 POUT
7. Antonio Senzatela: 92 Pitches, 15 Outs, 6.13 POUT
8. Charlie Morton: 98 Pitches, 15 Outs, 6.53 POUT
9. Tanner Houck: 82 Pitches, 12 Outs, 6.83 POUT
10. Merrill Kelly: 80 Pitches, 11 Outs, 7.27 POUT
Velo Changes - Yesterday
Hunter Brown's CU velo (13 pitches) UP 2.0mph to 85.0
Hunter Brown's FF velo (34 pitches) UP 1.6mph to 97.7
Taijuan Walker's SI velo (10 pitches) UP 1.5mph to 92.7
Charlie Morton's FC velo (10 pitches) DOWN -1.5mph to 86.9
Joe Ryan's FF velo (57 pitches) DOWN -1.6mph to 92.2
Charlie Morton's CU velo (34 pitches) DOWN -1.9mph to 79.6
Nestor Cortes's FF velo (35 pitches) DOWN -1.9mph to 90.1
Nestor Cortes's FC velo (32 pitches) DOWN -2.2mph to 85.2
Nestor Cortes's CH velo (12 pitches) DOWN -2.3mph to 81.2
Pitch Mix Changes - Yesterday
Carlos Carrasco's SL usage (35.4%) up 10.4 points
Charlie Morton's FF usage (41.8%) up 12.2 points
Joe Ryan's FF usage (68.7%) up 15.8 points
Merrill Kelly's CU usage (23.8%) up 14.9 points
Taijuan Walker's SL usage (23.0%) up 21.6 points
Tanner Houck's FF usage (11.0%) up 10.5 points
CSW% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Yoshinobu Yamamoto - 41 TBF, 37.4% CSW%
Zac Gallen - 45 TBF, 37.0% CSW%
Logan Gilbert - 44 TBF, 36.6% CSW%
Sonny Gray - 45 TBF, 35.2% CSW%
Hunter Greene - 44 TBF, 34.8% CSW%
Zack Wheeler - 44 TBF, 34.2% CSW%
Carlos Rodon - 45 TBF, 33.5% CSW%
MacKenzie Gore - 44 TBF, 33.5% CSW%
Nathan Eovaldi - 51 TBF, 33.3% CSW%
Hunter Brown - 45 TBF, 33.2% CSW%
K% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Logan Gilbert - 44 TBF, 40.9% K%
Zack Wheeler - 44 TBF, 40.9% K%
MacKenzie Gore - 44 TBF, 40.9% K%
Zac Gallen - 45 TBF, 37.8% K%
Hunter Greene - 44 TBF, 36.4% K%
Freddy Peralta - 46 TBF, 34.8% K%
Yoshinobu Yamamoto - 41 TBF, 34.1% K%
Hunter Brown - 45 TBF, 33.3% K%
Nathan Eovaldi - 51 TBF, 33.3% K%
Sonny Gray - 45 TBF, 33.3% K%
K-BB% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Logan Gilbert - 44 TBF, 38.6% K-BB%
MacKenzie Gore - 44 TBF, 36.4% K-BB%
Zack Wheeler - 44 TBF, 36.4% K-BB%
Nathan Eovaldi - 51 TBF, 33.3% K-BB%
Freddy Peralta - 46 TBF, 32.6% K-BB%
Hunter Greene - 44 TBF, 31.8% K-BB%
Sonny Gray - 45 TBF, 28.9% K-BB%
Zac Gallen - 45 TBF, 28.9% K-BB%
Yoshinobu Yamamoto - 41 TBF, 26.8% K-BB%
Hunter Brown - 45 TBF, 26.7% K-BB%
GB% Leaders - Last 3 Weeks
Clay Holmes - 46 TBF, 69.0% GB%
Yoshinobu Yamamoto - 41 TBF, 66.7% GB%
Paul Skenes - 44 TBF, 62.1% GB%
Nathan Eovaldi - 51 TBF, 61.8% GB%
Hunter Brown - 45 TBF, 59.3% GB%
Antonio Senzatela - 46 TBF, 56.1% GB%
Logan Webb - 45 TBF, 54.8% GB%
Nick Lodolo - 48 TBF, 54.8% GB%
Logan Gilbert - 44 TBF, 52.0% GB%
Carlos Rodon - 45 TBF, 51.9% GB%
Magic Formula Qualifiers - Pitchers - Last 3 Weeks
JA. Gotta drop one to bring Gunnar of the IL. Drop Gore or Pepiot? Who do you think is better for the rest of the season? Thanks as always.