Happy Monday morning! One of my favorite times of the week, getting back into the quiet, cool office down here and buckling down on some baseball stuff.
Let’s start with Jesus Luzardo. The roller-coaster ride continued.
This time it was a good start.
6.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 7 SO, 1 BB
We saw some consistency from Luzardo in those first ten or so starts, but since mid-May he’s been erratic. Erraticism is what I expected from Luzardo this year.
This gave me the ide to check on strike rate by start distributions for this year’s SPs.
I want to know who has been the most and least consistent in delivering strike rates. Remember that “most consistent” doesn’t have to be a good thing. If you’re consistently bad, that’s still consistent. I’m measuring that by the standard deviation of each pitcher’s (10+ GS) daily strike rates. Strike Rate, I think, is a good descriptive measure. It’s a good single number to judge generally how a start went.
Here are your ten most consistent.
The top three are all on the good side of consistent. They’re at least a couple of points above that league average (47%), and they’ve delivered those results pretty consistently.
How about your ten least consistent:
One outlier start raises the standard deviation considerably, and that’s what we see with Max Meyer.
The one insane start against the Reds really have skewed so many of his season numbers.
Max Meyer 2025 Fantasy Point Scoring
Our guy Luzardo falls pretty much right in the middle here.
Average: 47.4% Minimum: 39.3% Maximum: 57.6% St Deviation: 5.1%
He is way more good than bad, and you should start him every time. Just ignore the bad starts as best as you can. And if you’re the commissioner of your league, you can go ahead and just use the commish powers to bench him from your lineup when one of those bad starts is happening. Maybe your league won’t notice.
We saw Michael Soroka up there as the third-most consistent, and his average was quite good as well. He struck out ten Dodgers yesterday. That was just the second time all year that somebody struck out 10+ Dodgers.
I’ve been talking a bit about Soroka, and I think I might have been onto something. His line yesterday:
5.1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 10 SO, 2 BB, 17.6% SwStr%, 38.8% Ball%, .199 xwOBA
It was ruined by the bullpen giving up a grand slam as soon as he left. He got no help there stranding the runners.
Those ten punch-daddies brought the season K% up to 26.5%. Add onto that a 6.3% BB% and look at what you have. Let’s do a little subtraction:
26.5 - 6.3 ———- 20.2
Hold on it’s 2025 I’ve gotta check with the AI.
Add on a 46% GB%, and you have the makings of a very good JA ERA.
A 2.91! That’s really good. His 3.32 SIERA ranks #27 among pitchers with 40+ innings pitched, so that gives you some idea about where he’s at rank-wise.
There are 27 pitchers with 9+ starts and a JA ERA under three. You could make an argument that Soroka is a top-30 SP. Would it be a great and convincing argument? Maybe not. But it wouldn’t be completely out of line.
So let’s look at the pitch mix:
Pitching success begins with a good fastball, and Soroka has a good fastball. A 52% Strike% is three points above the league average for that pitch type, and three points is a lot in this particular stat.
His second pitch is the slurve. We don’t have a lot of data to compare a slurve to. Only six pitchers have thrown 100 of them.
The slurve is what is sounds like, part slider, part curve.
More vertical movement than the slider, less horizontal movement.
More horizontal movement than the curve, less vertical movement.
It’s been a great pitch for Soroka (.203 xwOBA!), and it teams up well with the four-seamer. I think Soroka deserves some more attention.
He’s also a guy who could very well be traded to a contender at the deadline since he’ll be a free agent coming up this offseason.
I brought up Chase Burns yesterday. He should be owned everywhere, and by now, I’m sure he’s gobbled up in your leagues, hopefully by you.
But I want to repeat another general rule that seems to apply to me. The difference between a prospect pitcher call-up and a hitter.
No matter how good the hitter is, it seems there is always an adjustment period. Juan Soto is the only exception I can even think of. Maybe Bobby Witt Jr., and I’m sure there are others you could make the case for. But the vast, vast majority of hitters struggle at first. Or at least take time to get to the level they end up at.
I don’t think it’s quite the same with pitchers. Clearly, there are things to learn and refinements to make, and all of that. But here’s the thing.
The pitcher starts with the ball. They control the play. If you have Major League-ready stuff, there’s no real obstacle to overcome, other than adjusting to the brighter lights and all of that business.
Pitchers are proactive and hitters are reactive. No matter how well you hit college and minor league pitching, coming to the big leagues always requires adjustments and fine-tuning, because the pitching at the highest level is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
It’s true for pitchers to, that they’ve never faced hitters as good as the ones in the Majors, not even close. But like I said, if their stuff has already cleared that bar, then they don’t have to do anything. They just come up and keep throwing the same pitches they have, and if it’s good enough, it will work.
We saw Paul Skenes have no trouble whatsoever. He went from college to the Majors in 15 months, and immediately started getting guys out. Is Chase Burns that good? I don’t think many people would say he’s as good as Skenes, but he’s close. He’s closer to a Skenes than he is to a Chase Dollander or something, right?
My point is that I would be adding Chase Burns with a confidence that I would not be adding any prospect hitter with. And I guess this will be advice for these NFBC FAAB leagues where Burns won’t be available for bidding until Sunday. If there’s ever a prospect where I’d blow a huge chunk of my FAAB, it’s a starting pitcher like this.
Ryan Gusto did not have a good outing in the box:
6 IP, 6 H, 5 ER
But he did go for a 7:0 K:BB. He gave up two pretty untimely homers to ruin the result. His last three have looked very good in my eyes:
17 IP, 22 SO, 2 BB, 13.2% SwStr%, 31.5% Ball%, 1.85 JA ERA, 1.76 WHIP+
Super nice numbers there. That’s a 32% K% and a 3% BB%. He’s sneaky.
And he’s an interesting case. I was banging the Gusto drum awhile ago. And now it looks like I might have been kind of right. However, I’ve helped precisely nobody because he’s sucked massive eggs in the box score every time I’ve told people to start him. So I’m sorry, but I’m also not sorry at the same time. Is this a “never wrong, just early” situation? I don’t know.
His 22.8% June K-BB% puts him in the top 15.
June K-BB% Leaders
Our boys Soroka and Gusto popping off!
Someone asked me about Casey Schmitt yesterday. Specifically, they asked me if they should drop Matt Shaw for him. So we can take a look at that.
He shows up today on the
Hardest Hit Balls (111.6mph homer yesterday)
Super Ultra Mega Hot Hitters
Low-Owned OPS Leaders
So it’s a hat trick for Schmitty. His season thus far:
He hinted at some power last year with that .477 SLG, but the OBP wasn’t cutting it. Let’s check on our favorite skill indicators:
108.2 EV90 (elite)
78% Zone-Contact% (very bad)
10.6% Brl% (strong)
44% GB% (pretty good)
39% Sweet Spot% (elite)
He’s around an average runner, but hasn’t done much base-stealing in his career, so that’s not a part of his game. He missed time to injury and returned to the Giants in mid-May. Since then:
So the Z-Contact% has been even worse lately. The league average contact rate in the zone is 83%. The worst numbers you’ll find are in the 60s (Kyren Paris 64%, Gabriel Arias 66%, Matt Wallner 68%).
Being below 80% does imply a higher strikeout rate. 78% doesn’t have to mean a 30%+ K%. MOst of the other guys around 78% are between 25-28%, and that plays just fine if you have a bunch of power. Cal Raleigh, to take an example, ahs a 78% Z-Contact% this year, and things are going pretty well for him.
Let’s see what’s changed from last year to this year for the Schmittster. He’s the only hitter named Casey to get a PA in the Majors the last two years. The more you know!
The K% has gone the wrong way, but the BB% has gone the right way. I bet he’s swinging less this year, let’s see!
Yes, indeed. Swinging less overall (four points is a big change). That means he’s chasing less. His zone swing hasn’t changed as much as his chase rate. You can measure both of those at the time with the Swing Dec mark there, and you can see the huge, huge improvement he’s made.
So this is all very good news for Schmitt. And this guy was a top ten prospect for the Giants last year, I believe. He’s 26 now, so not a young pup, but someone you could believe in as far it goes about him stepping into the everyday MLB lineup and being productive. The power is there and he’s gotten smarter at the plate. If he can make even a little bit more contact, he could have a very nice rest of the season. I’d definitely consider adding him if your fantasy team needs some thump.
And look at this position eligibility:
Every infield spot but catcher. Very, very nice.
As for the other part of that question, Matt Shaw does not have thump. His 100.9 EV90 is horrible. But that’s not his biggest problem at all. He’s got a .237 xBA and a .301 xwOBA in the Majors this year. He’s not striking out much (21% K%), but the quality of contact is really poor. I think we can move on from Shaw for 2025.
I also think Dominic Canzone needs to be mentioned. Do any of you remember the offseason before last season when I was banging the Canzone drum for super deep leagues? I remember it. I remember it well. I just rocked out a tweet, so we’ll let that go:
Here’s the hitter profile from the dashboard:
It’s a small sample size, but a really enticing mix of contact skills and power. His bat speed is up there.
So he has skills. And that’s what I saw two winters ago when I was hyping him tee-eff up.
The theme of today’s daily notes is “the times I was right, or maybe at least sort of kind right, but it didn’t help a single freaking person”.
His minor league line from these last two seasons combined:
That’s an elite home run rate with a solid K% and BB% profile. He is 27 years old, so this isn’t a budding prospect, but he’s better than people realize, and maybe the Mariners are realizing it.
Speaking of teams realizing things at the same time as I realize them, the Athletics have called up this Jack Perkins guy. It humorously happened the morning after I put out a tweet about him. He has had an incredible season in AAA, leading everybody down there in JA ERA. And bonus points since he’s doing in the Pacific Coast League.
It’s a high ball rate and a high 11.3% BB%. That might end up being a dealbreaker. I’m also not sure if the Athletics plan to actually start him. So we can’t add him yet, and overall I sort of doubt he turns into anything special, but he did more than enough in the minors to deserve some big league attention.
This reminds me of my league adjusted minor league stats resource. I wrote this prior to last year, I believe. What it does is is takes our favorite pitcher and hitter statistics and adjusts them to the league context.
These leagues in the minors are wildly different. Some of them even have different rules since MLB uses them as a testing ground for new stuff. So it’s good to adjust numbers to that league context.
Here goes your minor league SP adjusted K-BB% leaders (all levels):
Travis Sykora, Chase Burns, Trey Yesavage, and our boy Jack Perkins. The first three of those are highly-touted prospects. Maybe prospect bros need to stop sleeping on Jack Perkins.
Perkins and I are basically brothers now, so I’m hoping and praying for the best for him.
On the hitting side of the league adjusted stats, it looks like this:
I’ve sorted that by league adjusted OPS. And it will update every day showing you the highest level the hitter has made it to so you have some idea about where they’re at. It’s not current level, it’s highest level achieved this year.
The top dog is Mike Sirota, which looks and sounds a lot like Mike Soroka. And isn’t that beautiful. The notes come full circle today.
I like the first part of that quote, and that first line sprang to mind when seeing this Sirota/Soroka business. But no, that last line is wrong in my view. “What is, is right”. No, no. Lots of things that are, are very, very wrong and will be made right someday. But okay, back to MIKE SIROTA:
I have to talk about Matt McLain. Most people have caught on by now, and I’m late to the party. But things have taken a very nice turn for the Reds young infielder. His June:
He hasn’t stolen a base since May 25th, so that’s kind of annoying. But everything else is nice.
The raw power numbers are middling at best, so that’s a concern.
For the year: 8.7% Brl%, 104.0 EV90 In June: 7.0% Brl%, 103.1 EV90
You don’t need a ton of raw power to hit homers in Cincy, but it helps! McLain has been doing his damage by hitting a bunch of line drives and gap shots. And that’s not always the best thing to rely on.
I’m not ready to say McLain is a must-start, but it’s good to see him having turned a corner lately.
Let’s take a peak at the rest of the super ultra mega hot hitters.
Max Muncy hit two more homers yesterday including a grand slam. He has been just insanely good since mid-May.
OPS Leaders since May 15
Ronald Acuna Jr. 1.194
Cal Raleigh 1.175
Max Muncy 1.063
Aaron Judge 1.040
Will Smith 1.036
Ketel Marte 1.024
Eugenio Suarez 1.010
Brandon Lowe .977
Elly De La Cruz .976
Junior Caminero .972
Willi Castro .961
James Wood .957
Shohei Ohtani .951
Matt Olson .948
Kyle Tucker .945
Pretty wild to see Willi Castro there. This sample for Willi:
He’s smoking the ball with a 105.7 EV90. I didn’t think he had that in him. There’s a lot of swing-and-miss as well (2% K%, 68% Contact%), but he’s getting the job done. And he’s another guy who basically fits into any position on your fantasy roster.
And let’s wrap it there. Hope you enjoyed, and here’s to a good week ahead! God bless.
