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Proceed With Caution on These Lucky Pitchers

February 14, 2019 By Chris Spencer Leave a Comment

Los Angeles Dodgers Walker Buehler

Draft Buddy’s Mike drafted L.A. Dodgers Walker Buehler in a new best ball draft. The next day Draft Buddy’s Chris tells Mike that Buehler was one of the luckiest pitchers last year and is overvalued. This picture seemed fitting.

Every year as part of my draft prep I like to take a look at starting pitchers and determine those that may have benefit from good luck. The idea is to bring to your attention to pitchers going early in drafts and warning you to pump the brakes and proceed with caution – they may be overvalued. To do this I utilize the following metrics:

ERA-xFIP (Earned Run Average minus Expected Fielding Independent Pitching)

Although not perfect, I use xFIP as the pitcher’s “true” ERA, or his ERA based on the things he can control (strikeouts and walks) and removes the things he has little to no control over (defense and BABIP). Subtracting xFIP from the pitcher’s ERA gives me an idea of whether he is lucky or unlucky. If the pitcher’s ERA is lower than his xFIP it tells me that the pitcher may be lucky and actually pitched worse than his ERA indicates.

BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play)

BABIP measures how many balls in play against a pitcher go for hits, excluding home runs. A pitcher with a low BABIP is seeing less balls fall for hits thus lowering his ERA and WHIP. Research has shown that a pitcher’s BABIP is more likely to perform close to league-average (around .300 typically). So, my thought is that, when a pitcher has a BABIP a good bit lower than league average I’m chalking it up to luck and expecting his BABIP to return to “normal” this upcoming season. Therefore, I am expecting more hits which leads to his ERA and WHIP rising.

LOB% (Left On Base Percentage)

A LOB% higher than the league average (72.8% in 2018) indicates that he is allowing less runners to score thus decreasing his ERA. Like BABIP, my thinking is that this should even out in the upcoming season. More base runners scoring leads to an increase in ERA.

GB% (Ground Ball Percentage)

Ground balls are a pitcher’s best friend. That is because, although statistically they tend to go for hits more often than fly balls, they don’t result in extra base hits as often. In addition, the higher a pitcher’s ground ball rate, the easier it is for their defense to turn those ground balls into outs. I like to compare the pitcher’s GB% rate to the league average and his career average to get an idea if luck played a role.

HR/FB (Home Run to Fly Ball Rate)

Pitchers generally do not have control over their HR/FB from year to year (but their home ballpark can have an effect). A low HR/FB indicates that the pitcher is serving up less homeruns than normal and thus their ERA is probably low. Like BABIP and LOB%, my thinking is that a pitcher’s HR/FB rate should be closer to league average and therefore they could be serving up more homeruns. Which we all know is not good.

Here are the MLB totals for these metrics over the last five season. These results are from starting pitchers only (no relievers).

Metric 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
ERA 4.19 4.49 4.34 4.10 3.82
xFIP 4.16 4.41 4.24 4.00 3.78
ERA-xFIP 0.03 0.08 0.10 0.10 0.04
BABIP 0.291 0.299 0.298 0.297 0.296
LOB% 72.6% 72.1% 72.2% 72.3% 72.5%
GB% 43.0% 44.0% 44.3% 45.2% 44.6%
HR/FB 13.1% 14.2% 13.3% 11.6% 9.8%
Innings 26060.2 26787.1 27412.2 28223.1 28992.0

Here are a few things that pique my interest from this data:

  • Total innings pitched by starters is going down each season. The golden age of relievers is upon us.
  • LOB% and GB% are pretty consistent from year to year. We could have said the same about BABIP until last year.
  • HR/FB has been slightly higher in the past three years than 2014 and 2015. You conspiracy theorists should enjoy that.
  • ERA is always slightly higher than xFIP. In a perfect world they would be the same, I think. But, our world is far from perfect.

If you are still with me, for this exercise I went to FanGraphs and exported 2018 stats for starting pitchers with more than 100 IP. This returned data for 128 pitchers.

Then I tabulated if each pitcher was lucky for each metric. To determine what lucky looks like, I came up with these guidelines based on a weighted average over the last 5 years:

  • ERA-xFIP lower than -0.5
  • BABIP lower than 0.285
  • LOB% higher than 73.4%
  • GB% higher than 44.8%
  • HR/FB lower than 12.1%

BUYER BEWARE

This analysis resulted in the following potentially overvalued starting pitchers for the 2019 fantasy baseball season, given their high luck score and high ADP. Stats are from FanGraphs. ADP info is from FantasyPros as of February 13, 2019.

Jacob deGrom ADP SP #2 · Overall #14

Season Innings ERA xFIP ERA-xFIP BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB
2016 148.0 3.04 3.47 -0.43 .312 80.0% 45.6% 11.5%
2017 201.1 3.53 3.23 0.30 .305 76.3% 45.3% 16.1%
2018 217.0 1.70 2.60 -0.90 .281 82.0% 46.4% 6.3%

DeGrom had the 4th lowest HR/FB rate, 9th highest LOB% and the 15th lowest ERA-xFIP of the 128 starters analyzed. In fact, he ended up being the 4th luckiest pitcher in my analysis. That is a big red flag for someone being drafted at the end of Round 1 or early Round 2.

If I’m drafting a starting pitcher that high I want to be confident that he’s going to put up an ERA below 3 and I’m just not sure that’s going to happen with deGrom. It is because of those reasons that, like Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank… I’m out. Let someone else pay the high price for deGrom.

Aaron Nola ADP SP #6 · Overall #25

Season Innings ERA xFIP ERA-xFIP BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB
2016 111.0 4.78 3.08 1.70 .334 60.6% 55.2% 12.8%
2017 168.0 3.54 3.38 0.16 .309 76.8% 49.8% 12.7%
2018 212.1 2.37 3.21 -0.84 .251 82.5% 50.6% 10.6%

When doing this exercise, Nola came out as the 2nd “luckiest” starting pitcher last season (1st was Walker Buehler, more on him later). The Philly hurler registered the 7th highest LOB%, 9th lowest BABIP and 10th highest GB% of the 128 pitchers in the analysis.

Looking above at his past few seasons and the writing is on the wall that he will more than likely revert back to his pre-2018 self. Don’t get me wrong, if he does in 2019 what he did in 2017 I’ll take it. I just don’t want to use a late 2nd/early 3rd round pick on him.

Blake Snell ADP SP #5 · Overall #24

Season Innings ERA xFIP ERA-xFIP BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB
2016 89.0 3.54 4.35 -0.81 .356 73.0% 36.5% 5.6%
2017 129.1 4.04 4.56 -0.52 .277 70.9% 43.9% 11.0%
2018 180.2 1.89 3.16 -1.27 .241 88.0% 44.7% 10.7%

Last year’s AL Cy Young winner is currently being drafted right around the same time as Nola in drafts. Don’t do it. While Nola was the 2nd luckiest pitcher, Snell ended up being the 3rd luckiest right behind him. Snell had the highest LOB% and the 4th lowest BABIP of all 128 pitchers.  He also had the 6th lowest ERA-xFIP*.

This is a perfect example of paying for last year’s stats. You’re not going to get them. Chances are you will get stats closer to 2017 than 2018. Again, let someone else pay the high price.

Need more convincing? Let’s also take a moment to talk about the past 10 AL Cy Young award winners and how they performed the following season. On the average each winner declined the following season to the tune of 6.2 less wins, 26.0 less strikeouts, a 1.04 increase in ERA and 0.15 increase in WHIP.

* The other five are, in order of lowest ERA-xFIP, Dereck Rodriguez, Jaime Barria, Trevor Williams, Kyle Freeland and Reynaldo Lopez. I selected Snell because he has the highest ADP of the six. Safe to say you should avoid these other five just the same.

Walker Buehler ADP SP #12 · Overall #38

Season Innings ERA xFIP ERA-xFIP BABIP LOB% GB% HR/FB
2017 9.1 7.71 3.92 3.79 .409 67.9% 66.7% 50.0%
2018 136.1 2.31 3.15 -0.84 .241 80.6% 50.3% 10.4%

Note: 2017 stats are as a reliever and 2018 stats are those where he started the game.

Walker “Ferris” Buehler ended up #1 in my analysis and that isn’t a good thing. He ranked in the Top 26 luckiest in all five metrics (including Top 12 in BABIP, LOB% and GB%)! Faster than you can say, “small sample size,” he’s suddenly going somewhere around the late 3rd or early 4th round in most drafts and there is a solid chance that teams are drafting him as their first starting pitcher.

Really, that’s what we’re doing now? Handing over the keys to your Ace slot to someone with less than 150 major league innings. I don’t care how much of a righteous dude, Buehler is. I don’t want to pay that price for an unproven commodity.

Listen, Buehler very well may be a 1961 Ferrari 250GT. I don’t want to pay that price for an unproven commodity. Remember what happens to the 1961 Ferrari 250GT at the end of the movie? That could be your fantasy team.

Bount bount… chickachicka… chickachicka…

Filed Under: Fantasy Baseball

MLB Daily Fantasy Baseball Analysis for Wednesday August 29

August 29, 2018 By Chris Spencer Leave a Comment

My approach to identifying lineups worthy of stacking evolved from fantasy football where I’d look at the opposing defenses fantasy points allowed to help identify positive matchups. For DFS baseball I look at a team’s DFS points per plate appearance (ppa) and compare to the opposing pitcher’s DFS ppa. A “bad” pitcher could lead to an increase in production from the hitters and conversely, a “good” pitcher could lead to a decrease in production.

How to Read the Charts
The Cleveland Indians are facing a RHP at home (Kohl Stewart MIN who has faced 60 batters). On FanDuel the Indians are currently putting up 2.52 points per plate appearance (PPA) vs. RHP at home and Kohl Stewart is currently allowing 125% more PPA than the MLB average (2.117 PPA). Their modified PPA is 3.16 (2.52 x 125%) and the difference is simply their modified PPA minus their situational PPA. Rinse & repeat for DraftKings.

When Opposing Pitcher indicates TBD/Bullpen or hasn’t faced any MLB batters this season the lineup’s PPA shown is their overall PPA at home or away.

It is important to note that due to the volatility of stolen bases, I do not include them when calculating ppa.

Main Slate

Lineup Situation Opposing Pitcher Batters Faced FanDuel DraftKings
FanDuel MLB Avg is 2.12 DraftKings MLB Avg is 1.62
PPA x % Mod PPA Dif PPA x % Mod PPA Dif
Indians RHP at home Kohl Stewart MIN 60 2.52 x 125% 3.16 +0.64 1.89 x 125% 2.36 +0.47
Yankees RHP at home Reynaldo Lopez CHW 645 2.58 x 109% 2.81 +0.23 1.94 x 108% 2.08 +0.15
Blue Jays RHP on road Alex Cobb BAL 602 2.11 x 116% 2.46 +0.35 1.61 x 116% 1.87 +0.26
Twins RHP on road Adam Plutko CLE 219 2.01 x 120% 2.41 +0.40 1.53 x 118% 1.81 +0.28
Brewers LHP on road Matt Harvey CIN 522 2.20 x 107% 2.36 +0.16 1.69 x 107% 1.81 +0.12
Phillies LHP at home Gio Gonzalez WSN 621 2.29 x 103% 2.36 +0.07 1.71 x 103% 1.76 +0.05
Rangers LHP at home Alex Wood LAD 554 2.50 x 90% 2.26 -0.24 1.88 x 91% 1.72 -0.17
Braves TBD at home TBD/Bullpen TBR – 2.19 x 100% 2.19 +0.00 1.66 x 100% 1.66 +0.00
Giants RHP at home Zack Godley ARI 653 2.11 x 102% 2.16 +0.05 1.61 x 101% 1.63 +0.02
Orioles LHP at home Ryan Borucki TOR 262 2.01 x 105% 2.12 +0.11 1.56 x 106% 1.66 +0.10
Dodgers LHP on road Mike Minor TEX 526 2.00 x 106% 2.12 +0.12 1.51 x 106% 1.60 +0.09
White Sox LHP on road CC Sabathia NYY 542 2.16 x 93% 2.01 -0.15 1.66 x 94% 1.56 -0.11
Nationals RHP on road Jake Arrieta PHI 594 2.10 x 96% 2.01 -0.08 1.60 x 96% 1.53 -0.07
Reds RHP at home Freddy Peralta MIL 283 2.14 x 91% 1.94 -0.20 1.63 x 87% 1.41 -0.22
Cardinals RHP at home Trevor Williams PIT 563 2.02 x 91% 1.84 -0.18 1.55 x 92% 1.42 -0.13
Rays LHP on road Sean Newcomb ATL 591 2.01 x 92% 1.84 -0.17 1.55 x 91% 1.41 -0.14
Pirates RHP on road Miles Mikolas STL 654 2.19 x 80% 1.76 -0.43 1.67 x 84% 1.40 -0.27
Diamondbacks RHP on road Dereck Rodriguez SFG 343 2.07 x 76% 1.57 -0.51 1.57 x 77% 1.21 -0.36

Early Games

Lineup Situation Opposing Pitcher Batters Faced FanDuel DraftKings
FanDuel MLB Avg is 2.12 DraftKings MLB Avg is 1.62
PPA x % Mod PPA Dif PPA x % Mod PPA Dif
Cubs LHP at home Jason Vargas NYM 293 2.57 x 133% 3.43 +0.86 1.94 x 132% 2.56 +0.62
Red Sox RHP at home Trevor Richards MIA 415 2.53 x 100% 2.54 +0.01 1.92 x 100% 1.92 +0.00
Padres RHP at home Erasmo Ramirez SEA 111 1.85 x 122% 2.26 +0.41 1.42 x 122% 1.74 +0.31
Athletics LHP on road Dallas Keuchel HOU 708 2.43 x 91% 2.22 -0.21 1.84 x 93% 1.71 -0.13
Tigers LHP on road Danny Duffy KCR 661 2.01 x 107% 2.15 +0.14 1.54 x 107% 1.65 +0.11
Mariners LHP on road Joey Lucchesi SDP 416 2.03 x 100% 2.03 +0.00 1.57 x 100% 1.58 +0.01
Royals RHP at home Michael Fulmer DET 488 1.95 x 103% 2.01 +0.06 1.50 x 102% 1.54 +0.04
Marlins LHP on road David Price BOS 611 2.08 x 92% 1.91 -0.17 1.59 x 93% 1.48 -0.11
Astros RHP at home Trevor Cahill OAK 366 2.08 x 85% 1.78 -0.31 1.58 x 85% 1.35 -0.23
Mets RHP on road Alec Mills CHC 28 2.34 x 42% 0.97 -1.36 1.76 x 42% 0.74 -1.02

Filed Under: Daily Fantasy Baseball

Week 8 Streaming Starting Pitchers – Stripling, Cahill, Mengden

May 23, 2018 By Chris Spencer Leave a Comment

Los Angeles Dodgers Ross Stripling

This week in your streaming starting pitcher rotation Chris has Lopez from the White Sox, a couple A’s, and Los Angeles Dodgers Ross Stripling scheduled to face the San Diego Padres on Saturday.

Here is your week 8 streaming starting pitchers resource, Straight Cheese, identifying less than desirable, questionably talented, low-owned starting pitchers that you can use for a spot start for your fantasy baseball team.

First, lets take a look back at my picks from last week.

Week 7 Review

Name Date GS IP ER H BB K Dec ERA WHIP
Steven Matz 5/19 vs. ARI 1 4.00 4 6 1 2 - 9.00 1.75
Nick Kingham 5/19 vs. SDP 1 6.00 3 5 1 5 L 4.50 1.00
Trevor Williams 5/20 vs. SDP 1 6.00 4 4 0 5 - 6.00 0.67
Week 7 Total 3 16.00 11 15 2 12 0-1 6.19 1.06
Running Total 26 139.00 79 143 50 136 6-9 5.12 1.39

Tough week, again. I lost Foltynewciz’s start on Sunday against the Marlins. He’s strung together three solid starts and I could’ve used one of them this week. Oh, well. When you mess with the bull, you’re gonna feel the horns. This was also the first week where I had less strikeouts than innings pitched.

With that out of the way, let’s flip over the cushions and hope we find some loose change! [Editor’s note: pretty sure you used this one already]

Week 8 Streaming Starting Pitchers

The pitchers are listed in order of appearance as of Tuesday. Ownership info from Yahoo! (Y) and ESPN (E) and all 2018 stats are through Tuesday, May 22nd.

RHP Reynaldo Lopez, CHW
Owned Y27%/E24% · @ Texas Rangers – Friday, May 25th

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that Reynaldo isn’t particularly skilled at this pitching thing. Through his first 9 starts his ERA sits at 2.92, which seems solid. What isn’t solid is the crumbling mound of potential regression underneath. A 0.213 babip, 78.3% lob% and 8.9 hr/fb all point towards Lopez crashing back to Earth at some point this season.

I don’t think it will be this Friday when he travels to Arlington. The Rangers have been gracious hosts to right-handed pitchers. They are currently struggling with a .289 wOBA (28th), 26.0 k% (26th) and 0.139 iso (23rd) vs RHP at home in 2018. This isn’t a stone-cold-lock of a recommendation, but the foundation is there for Lopez to come out of the matchup with favorable stats.

Note from Chris: Database error! Lopez isn’t facing the Rangers tonight… he’s at Detroit and the match up isn’t nearly as favorable. Don’t stream him! Look down below for a “bonus” streamer for Monday!

RHP Ross Stripling, LAD
Owned Y18%/E8% · vs. San Diego Padres – Friday, May 25th

Stripling has been very effective in his 4 starts this season. In those starts he has a 3.26 era, 1.29 whip with 23 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings. His other stats are 10.71 k/9, 1.40 bb/9, 0.93 hr/9 and is holding batters to 0.302 wOBA and 0.108 iso. He’s been rock solid.

Even though I picked on them last week and they proved me wrong, I’m going to put my faith in the statistics and pick on the Padres again. Even with their limited success against the Pirates last weekend they are still only putting up a 0.284 wOBA (26th) and 0.122 iso (29th) while striking out 26.6% (27th) of the time against RHP on the road. They are still weak in this situation and Stripling is capable of exploiting it.

RHP Daniel Mengden, OAK
Owned Y16%/E14% · vs. Arizona Diamondbacks – Saturday, May 26th

The Diamondbacks return once again to this column. Overall they are 28th in the MLB in wOBA (0.295) and tied for last with a 26.2 k%. They are just flat out struggling right now. Don’t feel sorry for them, take advantage.

Mengden is not a pitcher I like normally. He doesn’t strike enough batters out (7.21 k/9 in 172 1/3 career MLB innings pitched). Through 10 starts this season he has a 3.30 era, 1.08 whip and only 38 strikeouts in 57 1/3 innings. He’s in a good matchup with the punchless D-backs.

RHP Trevor Cahill, OAK
Owned Y24%/E18% · vs. Arizona Diamondbacks – Sunday, May 27th

Everything I just said about Arizona under Mengden still applies here. The big difference is that Cahill is a better pitcher than Mengden.

Cahill is someone with the potential to take advantage of the situation. Through 6 starts this season he has a 2.75 era, 0.97 whip and 35 strikeouts in 36 innings. He’s also holding batters to a 0.265 wOBA and striking them out 25.2% of the time. He is a pitcher to consider picking up and using this weekend and perhaps longer.

RHP Marco Gonzalez, SEA
Owned Y9%/E6% · vs. Texas Rangers – Monday, May 28th

Okay, the jury is still out on whether or not Marco is good at this baseball thing. Through 10 starts he’s putting up a 4.05 era, 1.25 whip and 49 strikeouts in 53 1/3 innings. There’s stuff i like: 3.21 xFIP, 1.86 bb/9, 0.84 hr/9. But there’s some stuff I don’t like: 0.352 babip and 46.0 gb%. There’s a reason he’s available in roughly 90% of all leagues.

On Memorial Day he’s facing the Rangers in Seattle. Texas is currently struggling with a .244 wOBA (30th), 30.3 k% (30th) and 0.136 iso (21st) vs LHP on the road in 2018. Like my erroneous Lopez recommendation above, this also isn’t a stone-cold-lock, but the foundation is there for Gonzalez to come out of the match-up with favorable stats.

Filed Under: Fantasy Baseball

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