MAY 2019 BABS UPDATE – PITCHERS
by Pat Cloghessy
I drafted major skills, and got minor results. Top-shelf starting pitchers who stink. Fun with playing time projections. It must be the first BABS pitching update of the season!
Where are all of the top names? Move down the freshly minted update. Now keep going…right…there. The good old (M,KK | -ER) group. It’s probably not shocking to find Yu Darvish and Dylan Bundy in this area. But Corey Kluber, Chris Sale (pictured), Chris Archer and Noah Syndergaard are also living here. It makes sense, given their rough starts. The larger question is: Why does BABS see these rotation anchors as mid-timers?
For BABS, there is usually a correlation between skills and playing time. Players with extreme liabilities tend to lose out on further opportunities. This could be due to a hidden injury or removal from the rotation. Removal from the rotation? Chris Sale? Noah Syndergaard? Say it ain’t so! We expect these guys to find a way and right the ship, which they will likely do. Actually, they already are. That’s the danger with small samples; they change quickly.
With just under one third of the season in the books, xFIP is telling a story. Corey Kluber, before his injury, was sporting an xFIP of 4.63, and Sale 4.30. Prior to his Thursday start Syndergaard’s xFIP was 3.55, which belied his actual ERA of 6.35 by almost 3 runs, suggesting bad luck. Either his luck changed, or Thor found his hammer, on the way to a CGSO on May 2. Kluber is now on the shelf for a while, and Sale…well, he has his history to hope on.
As the assets deteriorate, acclaimed starting pitchers keep popping up. These guys have fired their entire torpedo arsenals into fantasy owners’ rate stats. Peep the (M,k | -ER) group: Aaron Nola, Joey Lucchesi and Kenta Maeda.
We are not done yet. Walker Buehler, Nathan Eovaldi, J.A. Happ, Kyle Hendricks, Miles Mikolas and Rick Porcello populate the (M| -ER) asset collective.
My goodness, is anyone safe? How could we all be so fantastically incorrect?
It’s disappointing when top draft choices underperform. If we include the injuries to Mike Clevinger and Luis Severino, 10 of the first 20 starting pitchers drafted have missed expectations. Most of them by a wide margin.
That said, the failing grades BABS has dished out are reflective of actual performance to date. The assets are not predictive. A good May will go a long way towards the normalization of these pitchers’ assets. It’s probably too soon to panic, but the antennae are raised.
This also works in reverse. ERA and WHIP saviors such as Chris Paddack (E+,K+), Caleb Smith (E+,K+), Mike Minor (ER,k) and Domingo German (ER,KK) have been brilliant. Just as a good May can counteract a bad April, the opposite can also be true. League average BABIP tends to hover around .300, while strand rates are about 70, and a few of these April studs are tempting the fate of regression.
But so what if Paddack and Smith could be in line for regression? The skills on display are certainly encouraging (to say the least). The most outstanding periods of performance are almost always outliers. The key is in how far down gravity takes them. What if Paddack and Smith or (insert your favorite here) have broached a new level? It’s certainly possible, and if true, could soften the negative correction.
Riddle me this, though: Of the four SP with the profile (E+,K+), who might be over their skis? This is not a binary exercise (“he is this good, he’s not”). It’s an amalgamation of information. The May database update is just one piece of the puzzle. It’s probably true that Justin Verlander and Blake Snell “belong” in this asset group, while Caleb Smith and Chris Paddack are just interlopers. All the same, I’d be over the moon if I had Smith rostered to offset Kluber or Nola.
Everything is good until it isn’t, and the (E+,k) group has been good. Tyler Glasnow, German Marquez and Jose Musgrove are not huge surprises. Marcus Stroman and Max Fried sitting in this company are intriguing. Matt Shoemaker is hurt, Vince Velasquez has flashed before, and is worth monitoring. His seeming inability to get through five innings is concerning.
Jose Berrios and Matt Boyd (ER,KK) alongside a full-time Stephen Strasburg? It must be early! But seriously, Stras has been great. If Berrios and Boyd can approximate a healthy Strasburg, they may have something cooking. Mid-time (ER,KK): Is Sonny Gray back? David Price may not be finished yet.
Kirby Yates (E+,K+,SV) is an elite closer (so far). Kenneth Giles (E+,K+,SV) too. Jose Alvarado and Matt Barnes (E+,K+,sv-) were speculative closer plays. So far they haven’t won their respective jobs outright, but the skills have been worthy of it.
We can play this game all over the BABS pitching database. Player pool familiarization never stops.
In a NL-12 league, using BABS, I (auction) drafted Greinke, Fried, and Musgrove (25,2,8) which has so far been a solid core — and Jon Gray, whose has been fine for the price I got him. But I struck out on my speculative closers. I need to trade a starter for a CLOSER. I’ve been offered Hader for Greinke or Fried — fair amount of risk on my side, but I literally have 0 saves versus being in 1st place in Ws.
Regarding the -ER liability, I know the “pitching effectiveness” asset and liability encapsulate/serve as a proxy for xERA. With that said, for example, Sale and Thor have xERAs under 3.75. In the spirit of illustrating SKILLS, it feels like tagging these two with the -ER liability focuses more on the surface metrics, rather than underlying skills. Just wanted to ensure I have the right idea here. Maybe this is an (already covered) limitation of the in-season update? Or, again, could be something I am misunderstanding.
Thanks for any feedback!
BABS looks at BOTH underlying metrics and surface metrics. As much as we want players to produce according to their skills metrics, reality is that they often don’t, and BABS acknowledges that.
That makes sense, Ron. Thanks!
I think my confusion arose from viewing the update as a vehicle to validate underlying performance. i.e. Just because Berrios has, say, the KK asset doesn’t necessarily mean his SwStrk% is > 10% (just throwing out numbers to illustrate).
I know we’ve discussed this before, but just to reiterate, when it comes to scenarios such as “Is Thor ACTUALLY struggling, from a skills perspective, or is he just unlucky and has strong skills?”, using the in-season updates IN CONJUNCTION WITH the preseason spreadsheet (which is rooted in long term data) may be a more useful exercise.
Is that a fair/correct way to think about this – put “more stock” into the preseason spreadsheet and tread lightly with in-season updates?
Yes, that’s a more prudent use of the charts. Of course, as we get further into the season, the in-season updates may be better reflections of reality, but WHEN that happens is different for every player so it’s tough to pin down.