When trying to make sense of early-season baseball trends, walks and strikeouts are a good place to start. Walk and strikeout rates stabilize quickly, giving us a better chance of locating a reliable signal.
Tuesday, we meandered about some hitters. Today’s assignment: the pitchers.
The unlucky sign should be flashing with Chris Sale, who carries a 6.75 ERA despite the best K/BB ratio in baseball. The usual culprits are at play: a .386 BABIP and an unlucky 57.3% strand rate. The ERA estimators say Sale has pitched to an ERA in the high 2s or low 3s. Even the schedule has been unfortunate, drawing the Phillies, Dodgers and Padres.
Someone is going to pay for this bad streak. Perhaps the Rays and Twins, who are next up for Sale. Stay the course.
I was unapologetically excited when MacKenzie Gore struck out 13 Phillies on Opening Day, though a fair amount of observers shrugged. The start time that day perfectly coincided with unfavorable shadows for the hitters.
Gore has been good — not outstanding — in two starts since, a loss to Toronto and a win over the Dodgers. The season adds up to 25 strikeouts against just three walks, a ratio I’m always going to chase. Gore also has pedigree at play — he was the third overall pick in his class and a former top 10 prospect — and it’s the right time for a career year (his age-26 season). If I roster Gore, I’m keeping him. If I don’t, I might be willing to buy high.
Are we going to keep fighting the good fight with Arizona’s Brandon Pfaadt? He underperformed his expected ERA last year (4.71 ERA, 3.61 FIP) but was a good source of strikeouts, making him an interesting breakout candidate in his age-26 season. Interestingly, his strikeouts are down this year, but his walks are way down. He has been bitten by three homers. An improved chase rate suggests the strikeouts will follow soon enough. He’s also making some inroads to fight the platoon disadvantage.
The ERA estimators don’t agree on Pfaadt — xFIP suggests a playable 3.53 number (excusing the homers), but the Statcast data spits out an ERA just under eight. Chase Field is a good scoring park but a yard that supresses home runs. The projection crew says Pfaadt should have an ERA around 4.00 the rest of the way, which is playable in medium and deeper pools if the strikeouts rebound, as expected.
Cincinnati is a nasty place to pitch (it’s especially friendly for home runs), but when you’re as talented as Hunter Greene, maybe it doesn’t matter. Greene has bumped up his strikeout rate and has cut his walk rate in half; while it’s always hard to trust a 1.31 ERA up front, the Statcast data suggests a still-excellent 2.08 number. Greene has legitimate Cy Young upside.
A tricky early-season schedule hasn’t held Freddy Peralta down — he’s carrying a 2.00 ERA and 0.72 WHIP despite trips to the Bronx and Colorado and a home date against the respectable Royals. Peralta’s always a strikeout ace, but that rate has bumped this year while he’s also trimmed his walk rate. Still in his 20s, the timing is right for a possible career year. Milwaukee has an elite defense behind Peralta; the Brewers won the team Gold Glove the last two seasons.
Most of the Logan Webb trends are moving in the right direction. Strikeouts up, walks down, velocity up a tick. He’s always had dreamy ground-ball rates, and the San Francisco park will hide some of his mistakes. Webb is also economical enough to work deep into games. I know we’re not supposed to chase wins in the Age of Enlightenment, but a pitcher this good has to bag 15 wins sometime. Even if Webb falls short, the ratios will justify his draft-day cost — you likely landed him as an SP3 but he might be your SP2 or even a legitimate ace.
Sonny Gray threw batting practice in March and dealt with a velocity dip, worrisome trends entering an age-35 season. But through 16 innings of real action, he’s been fine — two walks, 19 strikeouts. His baseline from the last few years — ERA in mid-3s, WHIP around 1.15 — looks like a fair projection spot. I’m not looking to sell my Sonny Gray Real Estate.
With more and more wins being pushed into bullpens these days, I’m always proactive with using wipeout relievers to aid my ratios, even if those relievers aren’t dedicated closers. In these cases, you want to follow the best teams.
The Dodgers are an obvious destination for this strategy — it doesn’t matter if you couldn’t land Tanner Scott. Anthony Banda already has three wins, Alex Vesia has a save and 12 strikeouts, Kirby Yates is still a lawnmower (11 strikeouts, one walk).
Down the coast, the Padres have a similar bullpen — Robert Súarez is the handshake guy, but Jason Adam, Jeremiah Estrada and Yuki Matsui are all wipeout relievers with strong K/BB numbers. Take advantage of this seasonal cheat code.
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