Marco Estrada is the luckiest man in baseball. Either that or he's a magician. He's no Lou Gehrig to be sure, but he may taking notes from Penn and Teller. Or My Little Pony. Let's go with that. Don't get me wrong, Estrada is a talented pitcher and has posted solid numbers in the past, but the way this season is going for him can only be described as magical.

I will, thanks! BTW this whole article is just a thinly veiled excuse to finally use my collection of Brony gifs.

You may have already heard that Estrada's BABIP not only leads the league, but is on a record-setting pace for the lowest in the history of ever. It currently sits at .193, which is 38 points below the next closest qualifier, All-Star Julio Teheran. (FYI, third place belongs to journeyman Dan Straily, one point behind Teheran at .232. Only baseball brings us such great statistical anomalies.) Sabermetricians often refer to an uncharacteristically low BABIP for pitchers as a sign of dramatic, imminent regression that will soon slap said player and fantasy owners hard in the face. Is this the case for Estrada? Is he just getting really, really lucky and is he bound to crash hard in the second half? Honestly, I have no idea and won't pretend to. But we can take a look at some other peripheral statistics to see where Estrada's value comes from and what to expect in the remainder of the season, regardless of luck (or magic!)

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The fundamental purpose of BABIP is to see how often balls in play (not home runs, walks or strikeouts) fall for hits. This boils down to defense, luck and talent. Toronto does have a good defense, currently fourth in the majors with a .988 FPCT. That alone isn't enough to explain such a ridiculously low number, though. Just look at Marcus Stroman or R.A. Dickey's numbers this season. Either he's getting really lucky or he's a dominant pitcher and just waited until he turned 32 to show it, right? Not so fast my friend. Estrada's BABIP last season was extraordinarily low too (.217). It just so happens that nobody noticed. In fact, he has only posted a BABIP above .300 once in a full season (.304 in 2012). His success this season can't simply be called a fluke or an aberration.

Nope, no luck here. Just mad skillz.

Is he just flat-out dominating hitters? His 4.12 FIP this season, 4.40 last season and 4.18 career mark say no. He is producing an 8.54 K/9, which is certainly good but only places his 30th among starting pitchers. His 2.54 K/BB this year is actually a half point below his career mark. He has a 3.4 BB/9, but his 99 K should satisfy fantasy owners, especially considering he has an absurdly low 0.98 WHIP and 5.5 H/9, both good for first in the AL.

It would seem that he is just really good at inducing soft contact most of the time. Wrong! Estrada's 20.1% Soft% is as average as you can get. He must be inducing a lot of grounders then. More wrong! He is a verifiable fly ball pitcher, with a 48.9% FB% and just 34.3% GB%. At the moment, nobody is inducing more fly balls than Estrada. Many a successful pitcher live and die by the fly ball, but it can get him in trouble at times. He has a 1.2 HR/9, which is squarely in the middle of all qualifying starters, so he is still making plenty of mistakes.

 

That homer broke up a no-hitter in the eighth inning, which explains his expression.

The key stat to his success is a more obscure one: IFFB%. Estrada also leads the league in this category, with a 17.6% IFFB%, which is good since he induces so many fly balls to begin with. Estrada is also doing an excellent job stranding runners when they do reach base, which keeps him in positive situations. His 80.3% LOB% is 12th in MLB, behind a more illustrious list of starters such as Madison Bumgarner, Max Scherzer, and Jon Lester.

Put all this information together and we can only come to one simple conclusion: Marco Estrada is an extreme fly ball pitcher who keeps a lot of balls in the infield, benefits from a good defense, strikes out batters at a good rate, but still gives up too many home runs and could stand to walk less batters since we're nitpicking, but it's OK because he strands most of those runners anyway and it's definitely not a fluke because he pretty much did the same thing last year even though he's kind of old, but he should be kept in all fantasy leagues unless you're one of those really nervous types who likes to sell high on every player that makes their first All-Star game, which is kind of ridiculous when you think of it because all of this points to the fact that Estrada is actually pretty good. Either that or it's magic. I'd love to hear what you think...

Yup, it's definitely magic.

 

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