What Are Pitching+, Stuff+, Location+? Sabermetrics Glossary for Fantasy Baseball (2025)

March 17, 2025

What are Pitching+, Stuff+, and Location+ for fantasy baseball? Sabermetric definition and meaning of Pitching+ and its underlying components Stuff+ and Location+.

Welcome RotoBallers to our overview of Pitching+. This article is a deeper dive into Pitching+ and is part of our ongoing series "Using Sabermetrics for Fantasy Baseball."

In this article, we'll explore what Pitching+ is and how to use it for fantasy analysis. We'll also look at its underlying components, Stuff+ and Location+, in plain terminology anyone can understand. Finally, we'll use the Pitching+ leaderboard to try and find some sleepers.

You can find our entire sabermetrics glossary, which includes links to many other sabermetric stats as part of this series. Each stat deep dive will be released over the next few days. Stay tuned!

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What Is Pitching+? Sabermetrics Glossary

Pitching involves tons of variables that can feel overwhelming to consider at once. Individual pitches have velocity, vertical and/or horizontal break, and spin rate. Release point may provide deception. Where a pitch ends up can be just as important as its physical characteristics. Pitches may play up or down based on how well they complement the rest of the hurler's repertoire.

Pitching+ is an advanced pitch modeling system by Eno Sarris and Max Bay that strives to give each pitcher a single number representing his stuff, location, and overall effectiveness. The league average is set to 100, with numbers higher and lower than that indicating more or less efficacy.

Pitching+ is found on the FanGraphs player pages. It's the 13th table by default, so you'll have to do a little scrolling. Here's what it looks like for Athletics closer Mason Miller:

Each pitcher is scored overall on the right, with individual pitches broken down on the left. The abbreviations are fastball (FA), sinker (SI), cutter (FC), splitter (FS), slider (SL), curve (CU), change (CH), knuckle-curve (KC), and forkball (FO).

We need to explore Stuff+ and Location+ before delving any further into Pitching+. You can find them by clicking on the corresponding tabs at the top of the above chart.

What Is Stuff+?

Stuff+ is a pitching model examining only the physical characteristics of a pitch: velocity, vertical and horizontal movement, release point, spin rate, etc. Secondary pitches are evaluated in relation to a pitcher's primary pitch, usually the fastball.

For example, an 80-mph changeup will score better by Stuff+ if the pitcher's primary fastball averages 97 mph than it would if it was only 93 mph because of the improved velocity differential, all else being equal.

League-average pitches have Stuff+ scores of 100, but pitches are compared to all other pitches, not only the same type. Here is the baseline for each pitch type from 2023:

Stuff+ is sometimes used as a proxy for velocity, but this isn't always true. The inclusion of release point quantifies deception, allowing average fastballs by velocity to score well. Aaron Nola and Nestor Cortes tied for second in fastball Stuff+ at 107 last season despite averaging 92.5 mph and 92.1 mph, respectively. Zack Wheeler and Cole Ragans had the same score with more traditional power stuff.

Similarly, Stuff+ doesn't automatically mean strikeouts. Corbin Burnes led all MLB starters with an overall Stuff+ score of 112 last season, suggesting that concerns about his K% may be overblown. His stuff still has the physical characteristics to get big league hitters out, even if his strikeout totals are down.

What Is Location+?

Location+ is a count and pitch-type-adjusted judge of a pitcher's ability to hit his spot. It's sometimes cited as a metric concerning BB%, but that's not really what it's for.

Most pitches have different targets in 0-2 and 2-1 counts, and Location+ accounts for that. For instance, a 0-2 splitter should bounce so the batter swings over it. A pitcher who consistently bounces his 0-2 splitters will have a good Location+ on the pitch even though it's a ball, while splitters in the zone in that situation have a poor Location+ since they missed the target.

It's impossible to ask a pitcher what his intended target was for every pitch, so Location+ assumes that intent is the same across the league. The numbers could get wonky if a pitcher consistently tries to throw his splitter for a strike on 0-2 counts, but exceptions like that are rare.

Pablo Lopez led MLB starters with 113 Location+, suggesting his down 2024 may have been a fluke. The rest of the leaderboard includes obvious aces like Chris Sale and George Kirby (110 Location+, tied for third) and guys with limited fantasy upside (Erick Fedde's 111 Location+ ranked second, Miles Mikolas and Jameson Taillon's 108 tied for ninth).

Sadly, Location+ alone probably won't find fantasy sleepers because it doesn't factor in physical characteristics. But what if we consider Stuff+ and Location+ together?

Identifying Potential Sleepers Using Pitching+

Pitching+ isn't a weighted average of Stuff+ and Location+ but a third model combining physical pitch characteristics and count-sensitive location to determine a pitcher's quality. Batter handedness is also included to capture platoon splits, giving Pitching+ a wrinkle that isn't considered in Stuff+ or Location+.

Corbin Burnes led MLB starters in Pitching+ as well at 119, but most regard him as an ace already. Some of the more surprising names on the Pitching+ leaderboard include Yusei Kikuchi (eighth, 111 Location+), Aaron Nola (11th, 109), Cristopher Sanchez (12th, 109), Michael Wacha (16th, 107), and Brandon Pfaadt (19th, 106).

Time will tell if these pitchers prove profitable in 2025 fantasy drafts. Importantly, all three metrics stabilize (or become predictive) more quickly than traditional metrics like ERA, making Pitching+ a powerful in-season tool for evaluating potential breakouts and busts.

Conclusion

Pitching+, Stuff+, and Location+ are among the newest tools in a fantasy manager's tool kit, and using them correctly is essential. Stuff+ isn't about strikeouts but a pitch's physical characteristics. Location+ isn't about limiting walks but about how well a pitcher hits his target, whatever it may be. Pitching+ brings it all together.

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