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RotoBallers, as always, we’re constantly trying to come up with new features that will help you dominate your fantasy leagues. Recently, we’ve built a tool that identifies the biggest trends in a pitcher's strikeout rate over the last thirty days. The tool is for Premium subscribers only, and can be found here.
Missing bats is the #1 way a pitcher can control his own fate. If hitters make contact, the pitcher is largely at the mercy of the atmosphere, the weather, the ball park, the ability/work ethic of his fielders, and sometimes just sheer luck. This is ultimately why strikeouts are so important.
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K-Rate Risers
By looking at pitchers with positive trends in their strikeout rate, we can spot improving or declining pitchers. If the K-rate is improving, but the ERA and WHIP are less than ideal, it can present a buying opportunity. On the flip side, you may want to sell a pitcher with a declining K-rate, if he wasn't supposed to be that good to begin with.
What this tool provides is a quick indicator of players who might be on the rise, coming out of slumps, or seeing their fantasy value quickly declining, etc. This particular article will focus on two strikeout rate risers and two fallers, and make an attempt to determine how you should treat each pitcher. Because this tool is refreshed daily, the numbers in this article may be slightly off from the tool. Now, let's get rowdy...
Eduardo Rodriguez, BOS
Season K-Rate: 20%, Last 30 K-Rate: 29%
If you look at Rodriguez’s numbers at face value, you likely won’t be too pleased. On the season, EdRod has a 5.11 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, and a pedestrian 4.91 FIP / 4.69 xFIP. At best, he seems like a streaming option with extremely limited upside, pitching in one of the most difficult divisions to pitch in. Let me tell you though, there is something to be had here with Eduardo Rodriguez. After his start on June 27th, he was sent down the minors after posting a 8.59 ERA, 1.74 WHIP, and a 15.3% strikeout rate. He was seen tipping his pitches once again, a problem that plagued him last season. After a stint in the minors, Rodriguez was called back up to start on July 16th against the Yankees, and looked different. In a good way.
From July 16th onwards. EdRod has posted a 2.52 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and a 24.8% strikeout rate. Opposing hitters went from hitting .312 off of him to .228. What changed for the young left hander? He simply stopped tipping his pitches, and has been able to execute without major league hitters knowing what’s coming. The issue was never the quality of his stuff, and the results so far have done wonders. He has been able to cut his HR/FB rate in half (18.4% down to 9.3%), his hard contact rate dropped from 35.6% to 21.7%, and his swinging strike rate (SwStr%) jumped from 8% to 11.6%. These are only some of the many improvements Rodriguez has been able to make now that hitters don’t know what’s coming and he can keep them off balance. One other huge change he has made is his increased usage of his slider. He went from using it 9.6% of the time up to 25.6 during his second ride through the majors. Looking at a pitcher’s entire body of work is important, but in the case of EdRod his starts over the past month are much more indicative of his actual skill and ability as a starter in this league.
If he is still available in your league, I would recommend picking him up while he is rolling. All of his improvements are sustainable, and this is the Rodriguez owners thought they drafted all those months ago. Some owners may avoid him based on his past performances, so make them look foolish while he rides through the rest of the season pitching very well. While he won’t keep pitching to the tune of a 2.52 ERA given his 3.40 FIP / 3.91 xFIP, an ERA around 3.25-3.5 wouldn’t be out of the question.
Verdict: Buy
Tyler Chatwood, COL
Season K-Rate: 16%, Last 30 K-Rate: 22%
Chatwood has been successful this season, despite Coors Field’s best efforts to ruin any pitcher who plays for the Rockies. It hasn’t been all sunshine and roses for Chatwood this season, but he has done well pitching for the Rockies posting 3.75 ERA and 1.39 WHIP across 22 starts. Chatwood has seen this level of success in the majors before. Back in 2013, over 20 starts with Colorado he held a 3.15 ERA and a 1.43 WHIP. What has happened in between then and now? Well only four starts into 2014, Chatwood had to go under the knife for Tommy John surgery to repair his ulnar collateral ligament of the elbow in his pitching arm. He missed the remainder of 2014 and didn’t pitch in the majors at all in 2015. Now back fully healthy for the 2016 season, Chatwood has performed well.
Chatwood has seen his strikeout rate spike recently, due to some solid performances against some strong offenses in the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers. He has never been a high strikeout guy; his 88 this season are already a career high, topping his last high of 74 during his rookie season in 2011 when he made 25 starts. He has a career K/9 of only 5.54, and his rate of 6.22 this season would be the highest of his career where he pitched an entire season. Chatwood is a typical ground ball pitcher, his current rate of 56.7% would have placed him in the top-10 last season. Point being, Chatwood is not and likely never will be a high strikeout pitcher. He induces ground balls with the best of them, but consider his eight strikeout game against the Rangers as rare as finding a shiny Pokemon in the wild (about 1 in 8192 chances).
Along with his low strikeout rate, Chatwood is one pitcher you can really only feel comfortable starting in half of his starts. His home/road splits are absolutely ridiculous. Chatwood pitching in Coors, like the story is for many pitchers, is horrible. Through 12 home starts, he holds a 5.43 ERA, 1.62 WHIP, and a 17%(!) HR/FB rate. Opposing hitters bat .293/.369/.476 off of him with a 32.1% hard contact rate. On the road, the script completely flips. Through 10 starts away from Coors, he holds a 1.82 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and a 3.9 HR/FB rate. Opposing hitters hit only .188/.286/.261 with a 24.3% hard contact rate. If you own Chatwood, keep giving him the nod every time he starts on the road, otherwise bench him. The final verdict on Chatwood will be sell because the uptick in strikeouts will not last, and he’s only useful in half of his starts. He is an excellent road streaming option, however.
Chatwood has been placed on the disabled list with back spasms, and while there is no exact timetable for his return, he should be back soon after he is first eligible.
Verdict: Sell
K-Rate Fallers
David Price, BOS
Season K-Rate: 24%, Last 30 K-Rate: 18%
Signed to be the team’s anchor of the rotation, David Price has been anything but for the Red Sox. Through 27 starts with the team, Price holds a 4.19 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP. As it stands now, that is his highest ERA and WHIP since his rookie season back in 2009. However, things have been looking up a bit for Price since the beginning of July. From April until the end of June, his ERA sat at a bloated 4.74. Since July 5th, Price holds a 3.23 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP. While he has made some changes in his pitch selection over that time period, a lot of Price’s stats are working themselves back to the mean.
Price has been increasing the usage of his fastball since July. His percentage thrown on that pitch has jumped from 12.6% up to 17.1%. What has taken his biggest hit due to this jump is his cutter, which has seen its usage drop from 20.9% to 15.3%. One important reason for this change is the success opposing hitters are having off of each of these pitches. Hitters are only hitting .290 off of Price’s fastball this season compared to .310 off of his cutter. Since July, his fastball has gained nearly a mph, going from 92.6 to 93.4 mph. Price has seen his hard hit contact percentage raise due to the increased fastball usage (34.6% up to 36.5%), but it has also led to plenty of other positive trends for Price. His swinging strike rate (SwStr%) increased from 29.6% up to 34.4%, his HR/FB rate decreased from 15.5% to 10.9%, his line drive percentage (LD%) decreased from 24.7% to 22.1%, and his ground ball percentage (GB%) increased from 42.8% to 48.9%.
While his strikeout rate has decreased as of late, I believe this is nothing to worry about. His K/9 has dropped from 9.97 to 7.48, but if Price can go from putting up an ERA close to five to an ERA below 3.50, any Price owner would take that and run. If there are any Price owners out there panicking that he hasn’t been as good as advertised, take advantage and buy David Price. He is a much better pitcher than the results will show you to date, and he will revert to the mean as time goes on.
*As I write this, David Price throws eight shutout innings of two-hit ball against the Rays, striking out eight hitters. Case and point, his results and strikeouts will both improve the rest of the year. Buy him while you still can.*
Verdict: Buy
Matt Shoemaker, LAA
Season K-Rate: 21%, Last 30 K-Rate: 13%
Matt Shoemaker has had a nice bounce back year for the Angels so far. If you look at his season long numbers, over 24 starts he has a 4.14 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, an 8.19 K/9, and a 1.79 BB/9, all of which are improvements on last season’s numbers. While he is still not as dominant as he was back in 2013 (3.04 ERA, 1.07 WHIP over 20 starts), the results this season have been encouraging. As long as you didn’t own and start Shoemaker during the first month of the season, you have to be even happier with his results considering it’s likely you plucked this guy off the waiver wire. The first month of the season was just, awful for Shoe. Over five starts, he held a 9.15 ERA after allowing 21 earned runs over 20.2 innings. He walked 10 and struck out only 16 during that time period, and no one blamed you for cutting ties and never going back.
Then something changed. He started really utilizing his splitter more, going from throwing it 20.8% of the time during April to 39.4% of the time since. From May onwards, Shoemaker holds a 3.31 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 8.28 K/9, and an impressive 1.37 BB/9 rate; all numbers much more closely resembling his breakout 2013 campaign. Shoemaker has seen his strikeout rate drop recently, from his season rate of 21% down to 13%. Shoemaker has hit a little bump in the road of late. Over his last six starts, he holds a 4.31 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, a measly 4.76 K/9 rate and a 1.59 BB/9 rate. So what has he been doing differently over these six starts, that he wasn’t doing over his six starts prior to these ones (Previous six: 2.84 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 9.47 K/9)? His velocity, pitch selection, and movement on his pitches have all been similar, but his biggest change has been the amount of pitches he is throwing in the zone. If you look at the two heat maps, one from his last six starts (7/22-8/18) and another from the six starts prior (6/17-7/16), you can see he is getting too many pitches in the zone, instead of throwing them out of the zone forcing hitters to chase.
If Shoemaker can get back to placing his pitches better, he can find similar success he had just a month ago. His upcoming schedule is favorable (@Toronto, vs. Cincinnati, @Oakland), so better times may be ahead for Shoemaker. Until then, I would buy Shoemaker now before others swoop in and take him.
Verdict: Buy
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