Starting Pitcher Risers and Fallers - Luck Analysis for Fantasy Baseball

June 17, 2022

Jon Anderson checks on a few luck metrics to see which starting pitchers have benefited from randomness and could be fantasy baseball risers or fallers in 2022.

We have completed more than one-third of the season, which means we have a significant amount of data on starting pitchers this year. I thought it was a good time to check on some pitching luck metrics to see which pitchers have over and underperformed so far this year. We'll hit a few different categories and then highlight a few names near the poles of the luck spectrum here.

I want to look at three things:

• Barrel performance
• Expected ERA metrics
• BABIP data

I'll put my own little spin on things here as I look at the data in a bit of a different way than maybe what you're used to seeing. Let's get to it.

Barrel Luck for Fantasy Baseball

As of the time of this writing, 53% of barrels have gone for homers this season. It hasn't been a flat line in getting here though, as this number has really been rising dramatically in recent weeks, here's how it's gone:

Individual pitchers have a little bit of control over this, meaning that we shouldn't expect the same rate from every pitcher. Pitchers that typically get hit harder will see the barrels they give up go for homers at a higher rate because they're leaving the bat a bit harder than the average barrel. A thing that plays a significant role as well here is park dimensions. We expect barrels to go for homers at a higher or lower rate depending on park factors. Here's how that has shaken out so far this year:

So there's your setup. Any pitcher allowing an HR/Brl well above or below 53% will stick out to us here. Before we get to those numbers, here's one more plot for fun. I've plotted every qualified SP's total barrels and homers allowed along with a trend line. Any pitcher well above the trend line has been lucky - seeing a pretty low percentage of their barrels go for homer, and vice versa., giving up a bunch of homers on their barrels - and pitchers below the line could be considered unlucky.

And here are the numbers in table format:

Bad Luck - Barrels

Hunter Greene - Cincinnati Reds: Pitching in Great American Ballpark will lead to this, as we highlighted above. That said, Greene's 75% HR/Brl is way up there and it's pretty likely that number will trend downwards from here on. It's not a guarantee though, since Greene does throw a high percentage of fastballs, which hitters can sit on and hit very hard when they catch up to it, and the home park problem isn't going away either.

Corbin Burnes - Milwaukee Brewers: The reigning Cy Young Award winner has already given up more homers this year (nine) than all of last season (seven), and he shows up here near the top of the list with a 66.7% HR/Brl rate. His HR/Brl last season was 42% on an egregiously low total of 12 barrels given up all year.

Charlie Morton - Atlanta Braves: This number certainly hasn't helped Morton out this year as he's struggled pretty mightily thus far. He gave up just 23 barrels all of last season, so he's already past halfway to that mark this season with a high percentage of them going over the fence. We've already seen some good steps forward for Morton and I expect this number to improve for him as we move forward.

Good Luck - Barrels

Kevin Gausman - Toronto Blue Jays: He's been great at avoiding the barrel, and I don't see why that would change given the quality of his stuff - but he has benefited from some good luck seeing just two of the 14 barrels going for homers. He's had some trouble with his splitter lately, which is not a good sign and could be trouble if he doesn't get that issue fixed. Right now, I'm not panicking on Gausman - but it is worth noting that he'll probably give up a few more homers than you've come to be used to so far this year.

Taylor Hearn - Texas Rangers: Most of the names on the good luck side have given up a small number of barrels, but not so with Hearn. He's given up a hefty 23 barrels this year but has seen only five of them sail over a fence. I'm expecting regression there for Hearn and that will not help his overall numbers.

Shane Bieber - Cleveland Guardians: He has gotten his mojo back recently, once again getting a ton of whiffs on his slider and curveball. Given the numbers he has on the season, you would probably not think he's had much good luck - but in this case, he has. His pitches are in a neutral park for this stuff, so I think it's reasonable to expect his HR/Brl to gravitate towards 50% here.

Check out the rest of the names in the table for more, you can search for whichever pitcher you're interested in and if they've faced enough batters to qualify, you'll find them.

xFIP vs. ERA for Fantasy Baseball

This one will be quick and easy! If you're not familiar, xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching) is a measure that is a predictor of ERA, using strikeouts, walks, and fly balls as inputs. This stat has been around for a long time and has stood the test of time - very few things metrics do as good of a job at predicting pitcher performance as this. Let's compare ERA and xFIP and find the biggest differentials.

The good luck guys have been Alek Manoah, Sandy Alcantara, Joe Musgrove, Justin Verlander, and Martin Perez. The common thread here is that these guys all have strikeout rates around or below the league average, and they've all been very good so far at preventing homers. They are all very talented pitchers with great command, so it's no surprise to see any of them beating their xFIP, but the differences there are quite large - something to be at least a little tiny bit concerned about. Not that you should trade any of these guys (besides maybe Perez if you can get a nice return), but it's a good bet that they will pitch worse than they are currently as we move forward.

On the bad luck side, we see mostly just bad pitchers in bad situations like Patrick Corbin and German Marquez. A pitcher with an ERA above six will almost always be worse than their xFIP by more than a run, and that's the case here. Corbin and Marquez may improve as we move forward, but they are not guys you want for fantasy.

The interesting names here are Tyler Mahle, Gerrit Cole, Chris Bassitt, Robbie Ray, and Aaron Nola. They all have strong marks in strikeouts and walks but have given up quite a few homers this year. I would consider all of those names as really good guys to target in trades right now.

BABIP Check for Fantasy Baseball

What I'm not doing here is just taking the standard BABIP leaderboard and showing it. The traditional BABIP stat is useful, but it just leaves out so much information. Posting a low BABIP is a legitimate skill, so we can't just point to a pitcher with a .230 BABIP and say he's been lucky. Since we already covered flyball performance with the first section here, I wanted to just take a look at which pitchers have given up the most hits on ground-balls this year.

For context, here are the league batting average figures on each batted ball type:

Here is the leaderboard:

A well-struck ground ball will go for a hit at a higher rate since it's getting through the infield quicker, so pitchers that typically give up harder contact will gravitate towards the top of the list here, but most of this is variance. I would bet a considerable amount of money that Jose Urquidy will not see 42% of his ground-balls go for hits over the rest of the season, and conversely, I'd bet against Pablo Lopez's mark of 10.5%.

The interesting names at the top of the list here are Kevin Gausman, who we already mentioned has seen some good luck on barrels. He has counteracted that with some bad luck on ground balls, easing the pain a bit. Alex Cobb is also very interesting here; he has probably had the least fortunate season of anybody in the league this year. I expect really good stuff from him if he can get healthy.

Aaron Ashby and MacKenzie Gore are also very good pitchers with strong numbers this year despite this bad luck, so I'd be happy to roster them right now.

More names on the good luck side: Tony Gonsolin, Joe Musgrove, Paul Blackburn, Kyle Wright, Gerrit Cole, Robbie Ray - mostly high strikeout guys there that don't get a ton of ground-balls but have seen a disproportionate number of those grounders find a hole.

That's it for the analysis, hope you found it useful! Keep clicking RotoBaller for all your fantasy baseball needs!

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