Fantasy Pitch F/X

Since the end of last season, Peavy has been the subject of trade rumors, proposed trades, and ankle pain.  Peavy is somewhat of an old schooler and willing to pitch through pain or run through a brick wall for you.  Sometimes this can be counterproductive and after seeing him limp on the field yesterday, is the pain effecting his pitches?

It was first reported that Peavy was suffering through some ankle tendinitis on May 28th after his start on May 27th.    Tendinitis never really just starts up in the middle of a start.  Usually there is an underlying factor that didn’t reach the level to cause pain until he starts to feel it.  Peavy showed a similar trend in the graph below.

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Pitch FX Jake Peavy, Pitch FX

Each year there are surprises in all aspects of fantasy baseball and in particular pitchers.  Last year Sonnanstine surprised many of us and ended up with a very respectable 3.91 FIP, 3.35 K/BB, and a decent 1.29 WHIP.  He was able to turn all of that into a 13-9 record for the AL champs and put himself on the fantasy radar in 2009.  What came next was even more surprising to fantasy owners in 2009.

Sonnanstine started the year off badly and has been inconsistent (I’m in a kind mood today) at best since then.  So far his FIP is close to 5 (with an ERA even worse), his K/BB ratio is down to 1.81, and his WHIP is an astronomical 1.78.   The fact that he has been so horrible came as a complete surprise in the bad way.  After his latest beat down, I had to see if there was anything in the Pitch Fx (from Fangraphs) that would show what’s different from last year.

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Pitch FX Andy Sonnanstine, Pitch FX

After seeing the debacle of Liriano’s line, I immediately thought of two things. First, the Sox must be very happy and second, my fantasy team just took a hit.  We all know Liriano’s history by now but a quick recap.  Johan-Lite came up and lit it up big time.  He was as unhittable and as feared as Johan was and he was just a rookie.  Unfortunately, the devastating slider that made him so great also seemed to hurt him and so in late 2006 he went under the knife, subsequently missing all of the 2007 season in rehabilitation.  In 2008, he returned and was largely ineffective over his first 4 starts before being sent down to the minors where something clicked and he dominated once again.  In a cost saving move, the Twins left him down there longer than he needed to be while others got lit up like a Christmas tree.  Eventually, Liriano returned and was effective with some brilliance showing up now and then but he still didn’t have the same zip or the same bite on his pitches.

Which brings us up to the present.  There’s been so much anticipation of Liriano returning to even 90% of 2006-levels that he was taken in the early mid-rounds of many drafts.  Tommy John patients often aren’t back to their “normal” until 2 years after the operation and he’s now more than 6 months over that threshold.   By all accounts he hasn’t quite reached the velocity he had prior to the surgery in 2006.  He’s down approximately 3 MPH (now at around 91 and change) on his fastball and about 2 MPH on his  slider (now at 85.7 MPH).  Let’s take a look at the PFx data (from Fangraphs):

Pitch FX Francisco Liriano, Pitch FX

Coming into this year, Sonnanstine was being viewed as a sleeper in most drafts.  Some had him higher than others, but he was a sleeper.  It was expected that he would give an ERA around 4 with a great K/BB ratio and produce a ton of GB.  Then came his starts and the inconsistency began.  He’d had one or two good starts and then a horrible start.    I looked at his rate stats below and I began to think, man this guy has been unlucky.

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Pitch FX Andy Sonnanstine

I’ve been waiting for the right time and subject matter to put together another PFx post.   I’ve been trying to look at who exhibits the characteristics that I become concerned about and I see one right now with Max Scherzer.

Scherzer has been battling shoulder inflammation and fatigue several times over the last year.   Remember that when he first came up to the bigs last year, he was used out of the pen and then sent back down where he promptly went on the 7 day Minor league DL.  A month later he came back up and was used out of the rotation.  Over the winter, he had to shut down his throwing program for a month due to what was termed shoulder fatigue only to eventually begin the season on the 15-day DL  with stiffness.

I love his strikeout potential but having 3 incidents within a year of similar nature in a pitchers shoulder is not a recipe for success.  I wanted to look at his PFx charts to see if my concerns bear out.  All charts are from Fangraphs PFx section in his player card.

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Pitch FX, SP Max Scherzer, Pitch FX

Lots of attention is being paid towards Joba Chamberlain this spring, mostly towards his lack of velocity on his fastball. Last August he was sidelined with rotator cuff tendinitis for 27 days. This is worrisome for all of Yankee fans (not necessarily Red Sox fans though) especially considering how he served multiple roles last year and his starting role this year.

Starting in 2008 the Yankees wanted to limit the innings and the stress on his arm so he began in the bullpen. Look at the chart below for the breakdown of results of his role.

Pitch FX, SP Joba Chamberlain, PFx, Pitch FX

Justin is having a lot of problems lately with his control as he has walked 9 in his last 9 innings roughly during spring training. By now hopefully everyone knows that when a pitcher starts to significantly lose his control, it could mean that there is an injury that is being hidden from either the medical staff or the public or both.

Verlander is obviously a key component for the Detroit Tigers so I looked at his game log, courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Even though I cherry picked the dates a little bit, after July 26th he had a 6.72 ERA while having only less than a 2:1 K/BB ratio which is well below his performance in previous years. His control suffered greatly as he ended last year with a 3.90 BB/9 which was his 3rd straight year which it increased. So, let’s take a look at PFx to see if non-traditional metrics show something.

End Speed

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Pitch FX, SP Justin Verlander, PFx, SP

Oswalt has been getting some press lately about still being an ace. One wonders if injuries have begun to take their toll on him.He’s been on the DL 5 times since 2003 with 4 times being to the hip/groin area. The 31 year old made 32 starts last year mixing 4 pitches fairly well together while throwing almost 209 innings.

The results were good by all accounts posting a 3.54 ERA and 1.179 WHIP while striking out 165. According to baseball-reference.com, his *ERA+ which measures how his ERA compares to the league ERA, was the lowest of his career at 120. He has only been down in the 120’s one other time, 2004, when he posted a 125 ERA+. The last 3 years his ERA+ dropped from 149 to 138 and down to 120 last year.

He throws 4 pitches: fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup. He throws the curve slightly more than the slider, but much more when he is ahead or with 2 strikes. Overall I think that PFx data will show how he’s really not quite into decline yet and should be targeted in fantasy leagues everywhere.

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Pitch FX, SP PFx, Profile, Roy Oswalt, SP