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Pitching by the Numbers: Bet on Buchholz

Bet on Buchholz turning his rocky start around.  (Getty)
Bet on Buchholz turning his rocky start around. (Getty)

We have at least 30 innings in the books for 83 starters and more than that for most. So it’s time for our first look at the 2015 stat that matters most (K-BB)/IP.

I caution you that you will get angry about how some apparent dogs are flying high in the stat and how some ERA kings are lagging badly. You will scream about the unfairness of it. But forget your stakes and just consider that the stat is obviously generally good at identifying the best and worst pitchers. Therefore, shouldn’t having elite strikeout-minus-walk skill predict better results IF the strikeout-minus-walk number holds steady? Vice versa for the pitchers with a bad strikeout minus walk numbers.

Yes, you can argue that this past performance in the stat doesn’t predict future performance but we are certain it’s much more predictive than ERA. So we bet the stat hoping it’s stable and that the ERA corrects in line with league averages. These numbers are entering Thursday’s action:

The calls to make here are pretty clear.

Buy Clay Buchholz, who also has a very low rate of allowing well-hit balls. I know it seems crazy. And you don’t have to blindly listen to the model, of course. But the purpose of this column is to at least hear what the numbers say and they are loudly saying that Buchholz has been extremely unlucky to date and is very dominant in strikeouts and walks. While we use the IP model because it’s more relatable, even the model that uses the K%-BB% ranks Buchholz 13th  — in other words, it’s still saying to buy Buchholz.

Believe in Colon. Remember, walks are the most stable of all of our stats and they are also the stat that, according to Rotoman Peter Kreutzer, gives us the most value (mostly because we don’t pay enough for low walk rates). Colon is the poster boy for this stat and also benefits from pitching in the NL East.

Here are MLB ERAs vs division (where teams play 79 of 162 games):

NL East: 3.64

NL Central: 3.55

NL West: 3.97

AL East: 4.27

AL Central: 4.19

AL West: 3.82

Relax with Kluber. He’s still dominating though not as throughly as he once did. Still, it’s early. He’s in the same ballpark stat-wise irrespective of the unsightly averages.

Watch De La Rosa. I’m not copping out here. He just barely qualified with the innings. I want to see where he ranks after one more start. Just add his Ks and BBs and Innings to these totals and do the math. If he’s still over 0.75, give De La Rosa a ride.

Straight up, I thought Shields was way overvalued in March based on last year’s numbers and I’ve been wrong. I can’t predict a swinging strike rate that’s climbed from 9.5% to 15.1%., according to Fangraphs. That’s insane. But we now have just enough data to have a fair amount of confidence that Shields will remain elite.

Now let's take a look at the bottom of our list:

We can’t fit the entire list, which you can see here but I will note all the major sells, meaning their ERAs especially are much better than their dominance and control suggest is warranted.

Sell Wacha. There’s no chance his ERA stays above league average, never mind at that obviously unsustainable level, given this K and BB profile.

Sell Dallas Keuchel (who was 60th on the list with a 0.38 (K-BB)/IP rate. This bothers me because I like him and he’s so ground-ball extreme. The ERA will likely remain good because his hit quality is so low. But can your fantasy team survive such a low K rate? The argument is that he may throw 240 innings and that will get you to 150-to-170 Ks maybe anyway. It’s a good argument. But if I could trade Keuchel for James Shields or Kluber, I’d do it.

Sell Julio Teheran (who was 55th on the list with a 0.42 (K-BB)/IP rate. We do this every year but usually his numbers are much better and he’s a sell high. You should never sell low. But I suspect that at this moment off his last start, people will pay full freight for Teheran. He was overvalued in drafts.