Pitching by the Numbers: Method for finding undervalued starters

Strikeouts are a pitcher’s best friend. They leave little to chance. But the next best attribute a pitcher can have in run prevention is a high ground-ball rate. So in our last column that focuses primarily on last year’s stats (though 2016 stats are also included), let’s combine the two rates into one number and see who the leaders are in K percentage plus GB percentage.

We’re doing things a little different, something not unusual in this space. These numbers have been combined before with a threshold of 75 percent or so being elite. However, the K percentage is based on batters faced while the GB percentage commonly is based on ground balls as a percentage of balls in play. In other words, apples and oranges.

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So when you see Tyson Ross at 87 percent by that metric, you instinctively think that 87 percent of the batters Ross faces either strikeout or hit a ground ball. But that is false. That 87 percent doesn’t mean anything besides adding up two percentages that have no common denominator.

So here, we changed the GB percentage by hand to the percentage of batters faced who hit the ball on the ground. Now when we add that to the K percentage we have a number that does mean what we intuit: the GB% + K% (or SO/BFP in the chart) is the percentage of batters faced that either K or hit a relatively harmless ground ball. 

Pitching Leaders in GB%+K% | PointAfter

The average in this stat of all 115 pitchers with at least 20 starts since 2015 is 53 percent. Dallas Keuchel is the league leader (stats are current through Tuesday) at 66.7 percent of batters either struck out or hit a grounder.

Ross drops from the 87 percent the conventional way, again not really a percentage of anything, to a still sterling (fourth-best) 64.2 percent. Ross has been a player I have thought (or actually, my models have thought) was overdrafted this year, especially compared with his brother Joe’s much lower ADP. But here is the case for Ross.

You can look at the ERA grouping near the top of the list and make a strong case that Tyson’s ERA should be 3.00-ish and not about a half a run higher. But still Joe’s the better value, as his rate of 56.6 percent if he had a qualifying number of starts would nearly crack the top 25 too.

Jaime Garcia is no secret anymore. The chart for this piece is shipped on Wednesday with Tuesday’s stats. But you’d have to pry Garcia out of the cold, dead hands of his owners after Thursday’s 13 strikeout one-hitter. We all know that Garcia is a health risk. But it’s also very difficult that imagine that these skills are capable of generating an ERA over 3.00. 

Charlie Morton is the next really interesting name. I cut him in my NL-only Fantasy Sports Writers Association league with Andy Behrens last week before his great start this week and before putting this list together. I regret that now (I picked up Brandon Finnegan and Ross Stripling). I reflexively feel compelled to warn that Morton is not a standard mixed-league play, but more on that later.

Kyle Hendricks has the NL tailwind and is on a good team so he’s mixed-league worthy. Hendricks is owned in 73 percent of leagues and is thus unlikely to be available in yours. However, he is the ideal throwback that you can target in two-for-two, hitter-and-pitcher trades. You can get the clearly better hitter and if you get back Hendricks not get hurt badly or possibly even at all on the pitching end.

Hisashi Iwakuma continues his run of showing up favorably in pretty much every list I compile. Like Hendricks, he’s highly owned (83 percent) but underrated. 

The problem with this list is that it seems to require such a high skill level that it’s unlikely some outlier who few own will pop up on the list. I think it is very useful in re-imagining who the best pitchers really are.

But the only guy not highly owned is Morton, who is owned in 1 percent of leagues, and Nathan Eovaldi, owned in 15 percent. So are these guys pick ups in standard mixers? The model says yes. I want to argue like hell with the model in these two cases but have to stipulate that both of these pitchers can pop given this combination of skills (in addition to above-average velocity).

Of course I can take the easy road and say that these players should be picked up in deep formats. But there is a higher threshold here. I’ll leave it to others to make the pretty easy case against Eovaldi and Morton. But I don’t make it a practice to argue with the models here, especially one that seems to be this selective. So, yes, listen to the numbers and pick up Morton or Eovaldi to fill out your mixed-league rotation.