Pitching by the Numbers: All-Fantasy Team and best values

Let’s continue to honor the concept of the midsummer classic in non-parochial style by naming our All-Fantasy Pitching Staff through July 8.

We did the hitters last week.You have to actually be an all-star to be named here. We’re going by estimated dollars earned season-to-date in 12-team mixed leagues, as calculated by our friends at TG Fantasy Baseball.

And Inside-Edge scouting will help us assess a player’s likelihood of maintaining this rate of performance in the second-half.

Stats for pitchers are: dollars earned to date,wins, saves, innings, Ks, K/9, ERA, WHIP

Max Scherzer, WSH: $33, 9 wins, 0 saves, 123.3 IP, 143 Ks, 10.4 K/9, 2.12 ERA, 0.80 WHIP

It was so predictable that Scherzer would take to the friendlier NL, and especially NL East. The thing that really stands out about him is how he challenges hitters — and why not when the hitters are worse, especially in his home division (which accounts for nearly half his starts). Here are his rates according to Inside-Edge in those key stats (league average in parenthesis): 1st pitch strike 72% (61%), 1 of first 2 pitches strikes 94% (87%), 2 of first 3 pitches strikes 83% (63%), % of 0-1 counts that become 0-2 counts 62% (50%), 1-1 counts that become 1-2 79% (57%). Scherzer, despite his hiccup this past week, will likely remain one of the handful of top pitchers in fantasy baseball.

Zack Greinke, LAD: $33, 7 wins, 0 saves, 115.3 IP, 98 Ks, 7.6 K/9, 1.48 ERA, 0.89 WHIP

Unlike Scherzer, Greinke struggles in some of the “working ahead” stats. He’s below average in how often his off-speed pitches are well hit (6.1% vs. MLB average 4.9%). You can see by his K rates that he’s not dominant and you can add merely average swing-and-miss stuff to that mix. There simply is not a profile here that supports anything close to that current ERA and WHIP. But the good news for Greinke owners is that he should get better win luck, clawing back some of the value he will inevitably lose especially with his ERA, which we must project at 3.00 for the remainder of the season.

Dallas Keuchel, HOU: $32,  11 wins, 0 saves, 130.3 IP, 110 Ks, 7.6 K/9, 2.14 ERA, 0.99 WHIP

He has the highest floor of any pitcher in our game because he is pretty much all ground balls and strikeouts. You want extreme pitchers like Keuchel because they clearly demonstrate that they are winning the most important battle in the sport — seizing control in batter vs. pitcher outcomes away from the batter. Usually this split is 60/40 in favor of the hitter, according to statistical analysis. Obviously a pitcher is unlikely to maintain a 2.14 ERA and there is some good WHIP luck with Keuchel because it’s much easier for a grounder to be a hit than a flyball. And remember that even weak contract with grounders can make hits more likely (depending on the speed of the baserunner). So I’ll go crazy and expect a major regression all the way to 2.75 ERA and 1.10 WHIP for the rest of the season. In other words, still elite.

Jacob deGrom, NYM: $27, 9 wins, 0 saves, 113.7 IP, 112 Ks, 8.9 K/9, 2.14 ERA, 0.92 WHIP

My Wall Street Journal colleague Jared Diamond had a great article on Thursday comparing deGrom’s season to Matt Harvey’s epic, pre-injury 2013.All deGrom lacks is the superhero nickname, though we’ll give our Yahoo! friend Scott Pianowski credit for “The Hair Apparent,” which is fantastic. DeGrom is on pace to be just the fifth Rookie of the Year (and third Mets ROY) to improve his ERA in his sophomore season: Herb Score (second season of 1956), Tom Seaver (1968), John Montefusco (1976) and Dwight Gooden (1985) are the others. There is exactly nothing remotely flukey about deGrom, who despite his lack of prospect pedigree has top-shelf stuff across the board.

Gerrit Cole, PIT: $25, 12 wins, 0 saves, 110.3 IP, 113 Ks, 9.2 K/9, 2.28 ERA, 1.11 WHIP

The ideal fantasy pitcher: ground-ball and strikeout dominant. How do you score off these guys? Cole is the new King Felix. The key to his game is the inability for batters to hit the ball hard — 9.4% of at-bats according to Inside-Edge versus 15.4% MLB average. While some dribblers become hits with speedy runners, Cole’s WHIP isn’t really influenced by BABIP luck like Keuchel’s and what seems like a lucky narrow spread between ERA and WHIP really isn’t because he basically only allows singles. The big problem with Cole is that he’s never topped 140 innings in a season and he’s not a guy I hear a lot of innings-limits talk about because he’s been around for a while. But this is a concern. And again, innings limits are baseball’s dumbest thing ever.

Sonny Gray, OAK: $25, 9 wins, 0 saves, 114.7 IP, 102 Ks, 8.0 K/9, 2.20 ERA, 1.01 WHIP

Man, was I wrong about Gray. His Ks are up a little and the walks down a little so the K minus BB spread is better but still not 2.20/1.01 worthy. But it feels cheap to predict regression from those numbers, which is so obvious, and claim credit for it. What is Gray’s secret sauce that allows him to make such a monkey out of me? He’s the new Johnny Cueto with his weak hit quality allowed. His isolated slugging (slugging average minus batting average) is a tiny .063, about half the MLB average. His ground-ball rate is high but that doesn’t explain it. The well-hit data does: 7.8%, also about half the MLB average.

Jeurys Familia, NYM: $19, 2 wins, 24 saves, 42.3 IP, 43 Ks, 9.1 K/9, 1.06 ERA, 0.92 WHIP

I emphatically predicted Bobby Parnell would be the Mets closer by now. But Parnell is one of the rare pitchers to not come close to reclaiming pre-Tommy John Surgery velocity. I did think Familia was much better than Jenrry Mejia but I thought the walks would hold him back. But he’s realized the dream we have of poor-control pitchers knocking a full BB/9 off his total (it hardly ever happens), going from 3.7/9 last year to 2.7. And remember, he was over 7.0 BB.9 in 23 IP in 2012 and 2013. Familia is the Cole of relievers, with high Ks and high GB/FB. He has lights-out stuff, too. He’ll continue to dominate, barring injury.