On Thursday I made the mistake of proclaiming my love for Marco Estrada and the skills he has displayed this season. Like clockwork he put up one of the worst performances of his career, giving up seven earned runs in less than four innings or one fewer earned run than the most he has given up in any of his 140 career starts.
The poor start begs the question: Did fantasy owners miss an opportunity to sell high on Marco Estrada after Thursday’s bad start or do his skills support a new level of elite production? Let’s take a look.
Skills
Despite the rocky last start, I still love Estrada. He has shown elite skills in 2017 and his bad start presents a strategic opportunity–if you don’t already own him–to trade for him. Estrada’s ERA sits at a respectable 3.86 with an elite 20.9% strikeout minus walk rate that ranks 10th among qualified starting pitchers. Everything in Estrada’s underlying skills this season support his pre-Thursday performance level (such a bad start this early in the season can easily skew pitchers’ stats).
Strikeouts
Where Estrada has taken the most visible leap forward is his strikeout rate. Estrada’s 27.2% strikeout rate is 5% better than his career average and has resulted in a stellar 10.2 K/9. The underlying skills support the increased strikeout rate, too.
Marco Estrada: Strikeout SkillsSwStr % | O-swing % | Z-contact % | |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | 12.5% | 34.1% | 79.1% |
2016 | 10.9% | 28.5% | 82.5% |
2017 +/- | +1.6% | +5.6% | -3.4% |
Source: Fangraphs
Estrada’s swinging strike rate has jumped 1.6% over last season and, while his overall contact rate looks a lot like 2016, his contact rate inside the strike zone has dropped by 3.4%. Hitters have also swung at 34.1% of pitches outside the zone, an improvement of 5.6% over last season.
Command
Marco Estrada: Commanding the ZoneF-strike % | Zone % | Swing % | |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | 60.9% | 47.4% | 51.8% |
2016 | 58.9% | 42.0% | 45.6% |
2017 +/- | +2.0 | +5.4% | +6.2% |
Source: Fangraphs
Estrada has commanded the zone in 2017 with more authority than previous seasons. His walk rate has fallen by 2.7% down to 6.3% and his BB/9 is 2.36, a drop of nearly a full walk per nine innings (0.96 BB/9). Again, the skills support the lower walk rate.
Estrada has also thrown more first-pitch strikes, a lot more pitches in the zone and hitters have swung at more of his pitches than past seasons. The combination of more pitches inside the zone (zone %), getting ahead of more hitters (f-strike %) and more swings at pitches outside the zone (o-swing %) shows the level of control he has exerted in most at bats. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s both throwing the ball in the zone more and having batters make contact with it less.
Pitches
Estrada has relied more on his changeup in 2017 than any previous year, which helps explain the improved strikeout skills. Fangraphs pitch values rated Estrada’s changeup as the third best in the game (12.4) last season and hitters haven’t broken the .200 batting average mark against the pitch in a full season since 2012. Opposing batters’ swinging strike rate against Estrada’s changeup has ranged from 18.6% to 21.5% over the same time period, including 19.4% this season.
Estrada has thrown the changeup on a career high 37.1% of his pitches in 2017, an increase of 7.4% over last season. Prior to giving up two home runs on changeups to Gary Sanchez on Thursday, Estrada had held hitters to a .196 batting average and .393 slugging percentage on the pitch in 2017.
Estrada also has the benefit of a solid fourseam fastball (19th ranked last season at 10.6 and currently 25th ranked this season) that has limited opposing batters to .209 batting average and .396 slugging over the past two full seasons. He has thrown the pitch on half of all offerings in 2017 (49.7%) and it has generated a career high swinging strike rate (9.4%) and swing rate outside the zone (30.0%). The remaining 13.4% of his pitches have been cutters (7.7%) and curves (5.7%).
The big news and likely a primary reason for Estrada’s improved strikeout skills is the increased changeup use. Helping matters even more, he has thrown the changeup in the strike zone more (50.7%) than throughout his career (42.2%), which helps explain why his contact rate inside the zone has dropped.Whether hitters can adjust to the new pitch mix will go a long way in determining if Estrada can maintain the new level of skills.
Batted Balls
Estrada has developed a reputation over the years as one of the few pitchers to consistently suppress BABIP (career .259). The Blue Jays righty has had particular success inducing infield fly balls, the equivalent of batted strikeouts because of their incredibly low BABIP. He boasts a career 13.2% infield fly ball rate, well above the league average of 9.5%. Surprisingly, he has managed his current performance level while failing to replicate this skill. His infield fly ball rate currently sits at 7.7%.
Type of Contact
Estrada’s BABIP is currently .302 (.291 xBABIP). Opposing hitters have a fairly similar batted ball profile against him as past seasons, with below league average line drive rates (17.9%) and elevated fly ball rates (46.4%).
Marco Estrada: Percentage of balls in play at key launch anglesUnder 0° | 10° to 39° | Above 39° | |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | 28.5% | 38.0% | 22.5% |
2016 | 24.2% | 39.4% | 25.0% |
2017 +/- | +4.3% | -1.4% | -2.5% |
Source: xStats.org (Go to “Pitcher Look Up” and search for player name)
A deeper dive into opposing hitter’s batted balls against Estrada shows a slight shift away from “pop ups” (defined by xStats.org as any batted ball over 39°) to more soft hit ground balls or “dribblers” (balls hit under 0°). While dribblers have a low BABIP (.182), it’s much higher than pop ups (.028), which may explain the slightly elevated BABIP and xBABIP than previous seasons.
Quality of Contact
When hitters do make contact on Estrada, he does a decent job of limiting the quality of contact. His hard hit rate of 30.1% is slightly below league average this season and his hard hit rate allowed on fly balls has fallen from 34.1% last season to 28.2% in 2017. Both figures are well below league average of 38.0%.
Marco Estrada: Exit velocity at key launch angles0° - 10° | 10° - 19° | 19° - 26° | 26° - 39° | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Estrada | 92.2 | 97.5 | 92.3 | 91.2 |
MLB | 92.9 | 92.8 | 91.8 | 89.9 |
Estrada +/- | -0.7 | +4.7 | +0.5 | +1.3 |
Source: xStats.org (Go to “Pitcher Look Up” and search for player name)
An analysis of his exit velocity at key launch angles doesn’t raise any major red flags. Hitters have hit the ball slightly harder than average when elevating the ball, but none of the exit velocities stand out as a problem.
While Estrada’s exit velocity on line drives is very high, it should not concern fantasy owners too much. Line drives between 10° and 19° at 92.8 mph actually had a higher wOBA (.745) than line drives at 97.5 (.711) because they’re more likely caught and very few batted balls at those launch angle go for home runs (one of Gary Sanchez’s home runs on Thursday was classified as a line drive–when it rains it pours).
Home Runs
One area where Estrada has regressed, like so many pitchers this season, is his home run to fly ball ratio (HR/FB). Estrada’s current HR/FB of 12.5% would be a career worst. The increased home runs allowed appears earned, as his 11 home runs, including three on Thursday, aligns with his 11.0 xHR.
Thankfully, as the graph above shows, the increased HR/FB does not appear out of the ordinary. In fact, if you take out Thursday’s terrible start (did I bring up that start again?), his HR/FB was 10.6%. As the previous table showed, his exit velocity at key home run launch angles don’t raise any red flags and reflect similar exit velocities to last season when his HR/FB was 9.9%. Again, the elevated HR/FB rate does not seem to reflect a change in skills and likely represents normal variance.
Summary
Marco Estrada’s underlying skills reflect those of an elite starter and support him taking his performance to a new level. He ranks 10th among qualified starting pitchers in K-BB%, 11th in swinging strike rate, 5th in contact rate inside the zone and 7th in swing rate outside the zone.
His improved skills support the improvements in his strikeout and walk rates, while his batted ball profile resembles previous years with some small changes. He has two consistently above average to elite pitches in his fourseam fastball and changeup, and the increased use of the change helps explain the improvement in his strikeout rate.
His poor start against the Yankees on Thursday will raise doubts in the minds of his owners about whether Estrada can continue his early season dominance over the remainder of the year. Take advantage of this doubt by acquiring Estrada (or hold on to him) before he strings together another series of strong starts.