Earlier this week I took a look at some unlucky and lucky hitters in the first two adventures in early season BABIP. Now I turn my attention to some unlucky pitchers, starting with three whose underlying skills and high BABIPs against point to brighter days ahead.
Yovani Gallardo
Yovani Gallardo… Yovani Gallardo? That’s right, we’re starting off our column with the ace-turned-innings-eater whose brightest days were between 2009 and 2012. Many people, myself included, didn’t see much point in the Mariners trading for Gallardo and giving up useful left-handed platoonman, Seth Smith.
Gallardo’s stats don’t impress much so far, but a deeper look shows reason for optimism in his skills (did I really just write that?).
First, among pitchers, Gallardo has one of the largest gaps between his .348 BABIP and his .247 xBABIP, according to xStats.org. The low xBABIP isn’t too much of a surprise, since Gallardo has a solid .298 career BABIP and has been remarkably consistent in the BABIP department, with BABIPs between .291 and .303 the past six seasons. Clearly, the .348 looks like an outlier.
Gallardo’s skills so far in 2017 are reminiscent of his days with ERAs consistently in the mid-3.00s. His walk rate is down from 11.6% last season (4.65 BB/9) to 7.0% (2.82 BB/9) in 2017. The last time he had a walk rate at or under 7.0% was 2014. The skills support the decrease in walks, as the percentage of his pitches in the zone is up 7.9% from 2016 and his first-pitch strike rate is up 4.8% to a respectable 59.0%.
Most impressive, Gallardo’s swinging strike rate is way up to 9.2% from 6.4% last season, though it isn’t reflected yet in his K/9, which is still hovering around 6.5. The swinging strike rate is supported by a large drop of 6.4% in his contact rate in the strike zone and an overall contact rate drop of 5.1%.
Finally, Gallardo’s ground ball rate is up to 49.3% and his ground ball to fly ball ratio is at 1.85 from 1.18 last season. Batters can do less damage when the ball is on the ground and when they aren’t hitting it too hard. Batters only have an 87.0 mph average exit velocity against Gallardo in 2017, including a low 89.2 mph on fly balls and line drives, which is among the league leaders.
One reason for the increase in ground balls and suppressed exit velocity may be that Gallardo is using his two-seam fastball (30.2% of pitches) at a higher rate than at any time since 2014 (he had an ERA of 3.51 that year). His velocity is also up across the board by about 1.5-3.2 mph depending on the pitch.
While Gallardo won’t be competing for the Cy Young this season, he could be a valuable addition to fantasy teams, particularly in deeper leagues. See if he’s available on your waiver wire in deeper leagues; which is likely, since he’s owned in only 1% of Yahoo! leagues.
Marcus Stroman
Stroman divided opinion heading into this season, based on whether fantasy owners trusted his stats from last season or the skills and potential. Folks loved his ground ball heavy approach (60.1%), his ability to keep the ball in the park (0.71 HR/9 for his career) and his strikeout rate that hovered around 20%.
2017 has been a mixed bag for Stroman thus far, with a strong 3.10 ERA but a higher than expected 1.24 WHIP and low 5.59 K/9. The WHIP should come down, as Stroman’s .333 BABIP looks a bit unlucky compared to his .257 xBABIP. His walk rate is also down to 4.4%, which reflects a jump in the percentage of his pitches inside the strike zone.
Fantasy owners probably weren’t expecting a strikeout per inning from Stroman, but they’ll be disappointed with early returns, particularly in K/9 leagues or leagues with innings-pitched limits (these leagues are functionally K/9). I don’t have much good news to share with folks on the strikeout front, as the skills show an increase in overall contact rate, though Stroman’s contact rate in the zone is down 3.0% to 87.4%.
The good news and bad news is that Stroman is relying very heavily on his two-seam fastball/sinker, which he’s throwing on 63.8% of his pitches in 2017. The good news is that the pitch is elite. Fangraphs has it rated as the best two-seam fastball in baseball in 2016, according to its pitch values metric.
The bad news is that batters aren’t having a hard time hitting the ball (4.5% swinging strike rate on the pitch), though they are having trouble doing anything with it. Stroman’s two-seamer is inducing a 63.5% ground ball rate, which helps support his elite 57.4% ground ball rate overall in 2017. Batters have a .639 OPS against the pitch, which is an improvement over last year’s .807.
Stroman has been lucky with the long ball , with only 1 HR on 2.7 xHR, according to xStats.org. As a result, the ERA is unlikely to change too much, but his WHIP should improve when his bad luck on batted balls comes to an end. He’s a worthy trade target for anyone in leagues without K/9 or innings limits.
Rick Porcello
Porcello has gotten a lot of bad attention thus far in 2017. After a surprise Cy Young performance in 2016, expectations were high and the Red Sox right-hander has not delivered. More than anything, he’s been vulnerable to the long ball, giving up five home runs in his first four starts of the season (and another one tonight). Porcello has deserved every one of those home runs (5.1 xHR) and he leads the league in barrels allowed (11).
What hasn’t gone as noticed is that Porcello’s skills have been solid beyond the propensity for the long ball and he hasn’t deserved his .345 BABIP. According to xStats.org, Porcello’s xBABIP is .266. As the graph below highlights, the Cy Young award-winner has seen high BABIP peaks like this before, including last season.
On the positive side, Porcello seems to have taken another stride in his development based on the underlying skills. His swinging strike rate is up 2.4% to 10.2% so far in 2017 and his contact rate in the strike zone is down 2.5%. He is also throwing 68.8% of batters a first-pitch strike. These skills support the increase in strikeout rate from last season.
More good news for Porcello is that his 62.1% strand rate should also improve (70.0% for his career) as he increases his innings total, maintains the increased strikeout rate and–hopefully–limits the home runs. He’s a great buy-low option because of his bad luck and the long track record he has of putting up high innings totals with solid to strong ratios. Expect a nice rebound the rest of the way.