Today I return to the pitching leaders and laggards of HR/F. If you missed the first article of the series looking at this metric, check it out here. Just like last time, there are still 12 pitchers who have yet to give up a HR, so obviously this won’t continue much longer. Again, I’ll just be focusing on the laggards until we get a larger sample size to make the leaders list more worthwhile to analyze. And on we go…

 
I’ve liked Scott Baker the last couple of years, but did not draft him on any teams this year. He’s showing the best strikeout rate of his major league career, as well as a miniscule walk rate. Based on his minor league numbers, I think these could be close to sustainable, with maybe a slightly higher BB/9. The interesting thing here, and the reason his ERA is still only 3.51 despite the elevated HR/F rate, is he’s actually been lucky with BABIP for a change, and also has a 91% strand rate. All in all, his skill set has produced a 3.32 xFIP. On the negative side, he is an extreme fly ball pitcher, so he’s always going to give up the HR, but he should be able to post an ERA around 4 with a WHIP around 1.30.

Brett Myers’ HR/F rate was obviously hurt by the 2 HRs allowed at Coors the other day, but for some reason he has always allowed HRs at a higher rate than the league average, with a career of 15%. His strikeout rate is down and he’s giving up more fly balls than usual, while inducing less grounders. Earlier in the season, reports were saying his velocity was down, and FanGraphs data backs that up, showing his average fastball speed down 2 MPH from last year, so I’m not sure if the velocity is still down or not. I still continue to worry about his health after being shuttled back and forth between the rotation and bullpen. It seems to be a new theme with pitchers that if I was 100% sure the pitcher was healthy, I would be willing to try buying low. But you just never know these days with injuries as it seems like teams are hiding these things more and more. His xFIP is 4.43, so he really hasn’t pitched all that better than his actual ERA suggests.

Bronson Arroyo is certainly having a weird season. Add his name to the growing list of pitchers whose velocity is down, as after last night’s bombing, Rotoworld reported this unsurprising bit of news. The strange part is his K/9 is way up, but that also comes with a walk rate that has crept over 3 for the first time since 2002. His BABIP is an insane .395, his LOB% is under 60%, but he’s also allowed 26% line drives, which is way above league average and his career rate. This is a perfect example of why the K/9 metric is flawed. Let’s create an extreme scenario- If you give up 100 hits in 1 inning, while walking 50 batters, but manage to strike out 3 hitters to end the inning, your K/9 is a perfect 27! What an awesome pitcher with such amazing strikeout ability! Obviously when you face so many batters, you’re going to strike out more than if you induce 3 ground outs for a 1-2-3 inning. So I’ve always wondered why per plate appearance metrics like K/PA and BB/PA hasn’t gained more steam. In any case, I calculated Arroyo’s numbers and they didn’t exactly prove anything since his K/PA this season is still higher than last year. Either way, obviously stay away until we’re sure his velocity has returned.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.