Today I’ll be taking a look at pitchers’ LOB%. As a point of reference, last year’s LOB% leader was Cole Hamels at 78.7%, while the laggard was Jose Contreras at 62.6%. So what this means is we should expect the current leaders to continue to regress a bit, but potentially settle into that high 70’s range, while it’s very possible that the laggards don’t improve at all as typically the bottom of the LOB% list will be in the low 60’s.

 
It’s unfortunate that Shaun Marcum went down with an elbow injury as his skills pointed to a clear breakout. Obviously he’s not someone to expect a sub-3.00 ERA from, but he has improved all 3 skills from last year so if he’s able to sustain such improvement, he’ll continue to provide good value. He’s supposedly scheduled to return from the DL shortly after the All-Star Break, but I’d probably be afraid to activate him right away, as elbow injuries are quite scary. Fun stat: his average fastball velocity this year is only 86.9 MPH! Just goes to show once again that you don’t need to throw in the mid-90’s to succeed.

Don’t think I’ve talked much about John Danks, so here’s my opportunity. He has improved his control and groundball rate, and all those extra grounders could very well be attributed to the new cutter he’s throwing 13.4% of the time. He’s another guy who obviously doesn’t have skills that good to maintain a sub-3.00 ERA, as his 3.70 xFIP attests, but he’s clearly a much better pitcher than last year and should continue to be solid.

Manny Parra was a popular sleeper and a favorite of Patrick DiCaprio, who actually picked him in the pre-season as his NL ROY choice. His current 3.65 ERA might suggest to the casual fan that he’s making good on his potential, but I’d argue that this is not the case. He’s sporting a terrible walk rate, a mediocre strikeout rate, and his xFIP is all the way up at 4.64. The one positive is his much improved GB%, at 49.1%, but there’s no way his skills support a sub-4.00 ERA. He’s a good candidate to trade in a keeper league assuming he’s at a cheap salary, although he does have talent so he could improve upon his skills at any point.

Will Felix Hernandez’s ERA ever match his skills? The last 2 years he’s been very unlucky, posting ERAs higher than his skills would suggest, but this season his skills have declined, yet he has the 2nd best ERA of his career (including his 205 season in 84.1 innings). His walk rate is over 3.00 for the first time in his career, and his GB% has plummeted to just 51.1%, after being no lower than 57.7% in his career and 60.8% last year. I’d love to see a good PITCHf/x analysis of him this year to find out the reason for the much lower GB%.

 
Speaking of PITCHf/x, I’d love to know where Andrew Miller’s groundballs have gone. He was inducing grounders at a rate of at least 60% at every minor league stop, but he’s only at 46.5% this year. I was very, very excited about Miller’s future as an extreme groundball pitcher with excellent strikeout ability, but if his GB% remains just merely above average, it might not be enough to offset all the walks.

Remember when Brian Bannister got off to such a fast start, and everyone was jumping on the bandwagon, after his lucky season last year increased everyone’s confidence that this year was not a fluke? His now famous sabermetric interview only fueled the belief that he truly was one of the exceptions. Oops, looks like the skills won out, once again. Funny enough, he’s actually underperforming his xFIP this year, which sits at 4.51, after he massively outperformed it last year. Looks like there’s more work to do Brian on your quest to outperform your skill set!

Sure it was against the Padres, but 10 strikeouts and 0 walks in 6.1 innings means Randy Johnson is most likely healthy. Yes, his velocity is down, but he’s still striking out a batter an inning and basically showing the same skills he always has. If I had any confidence whatsoever that he’d remain healthy the rest of the year, I’d consider him a strong, aggressive, major buy, but since RJ injury risk is so high, I’ll rate him only a strongressive buy.

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