This is one of those pieces that hopefully will speak to you, regardless if you’re looking for something to aid you with decisions about your pitching staff, or if you’re looking to figure out the offensive side of things as well. Here’s the list of arms that will be broken down, using the springboard of the strikeout-to-walk ratio: Tanaka, Chirinos, Marquez, Bieber, Pineda and Bumgarner. On the offensive side, we will take a look at strikeout rates and batting average on balls in play as the baseline with the names being discussed to follow: Jeff McNeil, David Dahl, Yoan Moncada and Brandon Lowe.
BABIP AND STRIKEOUTS
*The league average for BABIP in 2019 is .297 while the K-rate is 22.7 percent.
When you strike out a lot, your batting average outlook is in peril. When you combine the strikeouts with an elevated BABIP there is danger ahead.
David Dahl has a 26.6 percent K-rate, not horrible by any means, but that .391 BABIP is super high. You might think Colorado helps (it does), and note that Dahl has a career .370 BABIP, but I’m here to tell you that folks simply don’t hold on to a mark that high year after year (just look at Dahl’s own .311 mark last year). Further complicating Dahl’s outlook is the fact that his hard-hit rate is just 38.2 percent this season which isn’t too far above the 34.4 percent big league mark. He’s simply not hitting the ball hard enough, consistently enough, to be a lock to hit .300 this season (currently .308). Also, note that his 89.6 mph mark in exit velocity is only two mph above the league average.
Take note that Yoan Moncada leads baseball with a .391 BABIP, that isn’t sustainable. He’s also struck out 27.4 percent of the time, leading to the obvious conclusion that he’s not going to hit .308 this season. Full credit for cutting the K-rate down goes to Moncada, the rate was 33 percent the last two seasons, but that’s part of the rub. Can he sustain his current pace? Further, that combo of not putting the ball in play, and the extremely large BABIP, suggests a significant slow down in batting average is likely coming.
Brandon Lowe (shin) is on the DL, but he’s expected back this weekend (late word, he will not be activated this weekend). In 76 games he’s gone .276-16-49-40-5 with a .523 SLG. By fantasy measures, he’s been a tremendous find this season, delivering on his prospect status in large measure. That said, there’s serious danger ahead as he’s the poster-boy of this section of the article. Lowe is currently fourth in baseball in BABIP (.381), and his 33.9 percent K-rate is second. That is a terrible combination. Terrible. No player in baseball has a batting average more dependent on the BABIP gods than Lowe as Brandon simply isn’t making enough contact to support his current .276 mark. The truth can easily be seen in his month-to-month batting average as the mark from April-June was .289, .268 and .256. Also, just to pile on, Lowe is hitting .254 against lefties and .259 at home this season, so there’s also that. Caution is extremely warranted here in the batting average category.
Jeff McNeil: OK, he doesn’t strike out at all with an 11.9 K-rate, but I wanted to talk about him, so I used the BABIP thing to give me a chance to speak about him. I’ve been completely wrong about him to this point. That’s what you say when you are out on a guy, yet that fella is hitting .349 at the ASB. Jeff also hit .329 last season, so over the course of 566 plate appearances, and 514 at-bats, McNeil owns a .340 batting average. In the 21st century, there have only been eight seasons of a player qualifying for the batting title while hitting .341. Is McNeil really in that class? (1) McNeil has a .373 BABIP for his career, and the mark is .385 this season. In the 21st century, there have been 25 seasons with a mark of .373. (2) McNeil has a .382 batting average against lefties last season. Multiple problems with that. First, it’s stupid high. Second, he hit .281 against lefties last season. Third, his current BABIP against lefties is .441. Come on. (3) Amongst players with 100 batted ball events (295 qualifiers), here are the ranks of McNeil in three Statcast categories: 131st in exit velocity, 149th in hard-hit rate, 211th in barrels per plate appearance. Nothing in that profile says he’s anything other than a league-average hitter. So, adding it all up, I’m still in the ‘he’s not keeping this up camp.’ Wrong in the first half was I. I fear for those that are all-in on McNeil since the second half could be troublesome.
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STRIKEOUT TO WALK RATIOS
*The league average in K/BB ratio this season is 2.67.
Shane Bieber is sixth in baseball with a 6.13 K/BB ratio. Finding a negative is hard. Here’s one. He has a .366 wOBA with men on base (it’s .239 with the bases empty). He’s been tremendous.
Michael Pineda is 12th in baseball with a 5.25 K/BB ratio. He’s thrown the heater 55 percent of the time, and his slider 29 percent. The fastball rate is right in line with the norm, 54.7 for his career, but that slider rate is a career-low. The reason is that he’s trying to hone the changeup, a good move to diversify, that he’s throwing a career-high 15.5 percent of the time. It’s seemingly working. After back-to-back years with an OPSA on the pitch above .735, the mark is currently a wee .515. Unfortunately, his formerly dominant slider has been blasted. The last two years batters have a .545 OPS on the pitch, but this season the mark is all the way up to .913. Unless the formerly dominant pitch rebounds, there’s not much hope that his second-half performance will improve.
Madison Bumgarner 15th in baseball with a 4.79 K/BB ratio. That mark is nearly double the 2.53 rate he posted last season and is much more who this guy is given his 4.17 career mark. Folks don’t seem to have noticed that he also has more than a strikeout per inning as he has the second-best swinging strike rate of his career (11.9 percent), while his first-pitch strike rate is a career-best 68.8 percent.
German Marquez is 20th in baseball with a 4.46 K/BB ratio. The mark was an already impressive 4.04 mark last season, as he’s dropped a half batter of his walk rate. At the same time, his K/9 rate has dropped from 10.6 last year to 8.8 this season. The swinging strike rate is up four-tenths from last season, and his first-pitch strike rate is only down a tenth. He could easily pick up some punchouts in the second half.
Yonny Chirinos is 28th in baseball with a 3.68 K/BB ratio. He had a 3.51 ERA and 1.22 WHIP last season. This year the marks, in 10.1 more innings, has a 3.15 ERA and 0.99 WHIP. He’s a very solid pitcher. He’s also been fortunate with the .232 BABIP and 79 percent left on base rate, and that SIERA (4.28) and xFIP (4.11) suggest he’s been a bit fortunate with the ERA.
Masahiro Tanaka is 30th in baseball with a 3.60 K/BB ratio. He is 5-5 with a 3.86 ERA, and folks are seemingly disappointed. That confuses me. Sure, he was bombed and allowed 10 runs his last two outings, but does that remove the success he’s had this season for you? He has a 1.18 WHIP that is better than Cole Hamels, and he’s not walking folks (2.14 per nine). The only disappointment I have at the moment is the lack of K’s. He’s a batter down versus his career level, and his 10.9 percent swinging strike rate is nearly two full points below his career mark, so perhaps the punchouts aren’t coming back. He’s still totally serviceable.
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