Collette Calls: The State of Pitching

Collette Calls: The State of Pitching

This article is part of our Collette Calls series.

The last installment of this series looked at early indicators for homers and steals and found that we are currently experiencing a lower run environment than we had in 2023 and are likely to see lower offensive outputs this season unless some extreme heat fuels homers or some managers remove their restrictor plates on the running game. This week, I aim to take a look at two things happening on the pitching side, because strange things are afoot at the Circle K this season when it comes to pitching.

Pitching Wins

As play begins on Friday, April 19th, there are 17 pitchers tied with three wins a top the pitching leaderboard,with six of them being relievers: Craig Kimbrel, Shelby Miller, Luke Weaver, Garrett Cleavinger, A.J. Minter and Elvis Peguero. We learned late last year that predicting sources of reliever wins is very tough and lacks any year-to-year consistency, but those guys are the early leaders out of the gate to be this year's surprise source of wins. There are 13 other relief pitchers who already have two wins this season, or 12 if you remove bulk guy Ryan Yarbrough. So far this season, relievers are garnering 44 percent of the wins, which would be tied for the highest percentage of March/April wins in recent history:

Season

SP Wins

RP Wins

Total Wins

SP%

RP%

2016

243

111

354

69%

31%

2017

242

127

369

66%

34%

2018

271

148

419

65%

35%

2019

267

The last installment of this series looked at early indicators for homers and steals and found that we are currently experiencing a lower run environment than we had in 2023 and are likely to see lower offensive outputs this season unless some extreme heat fuels homers or some managers remove their restrictor plates on the running game. This week, I aim to take a look at two things happening on the pitching side, because strange things are afoot at the Circle K this season when it comes to pitching.

Pitching Wins

As play begins on Friday, April 19th, there are 17 pitchers tied with three wins a top the pitching leaderboard,with six of them being relievers: Craig Kimbrel, Shelby Miller, Luke Weaver, Garrett Cleavinger, A.J. Minter and Elvis Peguero. We learned late last year that predicting sources of reliever wins is very tough and lacks any year-to-year consistency, but those guys are the early leaders out of the gate to be this year's surprise source of wins. There are 13 other relief pitchers who already have two wins this season, or 12 if you remove bulk guy Ryan Yarbrough. So far this season, relievers are garnering 44 percent of the wins, which would be tied for the highest percentage of March/April wins in recent history:

Season

SP Wins

RP Wins

Total Wins

SP%

RP%

2016

243

111

354

69%

31%

2017

242

127

369

66%

34%

2018

271

148

419

65%

35%

2019

267

170

437

61%

39%

2021

230

153

383

60%

40%

2022

176

141

317

56%

44%

2023

264

161

425

62%

38%

2024

158

126

284

56%

44%

We saw some of this in 2022 after the shorter spring training due to the labor strike, which didn't end until March 10th, and even more so in July during the 2020 Covid-shortened season, but this is the first season without any major external disruptions in which the relievers are pulling in a high percentage of wins. This is understandably frustrating in shallower mixed leagues where most of those names are unlikely to be in lineups, while Zack Wheeler has zero wins despite a 3.00 ERA and Cole Ragans is still searching for his first win to go along with his 1.93 ERA.

Using leverage indicators, we can see those relievers earning those wins in tougher situations and those who are simply vulturing them by happenstance like Weaver who has vultured three wins despite some very unsightly peripherals this season:

Name

Team

W

WPA/LI

inLI

gmLI

pLI

Craig Kimbrel

BAL

3

0.41

1.88

1.88

1.86

Shelby Miller

DET

3

0.28

1.96

1.59

2.03

Luke Weaver

NYY

3

-0.25

0.75

0.66

0.78

Garrett Cleavinger

TBR

3

0.05

0.93

1.00

0.94

A.J. Minter

ATL

3

0.37

1.22

1.23

0.87

Elvis Peguero

MIL

3

0.09

0.99

1.06

1.02

Kirby Yates

TEX

2

0.49

2.29

2.30

1.79

Drew Smyly

CHC

2

0.23

0.95

1.23

1.37

Michael Kelly

OAK

2

-0.12

0.49

0.66

0.33

Pierce Johnson

ATL

2

0.05

1.21

1.16

1.23

Giovanny Gallegos

STL

2

-0.28

1.04

1.20

1.73

Ryan Yarbrough

LAD

2

0.24

0.70

0.89

0.82

Reed Garrett

NYM

2

0.43

0.78

0.79

0.85

Jeff Hoffman

PHI

2

0.19

1.86

2.30

2.65

Peter Lambert

COL

2

0.29

0.58

0.62

0.60

Jason Foley

DET

2

0.37

1.96

2.24

2.35

Nick Sandlin

CLE

2

0.15

0.74

0.79

0.87

Abner Uribe

MIL

2

-0.11

1.48

1.60

1.99

Yennier Cano

BAL

2

0.09

1.45

1.49

1.97

Yuki Matsui

SDP

2

0.27

1.13

1.27

1.23

Kimbrel and Miller have been at the center of the action in Baltimore and Detroit respectively while the other three-win relievers have been in kinder situations. Jeff Hoffman and Jason Foley stand out in the two-win group only because the latter is the primary closer for Detroit while the former appears to be working his way into that role. The toughest part about predicting reliever wins is that they truly come from anywhere. Last season, Colin Poche and Mike Baumann each had double-digit win totals but Poche spent most of the season working in above-leverage situations while Baumann was mostly a lower leverage reliever who was on the mound when Baltimore had one of their 1,682 comebacks (allegedly) last season. Perhaps Weaver is this season's Baumann while Miller is this season's Poche. The larger point being that, so far, relievers are out there stealing wins from starting pitchers at a rate we haven't seen in a season where a disrupted Spring Training was not in the picture. Some of this could be a side-effect of the rash of high-profile starting pitching injuries we have experieneced already this season, but this is a trend worth watching since many of those names are not likely to return any time soon. 

It is also worth noting that the average starting pitcher is working 5.2 innings in outings in 2024, which is exactly what they were working in outings this time in 2023. If we extend the decimal point to the hundredths place, 2024 is actually outpacing this time in 2023 5.19 to 5.17.

Starting Pitching

Starting pitching is seeing a bit of a resurgence this season as the collective ERA for starting pitchers is half a run lower than it was during March/April of 2023:

Season

G

TBF

ERA

AVG

OBP

SLG

wOBA

2016

708

17120

4.10

0.255

0.322

0.410

0.317

2017

738

17611

4.04

0.250

0.317

0.415

0.314

2018

838

19388

4.20

0.245

0.316

0.409

0.314

2019

874

19640

4.33

0.247

0.316

0.427

0.314

2021

766

16364

4.03

0.235

0.304

0.396

0.303

2022

634

12786

3.91

0.239

0.308

0.384

0.305

2023

850

18840

4.55

0.256

0.323

0.424

0.324

2024

568

12493

4.04

0.246

0.314

0.395

0.317

At a skills level, strikeout and walk rates are very much in line with previous March/April timeframes, but there are some other notable numbers early:

Season

HR/9

K%

BB%

K-BB%

AVG

WHIP

BABIP

2016

1.06

21%

8%

12%

0.255

1.33

0.297

2017

1.21

21%

8%

12%

0.250

1.30

0.288

2018

1.16

22%

9%

13%

0.245

1.29

0.287

2019

1.35

23%

8%

14%

0.247

1.29

0.288

2021

1.21

24%

8%

16%

0.235

1.22

0.282

2022

1.00

22%

8%

14%

0.239

1.25

0.284

2023

1.25

22%

8%

14%

0.256

1.34

0.303

2024

1.04

22%

8%

14%

0.246

1.29

0.296

What truly jumps off the page is the early home run rate is down 16.8 percent from this time last season, and the early data shows that the baseball simply is not traveling as far as it expected to do. The folks behind BallparkPal.com have some data which digs further into what is happening:

The ball simply is not traveling as far as the expected contact says it should. I don't believe anything nefarious is afoot here as much as we may finally have some standardization in both the production and storage of baseballs. The drag coefficient thus far in 2024 is right in line where things were this time last year, but the ball just is not traveling as far as it was, which points more to humidor storage than it does production of baseballs:

The league-wide 10.8 percent HR/FB ratio thus far is 15.6 percent lower than it was this time last season and just a tick higher than it was in 2022 as the league was coming off a shortened spring training:

I said it last week and I'll restate that opinion again here: unless something drastically changes, we should expect a lower run environment in 2024 than we experienced in 2023. All indicators thus far are pointing to a bear market for offense in 2024. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Collette
Jason has been helping fantasy owners since 1999, and here at Rotowire since 2011. You can hear Jason weekly on many of the Sirius/XM Fantasy channel offerings throughout the season as well as on the Sleeper and the Bust podcast every Sunday. A ten-time FSWA finalist, Jason won the FSWA's Fantasy Baseball Writer of the Year award in 2013 and the Baseball Series of the Year award in 2018 for Collette Calls,and was the 2023 AL LABR champion. Jason manages his social media presence at https://linktr.ee/jasoncollette
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