Being able to pinpoint potential indicators of future regression is an attribute that can be incredibly profitable in the world of daily fantasy sports. Fading a high-owned player on a hot streak or targeting a struggling low-owned option can make or break your night. With The KBXE Review, I’ll do my best to identify pitching options who are due for regression, both positive and negative, with the use of KBXE.
KBXE is a statistic that I created earlier this spring in the hopes of quantifying many of the components we put into consideration when rostering a pitcher each day. The formula itself is as follows:
K/9 — BB/9 — ((xFIP — ERA)/2)
For further reading on the subject, be sure to check out the introductory article. Additionally, I’ll be incorporating advanced stats from our Trends tool to test the validity of our findings.
It’s early. We’re only a few starts into the season for the majority of starters, so how are we going to determine who’s in for regression and who just had a rough outing? And, truthfully, we may not be able to do so (yet). But we can try.
Attempting to project regression is about being ahead of the curve, not simply reporting on what has happened — on what is now likely priced into a player’s salary and ownership percentage. So if you see a name in the list below that seems a little out of place, dig in a bit. Run some trends and see if maybe he’s due for a bit of regression.
There’s going to be some noise in this data, but hopefully we’ll also find some meaningful takeaways as well.
Things are Looking Up
So why 17?
In an effort to keep the reporting neutral and not just arbitrarily select a number, I’ve elected to present the players with KBXE scores that are at least one standard deviation from the mean or greater. As long as it remains feasible, I’ll continue doing so in the future as well.
Takeaways
Let’s start by putting these numbers into perspective. The average KBXE score from all 102 qualifying pitchers — I’m qualifying players based on FanGraphs Qualified filter based upon number of innings pitched — is 5.1.
It’s still early in the season, so we’re going to see some players we may not care about much among the results. A guy like Jorge de la Rosa sits at number five, because, well, he is bound to see some positive regression. Starting pitchers don’t carry 10+ earned run averages over the long term. His ERA will either correct itself or he’ll be yanked from the rotation.
As such, as we continue to progress further into the season we’ll see less of players like him near the top, because either his xFIP will increase as he continues to get shelled (unless he’s truly the unluckiest pitcher in the league) or he won’t have enough innings to continue qualifying if he’s pulled from the rotation.
Using the Trends
Before we get into specific players, let’s turn to our Trends tool to see if we can find some similarities between these top pitchers.
What I’m particularly looking for are the players who rank highly on the KBXE scale but haven’t translated that rank into big fantasy production. Basically, I’m looking for guys who (hopefully) provide us with the most profit potential. We’ll talk some about guys like Noah Syndergaard (guys whose production is lining up with their ranking somewhat), but I’m more interested in the others, because those players will provide the most value.
On the season, De La Rosa, Archer, Kluber, Fernandez and Pineda have performed negatively per our Plus/Minus metric. Because a number of these players rank so highly on the KBXE scale, I want to dig in further to see what is causing them to come up short thus far.
What we’re seeing here are the results from a collection of metrics available via our Adv Stats – Recent tab, specifically pitch velocity differential, distance differential, exit velocity differential, and hard-hit percentage differential. The big takeaway for me is the velocity drop. All of the pitchers listed above struggling with their velocity except for Pineda, whose downfall has been giving up a ton of homers, which you can see reflected in his distance differential.
This loss of velocity hasn’t appeared to affect their strikeout potential, but it does seem to be affecting their overall performance. Outside of Kluber, we have a group of pitchers that is being chased from games before the sixth inning on most occasions. The fewer the innings — whether due to high pitch totals or getting run from the game — the less potential for points.
Moving forward, I have one big question regarding this group: Will a return of velocity cure the struggles or will we see a possibly artificially inflated strikeout rate come down over time? The takeaway is that we must watch the velocity on this group. The xFIPs of the members indicate that they’ve been the subjects of a bit of bad luck, even if they’re not at their sharpest right now. If their velocity starts to trend up, that (combined with a little less bad luck) could lead to some big results.
Quick Player Notes
David Price — What we’re seeing with his top ranking is confirmation that the rough patches are more of an aberration than anything. Outside of a few long balls, he has been light’s out. I’ve seen some rumblings that Price “struggles” in that department and that his performances are thus not an aberration. But, per FanGraphs, over the previous two full seasons his HR/9 rate of 0.81 is actually slightly better than average. If he can manage to avoid big innings moving forward, he’s underpriced with his massive K Upside.
Noah Syndergaard — I’m not sure how much positive regression can occur for him, as he has been elite, but it’s great to see that the results correspond with his production.
Rich Hill — Hill is in a groove right now and has been an elite tournament option with his strikeout potential combined with his low pricing. He’s someone I’ve loved to utilize this year and I was pleasantly surprised to see him show up this high on the list.
Things are Looking Down
There are a lot of flat-out bad players on this list that we’re never going to target to begin with. But scattered throughout are guys that have been fantasy relevant thus far, particularly Felix Hernandez, Jordan Zimmermann and Mat Latos. Here, we have a group of players who (against the odds) are somehow stringing together continued success in terms of ERA and fantasy production. I want to particularly hone in on Latos for a second.
He leads the majors in BABIP and has a ridiculous 96.9 percent left on base percentage. These stats are great and he’s doing some really nice things right now, but I’m not buying it long-term, given his xFIP of almost 5 and his velocity differential of -0.7 MPH. I’m not saying that you need to go out of your way to attack him with bats, but I’m avoiding rostering him, no matter how many times he exceeds 20 points on DK.
Quick Player Notes
Felix Hernandez — Hernandez has staved off the big inning somehow, maintaining his 1.80 ERA. But his velocity is down 1.7 MPH and he’s throwing only 45 percent of his pitches for strikes (compared to his usual 51 percent). Something’s got to give soon.
Jordan Zimmerman — He’s not a big strikeout guy to begin with, so he’s never going to show all that well on this list. But a 0.35 ERA? That’s not sustainable. His velocity is down 1.8 MPH, but he’s been surviving with an 89.7 percent left on base percentage. Guys who have a propensity for allowing excess baserunners are scary to begin with. That Zimmerman can’t strike anyone out makes him even scarier.
Mike Pelfrey — He’s really this bad. It’s not often that a guy with a 4.64 ERA appears to be lucky, buts that’s the case here. Obviously you weren’t starting him anyway, but I’m including him as a reminder to continue to target him with your batters.
