In the MLB Recent Form Report, I apply filters listed under the “Adv Stats – Recent” heading of our MLB Trends tool. I am looking for players whose recent play has not shown up in their stats or whose production has been exceeding or falling short of expectations. The MLB Recent Form Report is released on Monday morning each week.

Pitchers

Michael Pineda

As he hasn’t lasted past the sixth inning in any of his 2016 starts, it’s easy to forget that Pineda has previously been a pretty popular DFS play. This season, his earned run average is nearly two runs higher than it was last season. He has won only once in seven tries.

Pineda’s advanced stats tell a somewhat different story though. First, his SIERA is only 0.64 higher than last season’s score, which suggests that the large gap between last year’s and this year’s ERAs is likely to close moving forward. His fly-ball percentage is below his career average, but he has been victimized by an unusually high 21.4 percent home run/FB ratio. Here again, regression is likely to occur: Pineda’s career HR/FB ratio is 11 percent.

Pineda has been walking more batters in 2016 and that needs to stop. But it’s easy to overlook his career-high 9.54 strikeouts per nine innings this season. That K/9 doesn’t appear to be a fluke, as his swinging strike percentage of 13.2 percent is also a personal best.

In terms of individual pitches, Pineda (as a fastball-slider pitcher) has kept his repertoire more or less the same in 2016. His fastball’s velocity is actually up by more than half of a mile per hour, but his batting average allowed is also up. In this case, that looks to be mostly a function of a .441 BABIP, which should decrease by at least 100 points through the remainder of the season. His recent advanced stats tell more of the same story: His velocity is fine, and his groundball and flyball ratios have not changed. Actually, his average distance and velocity allowed on batted balls are both down over the past 15 days.

Jose Berrios

In last week’s edition of the MLB Recent Form Report, I used advanced stats to build a profile for a rookie who did not have much available data. In that case, the player was Byung-ho Park. Today, I will do the same thing with his teammate, Berrios.

Three starts into his career, Berrios has a K/9 of 11.94, having racked up 19 strikeouts in 14.1 innings. If Berrios can continue striking out batters anywhere near that clip and, you know, stop walking everybody, he will be very useful for DFS. Over his first three starts, Berrios’ advanced stats look like this:

• Average Fastball Velocity: 93.2 MPH
• Ground-Ball Rate: 35 percent
• Batted-Ball Distance: 205 feet
• Exit Velocity: 91 MPH

Here are the most frequent matches in our Trends tool for those values:

 

The matches range from all-stars to guys who were demoted to the bullpen. It probably makes sense that hard-throwing pitchers who don’t get many groundballs can have a wide range of outcomes.

Hitters

Mike Trout

It was only a matter of time before Trout went on a roll. During the month of April, Trout’s average batted-ball distance mostly stayed around 205-220 feet. Lately, that number has been up around 235-250 feet. Trout is certainly hitting the ball harder over the past 15 days, as his 50% hard-hit rate is 10 percentage points higher than his yearly average. When players increase their recent HH% by at least 10 points, it has translated to a +0.30 Plus/Minus right off the bat [Editor’s Note: Literally].

 

Although Trout is trending in the right direction based on his recent advanced stats, he has still experienced a -$700 Salary Change at DraftKings over the past month entering Monday’s game. A batting average of .270 over the past week helps justify the price drop, but as the advanced stats indicate Trout’s batting average is probably a bit misleading. He’s hitting the ball just fine. Now is a good time to buy low on one of the best hitters in baseball.

J.D. Martinez

Martinez becomes the first player to be featured as both a “trending up” and “trending down” player in this series. Martinez’s stats over the past 15 days are pretty eye-opening . . . in a bad way. Martinez’s recent batted-ball distance is down an absurd 76 feet. His HH% of 25 percent over the same time puts him in Nick Ahmed territory. Right now, 70 percent of his batted balls are groundballs.

According to our Trends tool, batters who experience a decline in batted-ball distance comparable to Martinez’s do not often provide DFS value:

 

Note the salary filter, which I applied because most players who initially matched are guys who rarely play. When a regular starter’s average distance is down by this amount, it is a huge red flag. Martinez did homer yesterday, so perhaps that is a sign that he is breaking out of his funk. Keep a close eye on his average distance moving forward.

The Takeaway

In this edition of the MLB Recent Form Report, we looked at a veteran pitcher who seems to be playing better than his surface stats, we tried to project a rookie pitcher, and we examined two sluggers trending in opposite directions. As always, head over to our Trends tool and see what you can uncover for yourself using our advanced stats.