Good fantasy baseball analysis identifies which statistics and skills are predictive, descriptive, or neither. An oft-quoted rule of pitching analysis suggests focusing on strikeouts and stuff instead of walks and location as the latter is much noisier year-over-year. I used Eno Sarris’ Stuff+ and Location+ as a proxy for a pitcher’s raw stuff ability as well as their ability to locate their pitchers. A quick look at year-over-year correlations from 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023 did indeed confirm this idea.
Given the fairly stark difference in predictability year-over-year, I wanted to examine whether or not we could make a blanket rule avoiding control gainers or targeting players coming off a year in which their control score dropped. To do this, I looked at the 10 biggest risers and fallers by BB% and Location+ amongst starting pitchers from 2021 and 2022, and then examined their 2023 performance.
Among the players in the above table, none of them had pricy draft positions. Lucas Giolito was by far the most expensive, with a final ADP around pick 150. Zach Eflin, Sean Manaea, Eduardo Rodriguez and Yusei Kikuchi fell anywhere from pick 230 to pick 450. Five of the eight players improved their BB% in 2023 and six of the eight players improved their ERA in 2023.
Interestingly, the pitchers who improved their BB% the most from 2021 to 2022 were much more expensive in 2023 drafts. Zac Gallen, Shane Bieber, and Blake Snell were all top 100 picks while Brady Singer, Lance Lynn, Triston McKenzie, and Jameson Taillon finished in or near the top 200. This group generally experienced heavy regression in 2023. Gallen was the only pitcher in the group to post a better BB% in 2023 while Snell was the only pitcher to post a better ERA.
Unsurprisingly, this table shares many similar names to Table 2. Like Table 2, most of these pitchers outperformed their 2022 Location+ numbers. Only Robbie Ray (injury) posted a worse Location+ in 2023. Additionally, six of the eight pitchers improved their ERA.
Like the relationship between Table 4 and Table 2, Table 5 also shares some overlap with Table 3 and similar results. Of the 10 pitchers who showed the greatest improvement in Location+ from 2021 to 2022, only Joe Musgrove and Jesus Luzardo improved their Location+ again in 2023. Of this group, only Kyle Gibson and Josiah Gray were able to improve their ERA.
If we apply the analysis from above to 2023 control changes, we have an interesting list of names for 2024 drafts. Pitchers in the blue boxes should expect some control and ERA improvement in 2024, while pitchers in the orange boxes should expect control and ERA decline in 2024.
