Ranking starting pitchers by K-BB% — strikeout rate minus walk rate — is a good way to mine for overlooked and undervalued arms.
It makes sense that this stat is a predictor of success: Striking guys out at a high rate while limiting walks is a good skill to have. Similarly, it takes a lot of savvy — or luck — to produce a solid season without a corresponding respectable K-BB%.
On the flip side, an elite K-BB% might tell a different tale than counting stats that look average on the surface.
So this is where I started when looking deeper into the underlying numbers behind one of my favorite starting pitching targets this year: Dodgers third-year man Kenta Maeda, whose 19.0 K-BB% ranked 21st out of pitchers tossing more than 100 innings in 2017. The list just so happens to be topped by this year’s clear-cut top four fantasy starters: Chris Sale (31.1), Corey Kluber (29.5), Max Scherzer (27.3) and Clayton Kershaw (25.3).
Let’s compare Maeda to a couple of his K-BB% contemporaries. Note that ADPs were taken from the NFBC.
Yu Darvish (K-BB%: 19.7% / ADP: 51.88)
2017: 186.2 IP, 10-12, 3.86 ERA, 3.65 xFIP, 10.08 K/9, .283 BABIP, 1.30 HR/9
Kenta Maeda (K-BB%: 19.0 / ADP: 201.12)
2017: 134.1 IP, 13-6, 4.22 ERA, 3.89 xFIP, 9.38 K/9, .278 BABIP, 1.47 HR/9
Jose Quintana (K-BB%: 18.5% / ADP: 74.48)
2017: 188.2 IP, 11-11, 4.15 ERA, 3.73 xFIP, 9.87 K/9, .301 BABIP, 1.10 HR/9
Obviously, this exercise is not to say Maeda is better than Darvish or Quintana, both of whom I think are fine picks at their current ADPs. But Maeda’s price tag — 125 to 150 picks later — should make you want to know more about why he’s grouped so tightly with them in both last year’s K-BB% and this season’s xFIP projections.
There are two numbers that jump out as differentiating factors, and the first — the 134.1 IP — is one of the main knocks on Maeda. The righty spent time in L.A.’s bullpen last year and averaged only 5.0 innings per start. (Maeda managed to pull out six five-inning wins and another in five and a third — all hail the Dodgers offense and relief corps.) He is currently slated to open the season in the rotation.
So we have a guy with only a two-year MLB track record, one of which was just 25 starts. Fair enough, but let’s remember that this is a 29-year-old (30 in April) who was a workhorse for eight excellent seasons in the Japan Central League. Maeda debuted at age 20 and threw more than 200 innings for Hiroshima four times. His 9.29 K/9 over the past two years ranks 13th in MLB out of qualified starters, and his 29 wins are tied for 12th with Carlos Carrasco. We’re not talking about some dude in his third year out of Arizona State here.
The other concerning stat in comparison to Darvish and Quintana is Maeda’s 1.47 HR/9, a major regression from the 1.02 mark he put up his rookie year. The increase is explained by a bump in fly ball rate (from 35.7% to 40.1%) exacerbated by a HR/FB% spike from 11.8 (poor) to 15.0 (terrible). New baseballs and uppercut swings aren’t fun for everybody.
Still, the HR/FB% seems high for a player beating the league average in both inducing weak contact and limiting hard contact. If Maeda can get back to inducing more ground balls — he was league average in 2016 — it’s reasonable to think with just a little better luck he could reproduce the 3.48 ERA he put up in 2016. And don’t forget the under-appreciated K-rate and a history of low WHIPs (1.14 and 1.15 the past two years). This is really good.
Interestingly enough, both Darvish and Quintana were hurt by increased HR/FB% rates last year. Darvish actually reduced his fly ball rate by more than 3% over 2016 but still saw his ERA balloon thanks to a career-high 15.1 HR/FB%. Quintana’s 13.2 HR/FB% was his worst ever, too.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that HR/FB% is volatile year over year, and all three of these guys put up usable roto ERAs on the wrong end of the spectrum. With a little luck, all three should see their ERAs nudge back toward — or past — their xFIPs.
Follow Danny @_dannycross_.
