Pitch Count Analysis for Fantasy Baseball - Analyzing Last Year's Starting Pitchers

January 28, 2022

Jon Anderson analyzes MLB starting pitchers based on pitch counts. His most and least reliable SPs, and some 2022 fantasy baseball starting pitcher sleepers.

A few things that have been rising rapidly in the last 20 years of Major League Baseball: revenues, player salaries, and the use of data analytics. These three things working in conjunction have led most Major League teams to be very careful with their starting pitchers, especially their best ones.

We have seen both total innings and pitches-per-start on the downtrend for quite some time now. Here are the numbers of pitchers reaching at least 200 innings over the last five seasons (from 2016-2021, not counting 2020): 15, 15, 13, 15, 4. Going back to 2013, there were 36 pitchers who accomplished this, and the number really fell quickly after that season. There are two ways to limit a pitcher's workload. One is to limit the number of starts, and the other is to limit their pitches per start. Or you could do both of these at the same time. We've seen some instances of very cautionary (or outright phantom) IL stints and some instances of six-man rotations which have slowed down the number of times the average pitcher takes the hill, but the change has been more driven by just limiting the number of pitches thrown in each start.

This pushes the sharp fantasy player to re-calibrate their expectations for starting pitcher volume. While it is possible that being one more year removed from 2020 might bring innings counts up slightly, it is best to just view 190 innings as the new 200 innings, and then adjust accordingly as you move down in innings as well (meaning 175 innings can essentially be considered a "full season" since a minority of starting pitchers will exceed that). Personally, I don't recommend spending too much of your time trying to predict innings totals. You are assuming health when you do that, and that is a very daunting assumption when you are talking about starting pitching. But that does not mean to draft all pitchers as if they have the same expected workload, so there is some work to be done here.

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The Data

I prepared a table that shows the following for each pitcher that made at least 10 starts last year:

• Number of starts (GS)
• Average pitches thrown per start (AVG)
• The maximum number of pitches they threw in a start (MAX)
• Number of times they threw at least 90 pitches (>=90)
• Number of times they threw at least 95 pitches (>=95)
• Etc...

Here it is:

You can search for any pitcher you like in the search box there and sort by whichever column you wish.

The Good

Familiar names near the top. Pitches-per-start does turn out to be one of the more predictable things in baseball. We see that here with a lot of the names you would have guessed heading into the season at the top of the list. Trevor Bauer, Gerrit Cole, and Shane Bieber would have been in everybody's top-five, I think, and indeed their managers let them throw a bunch of pitches every time they were out there.

Zack Wheeler: He was your volume champ in 2021. Not only did he average the second-highest pitches per start, but he also threw the most innings (213.1) and total pitches (3,205). You can only accomplish this if you are very good while on the mound, which Wheeler certainly was.

Lance McCullers Jr.: I don't think many people would have predicted McCullers to do what he did volume-wise last year. He exceeded 105 pitches on 11 different occasions to lead the league. That was surprising given his history (he had never started more than 22 games prior) and the long-term plans the team had for him (signed him to a five-year contract last season). The bad news is that his walk issues (11% BB%) often prevented him from getting deep into games even with the long leash. Nonetheless, it's good news for his 2022 fantasy value.

Frankie Montas: This was another guy that had not thrown a full season in the majors before (previous max of just 16 starts), but he was healthy all year and the Athletics were more than confident in him. He went over the century-mark 20 times, tying for sixth-best in the league there. After he ironed out some early season issues, he was one of the best pitchers in the league in the second half and sets up quite nicely for 2022.

Carlos Rodon: Few pitchers have had a tougher time staying on the field over their careers than Rodon, but he finally put it together last season. He had a phenomenal season with the White Sox, who let him average 92 pitches-per-start and go over 100 pitches on 13 occasions.

Josiah Gray: He does not show up near the top of the chart here, but he probably comes in higher than we would have suspected. After making a couple of appearances with the Dodgers, he was traded to the Nationals. Washington used him like a typical starter, for the most part. He averaged 87 pitches per start for the year and the Nats even let him run it the whole way up to 100 twice despite being out of contention pretty early on. I would expect Gray to be given the chance to reach 160 innings or so if he's healthy and pitching well.

The Bad

At the bottom of the list, you see mostly guys that spent time in the bullpen as well, which is skewing the data here. I'll help you sort it out here by highlighting some names that have cause for some concern.

Shane McClanahan: This was to be expected with the way the Rays approach things with their young pitchers. The lefty averaged just 78 pitches per start and threw at least 90 pitches just four times. They let him over 100 just once. While he was really sparkling when on the mound, if they take anything close to the same approach next, it is going to be really tough to come by a competitive innings total with this guy (and forget about quality starts if you are in that kind of league).

Dane Dunning: He was one of the few bright spots on the pitching front for Texas, but really was hard to use in fantasy given his workload. He did not go over 90 pitches even once, and averaged just 71 pitches per outing. You would have to expect the Rangers to loosen the restrictions a bit in 2022, but the ceiling would seem to remain quite low.

Elieser Hernandez: The Marlins were also a team we expected to treat their young starters with kid gloves. It also certainly did not help that Hernandez did not stay healthy (once again). He made 11 starts and average just 74 pitches in those starts, really holding him back for fantasy purposes.

Check out the rest of the table for more! And if you are looking to bookmark this for later reference, you can save off this link that goes directly to the interactive table.

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