Thinking About Expected Strikeout Rates: The Top “_____” xK% Leaders from 2013
(WARNING: THERE ARE GIFS AT THE END)
Real estate, knick-knacks at a garage sale, and players, in the sense of professional sports, can be undervalued.
For instance, in Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, Michael Lewis interviews Kyle Bass, a hedge fund manager who made a fortune shorting subprime mortgage assets, who recently bought a million dollars worth of nickels. Yes, a million dollars of nickels.
“The value of the metal in a nickels is worth six point eight cents,” Bass said. Bass went on to describe how difficult it is to obtain 20 million nickels, the process he had to go through with the bank from which he bought the nickels from, and the Federal Reserve agent who questioned his motives and asked, “Why do you want all these nickels?” To which he responded, “I just like nickels.”
Baseball or Fantasy Baseball, for our purposes, is no different.
Just like Kyle Bass’ exploitation of the market inefficiency in nickels, the best Fantasy Baseball players are the ones who can tell if a player will perform better or worse in the future relative to their current value. In that vain, this post will look at expected strikeout rates and the players in 2013 that posted the best xK%, so that we may be able to find undervalued assets that will win our leagues.
For starters, why do we use K%?
Let’s recap the stats that tell us about a pitchers’ strikeout ability.
There’s your grandfather’s age old K that depends on innings pitched. K fails to tell us about the pitcher who may have only pitched a couple of games last year, so that doesn’t work. You have K/9, but then you have pitchers like Rich Hill. Hill’s the workaholic 70 hour work week father with a trophy wife and three kids who’s put his family into a 7,500 square feet house in Malibu, only to find out that his wife of 10 years has (for the last nine and a half years to be exact) been screwing the local yoga instructor with matted hair, a hemp poncho that would seem like it would be more suitable on Clint Eastwood in a Sergio Leone spaghetti western, and whose extra funds, beyond patchouli and cannabis, are appropriated to the next Phish show. Hill posted an 11.87 K/9 with the 17th worst WHIP in baseball, but you wouldn’t know that by his K/9; he gets strikeouts, but at the expense of everything else.
K% lets us know how many batters a pitcher strikes-out relative to the total number of batters faced; we know if the pitcher has sacrificed control for stuff. Hill had the 16th best K/9 in baseball last year, which seems great on the surface, but was ranked 41st in K% because of the 6.75 BB/9 that he simultaneously posted.
Late last year I developed a formula that attempted to predict a pitchers future strikeout rate, but, at the time, was unaware of the others who had done more of a comprehensive look into expected K%.
My research concluded that strikeout rate is correlated with swinging strike rate by an r2 of .6948; essentially, the amount of strikeouts a pitcher gets is nearly 70% dependent on the amount times they can get a hitter to swing and miss. This intuitively makes sense though. You can’t strike a batter out unless you get them to swing through and/or look at a pitch three times in an at bat.
I developed an expected strikeout rate—mine tried to predict K/9 and not K% (I must have been high when this happened), so it fell short from that perspective—around swinging strike percentage, but Mike Podhorzer developed a more predictive expected strikeout rate that, in addition to swinging strike percentage, uses of F/Str% (percentage of pitches a batter hits foul off a pitcher) and L/Str% (percentage of pitchers of strikes a batter looks at off of a pitcher). When combined into a formula for expected K% (xK% = -0.61 + (L/Str% * 1.1538) + (S/Str% * 1.4696) + (F/Str% * 0.9417)), these three metrics have an r2 of .892.
89% percent of a pitchers strikeout rate is dependent on these three metrics, and I am left to feel like the other eleven percent is dependent on the butterfly affect (i.e. the lights in the stadium, what the umpire had for breakfast maybe).
The Top “____” xK% Leaders from 2013 for Starting Pitchers
Name
xK%
2013 K%
K% DIFF
YuÊDarvish
30.48%
32.90%
-2.42%
DannyÊSalazar
28.77%
30.80%
-2.03%
BurchÊSmith
28.11%
27.50%
0.61%
TonyÊCingrani*
27.25%
28.60%
-1.35%
MaxÊScherzer
27.13%
28.70%
-1.57%
AnibalÊSanchez
26.05%
27.10%
-1.05%
DannyÊDuffy*
25.71%
21.20%
4.51%
MattÊHarvey
25.01%
27.70%
-2.69%
JoseÊFernandez
24.81%
27.50%
-2.69%
BudÊNorris
24.75%
19.00%
5.75%
MattÊMagill
24.69%
19.00%
5.69%
EthanÊMartin
24.68%
24.70%
-0.02%
ChrisÊSale*
24.17%
26.10%
-1.93%
A.J.ÊBurnett
24.11%
26.10%
-1.99%
MichaelÊWacha
24.11%
25.00%
-0.89%
MadisonÊBumgarner*
24.00%
24.80%
-0.80%
StephenÊStrasburg
23.95%
26.10%
-2.15%
UbaldoÊJimenez
23.94%
25.00%
-1.06%
FranciscoÊLiriano*
23.91%
24.50%
-0.59%
ShelbyÊMiller
23.89%
23.40%
0.49%
JustinÊVerlander
23.82%
23.50%
0.32%
HectorÊSantiago*
23.81%
20.90%
2.91%
ScottÊKazmir*
23.80%
24.10%
-0.30%
IanÊKennedy
23.74%
20.50%
3.24%
ToddÊRedmond
23.74%
23.50%
0.24%
MattÊMoore*
23.42%
22.30%
1.12%
AaronÊHarang
23.41%
18.10%
5.31%
ClaytonÊKershaw*
23.29%
25.60%
-2.31%
JenrryÊMejia
23.25%
24.10%
-0.85%
YusmeiroÊPetit
23.18%
24.00%
-0.82%
SonnyÊGray
23.15%
25.70%
-2.55%
TimÊLincecum
23.13%
23.00%
0.13%
HomerÊBailey
23.11%
23.40%
-0.29%
TysonÊRoss
23.07%
23.60%
-0.53%
GavinÊFloyd
22.88%
22.70%
0.18%
ClayÊBuchholz
22.85%
23.10%
-0.25%
LanceÊLynn
22.79%
23.10%
-0.31%
GioÊGonzalez*
22.76%
23.40%
-0.64%
AlexÊWood*
22.73%
23.60%
-0.87%
TomÊGorzelanny*
22.68%
23.30%
-0.62%
JustinÊMasterson
22.63%
24.30%
-1.67%
FelixÊHernandez
22.62%
26.30%
-3.68%
KevinÊGausman
22.35%
24.40%
-2.05%
ColeÊHamels*
22.33%
22.30%
0.03%
JakeÊPeavy
22.31%
20.50%
1.81%
ErikÊBedard*
22.25%
20.80%
1.45%
MarcoÊEstrada
22.17%
23.10%
-0.93%
RyanÊDempster
22.15%
20.80%
1.35%
JeffÊSamardzija
22.10%
23.40%
-1.30%
C.J.ÊWilson*
22.03%
20.60%
1.43%
AlexÊCobb
21.95%
23.20%
-1.25%
CliffÊLee*
21.94%
25.30%
-3.36%
JakeÊArrieta
21.91%
18.50%
3.41%
JohnnyÊCueto
21.72%
21.10%
0.62%
TylerÊSkaggs*
21.69%
21.20%
0.49%
BrettÊAnderson*
21.57%
23.00%
-1.43%
JustinÊGrimm
21.57%
17.20%
4.37%
RoyÊOswalt
21.55%
22.50%
-0.95%
ChrisÊTillman
21.51%
21.20%
0.31%
DanÊStraily
21.48%
19.40%
2.08%
IanÊKennedy
21.37%
20.50%
0.87%
RoyÊHalladay
21.37%
18.10%
3.27%
CoreyÊKluber
21.28%
22.40%
-1.12%
J.A.ÊHapp*
21.25%
18.60%
2.65%
JulioÊTeheran
21.12%
22.00%
-0.88%
BradÊPeacock
21.03%
21.10%
-0.07%
MikeÊMinor*
20.98%
22.10%
-1.12%
JoseÊAlvarez*
20.96%
18.00%
2.96%
JoshÊBeckett
20.90%
21.00%
-0.10%
JeremyÊBonderman
20.81%
13.00%
7.81%
DaisukeÊMatsuzaka
20.77%
19.90%
0.87%
ZackÊGreinke
20.76%
20.60%
0.16%
RickyÊNolasco
20.76%
19.80%
0.96%
ZackÊWheeler
20.75%
19.50%
1.25%
JakeÊPeavy
20.67%
20.50%
0.17%
BudÊNorris
20.59%
19.00%
1.59%
ChadÊGaudin
20.59%
21.70%
-1.11%
DavidÊPhelps
20.56%
21.00%
-0.44%
ChrisÊArcher
20.55%
19.20%
1.35%
MatÊLatos
20.54%
21.20%
-0.66%
PhilÊHughes
20.54%
18.90%
1.64%
CarlosÊTorres
20.43%
21.30%
-0.87%
FelixÊDoubront*
20.27%
19.70%
0.57%
JoshÊJohnson
20.26%
21.60%
-1.34%
IanÊKennedy
20.17%
20.50%
-0.33%
A.J.ÊGriffin
20.07%
20.80%
-0.73%
RickyÊNolasco
20.06%
19.80%
0.26%
JamesÊShields
19.99%
20.70%
-0.71%
JoseÊQuintana*
19.96%
19.70%
0.26%
AdamÊWainwright
19.95%
22.90%
-2.95%
CarlosÊVillanueva
19.90%
19.70%
0.20%
JeremyÊHellickson
19.80%
18.30%
1.50%
JakeÊArrieta
19.76%
18.50%
1.26%
MattÊGarza
19.72%
20.90%
-1.18%
AllenÊWebster
19.68%
15.90%
3.78%
ErasmoÊRamirez
19.66%
17.80%
1.86%
KrisÊMedlen
19.63%
19.20%
0.43%
AlexiÊOgando
19.61%
16.80%
2.81%
JonÊLester*
19.60%
19.60%
0.00%
WadeÊDavis
19.48%
18.50%
0.98%
DanÊHaren
19.43%
21.10%
-1.67%
R.A.ÊDickey
19.41%
18.80%
0.61%
MattÊGarza
19.35%
20.90%
-1.55%
Hyun-jinÊRyu*
19.33%
19.70%
-0.37%
MattÊCain
19.33%
20.80%
-1.47%
DerekÊHolland*
19.30%
21.10%
-1.80%
HisashiÊIwakuma
19.30%
21.40%
-2.10%
RickyÊNolasco
19.28%
19.80%
-0.52%
PatrickÊCorbin*
19.17%
20.70%
-1.53%
JeffÊFrancis*
19.17%
19.40%
-0.23%
JohnÊLackey
19.14%
20.70%
-1.56%
TommyÊMilone*
19.08%
18.90%
0.18%
EdinsonÊVolquez
19.04%
18.30%
0.74%
CCÊSabathia*
19.04%
19.30%
-0.26%
JeredÊWeaver
19.02%
18.50%
0.52%
EdinsonÊVolquez
18.97%
18.30%
0.67%
MattÊGarza
18.97%
20.90%
-1.93%
JamesÊMcDonald
18.86%
18.10%
0.76%
TylerÊThornburg
18.82%
17.80%
1.02%
ZachÊMcAllister
18.81%
17.40%
1.41%
RickÊPorcello
18.79%
19.30%
-0.51%
ErvinÊSantana
18.75%
18.70%
0.05%
EdinsonÊVolquez
18.74%
18.30%
0.44%
GerritÊCole
18.73%
21.30%
-2.57%
JuanÊNicasio
18.69%
16.90%
1.79%
BudÊNorris
18.60%
19.00%
-0.40%
ShaunÊMarcum
18.55%
18.00%
0.55%
Wei-YinÊChen*
18.54%
18.20%
0.34%
JakeÊArrieta
18.49%
18.50%
-0.01%
BrandonÊMaurer
18.45%
17.40%
1.05%
JakeÊPeavy
18.45%
20.50%
-2.05%
JeffÊLocke*
18.45%
17.60%
0.85%
IvanÊNova
18.40%
19.80%
-1.40%
DougÊFister
18.40%
18.10%
0.30%
TedÊLilly*
18.38%
16.50%
1.88%
HirokiÊKuroda
18.37%
18.20%
0.17%
JaimeÊGarcia*
18.37%
18.40%
-0.03%
TommyÊHanson
18.33%
17.10%
1.23%
DallasÊKeuchel*
18.28%
18.00%
0.28%
RossÊOhlendorf
18.26%
18.20%
0.06%
BrandonÊBeachy
18.23%
19.20%
-0.97%
BruceÊChen*
18.23%
15.70%
2.53%
DavidÊPrice*
18.16%
20.40%
-2.24%
NickÊTepesch
18.02%
18.70%
-0.68%
TannerÊRoark
18.01%
19.60%
-1.59%
TimÊHudson
18.00%
17.80%
0.20%
AndrewÊCashner
17.98%
18.10%
-0.12%
ScottÊFeldman
17.83%
17.40%
0.43%
JorgeÊDeÊLaÊRosa*
17.81%
15.70%
2.11%
RobbieÊErlin*
17.81%
17.60%
0.21%
YovaniÊGallardo
17.80%
18.60%
-0.80%
TylerÊLyons*
17.79%
19.30%
-1.51%
KevinÊSlowey
17.61%
19.20%
-1.59%
TravisÊWood*
17.58%
17.50%
0.08%
LiamÊHendriks
17.53%
15.20%
2.33%
JeremyÊHefner
17.52%
17.80%
-0.28%
RandallÊDelgado
17.51%
16.70%
0.81%
JoshÊLindblom
17.50%
15.30%
2.20%
RobertoÊHernandez
17.50%
17.60%
-0.10%
AaronÊHarang
17.40%
18.10%
-0.70%
NathanÊEovaldi
17.40%
17.30%
0.10%
WadeÊMiley*
17.34%
17.40%
-0.06%
MiguelÊGonzalez
17.32%
16.90%
0.42%
JasonÊVargas*
17.29%
16.90%
0.39%
ScottÊFeldman
17.23%
17.40%
-0.17%
JarredÊCosart
17.15%
13.40%
3.75%
JoeÊBlanton
17.04%
17.70%
-0.66%
BrandonÊMorrow
16.90%
17.40%
-0.50%
ChrisÊCapuano*
16.88%
17.70%
-0.82%
JordanÊZimmermann
16.85%
18.60%
-1.75%
GarrettÊRichards
16.82%
16.30%
0.52%
StephenÊFife
16.70%
17.40%
-0.70%
AndyÊPettitte*
16.69%
16.30%
0.39%
JohnÊDanks*
16.57%
15.30%
1.27%
JonathonÊNiese*
16.53%
16.90%
-0.37%
AlfredoÊFigaro
16.51%
17.10%
-0.59%
JeanmarÊGomez
16.49%
15.90%
0.59%
HiramÊBurgos
16.49%
13.00%
3.49%
WandyÊRodriguez*
16.45%
17.70%
-1.25%
ScottÊFeldman
16.42%
17.40%
-0.98%
EsmilÊRogers
16.37%
16.10%
0.27%
SamÊDeduno
16.35%
14.50%
1.85%
EdwinÊJackson
16.34%
17.40%
-1.06%
JarrodÊParker
16.34%
16.40%
-0.06%
AaronÊHarang
16.27%
18.10%
-1.83%
WilyÊPeralta
16.24%
16.10%
0.14%
ChadÊBettis
16.20%
14.40%
1.80%
BarryÊZito*
16.19%
14.10%
2.09%
JustinÊGrimm
15.97%
17.20%
-1.23%
CharlieÊMorton
15.93%
17.20%
-1.27%
KyleÊLohse
15.88%
15.50%
0.38%
BrettÊOberholtzer*
15.84%
15.40%
0.44%
ErikÊJohnson
15.84%
14.10%
1.74%
DillonÊGee
15.83%
16.90%
-1.07%
JasonÊHammel
15.73%
15.70%
0.03%
WadeÊLeBlanc*
15.71%
12.70%
3.01%
TrevorÊCahill
15.70%
16.00%
-0.30%
PaulÊMaholm*
15.58%
15.70%
-0.12%
TomÊKoehler
15.50%
15.30%
0.20%
MarkÊBuehrle*
15.44%
15.90%
-0.46%
AlfredoÊAceves
15.41%
14.20%
1.21%
JustinÊGrimm
15.39%
17.20%
-1.81%
AndreÊRienzo
15.39%
15.20%
0.19%
JhoulysÊChacin
15.16%
15.40%
-0.24%
JonathanÊPettibone
15.14%
15.10%
0.04%
MartinÊPerez*
15.13%
15.90%
-0.77%
LucasÊHarrell
15.02%
12.60%
2.42%
EricÊStults*
14.99%
15.30%
-0.31%
AlexÊSanabia
14.97%
12.40%
2.57%
BrandonÊCumpton
14.94%
17.70%
-2.76%
JeromeÊWilliams
14.87%
14.70%
0.17%
TaylorÊJordan
14.80%
13.20%
1.60%
WadeÊLeBlanc*
14.78%
12.70%
2.08%
MikeÊPelfrey
14.75%
14.90%
-0.15%
TylerÊCloyd
14.70%
14.50%
0.20%
JasonÊMarquis
14.66%
13.90%
0.76%
PhilipÊHumber
14.65%
13.90%
0.75%
RyanÊVogelsong
14.62%
14.40%
0.22%
CarlosÊCarrasco
14.51%
13.80%
0.71%
JacobÊTurner
14.50%
15.00%
-0.50%
FreddyÊGarcia
14.48%
13.90%
0.58%
JordanÊLyles
14.41%
14.50%
-0.09%
DylanÊAxelrod
14.13%
12.50%
1.63%
BartoloÊColon
14.00%
15.20%
-1.20%
TylerÊChatwood
13.86%
13.90%
-0.04%
DonovanÊHand
13.83%
12.90%
0.93%
KyleÊGibson
13.77%
12.20%
1.57%
JoeÊKelly
13.75%
14.90%
-1.15%
BronsonÊArroyo
13.74%
15.10%
-1.36%
MikeÊLeake
13.57%
15.20%
-1.63%
LuisÊMendoza
13.37%
12.90%
0.47%
JeremyÊBonderman
13.28%
13.00%
0.28%
FreddyÊGarcia
13.26%
13.90%
-0.64%
ChrisÊRusin*
13.21%
12.80%
0.41%
P.J.ÊWalters
13.17%
12.00%
1.17%
JohnÊLannan*
13.15%
11.50%
1.65%
PaulÊClemens
12.93%
15.20%
-2.27%
HendersonÊAlvarez
12.78%
13.60%
-0.82%
FreddyÊGarcia
12.70%
13.90%
-1.20%
KyleÊKendrick
12.57%
13.80%
-1.23%
JeremyÊGuthrie
12.40%
12.30%
0.10%
VanceÊWorley
12.26%
10.70%
1.56%
JoeÊSaunders*
11.98%
13.10%
-1.12%
AndrewÊAlbers*
11.89%
10.00%
1.89%
PedroÊHernandez*
11.71%
11.00%
0.71%
BrandonÊMcCarthy
11.64%
13.20%
-1.56%
CollinÊMcHugh
11.16%
8.80%
2.36%
ZachÊBritton*
11.15%
9.90%
1.25%
KevinÊCorreia
11.07%
12.80%
-1.73%
RossÊDetwiler*
10.80%
12.30%
-1.50%
ScottÊDiamond*
10.76%
9.00%
1.76%
JohnnyÊHellweg
10.45%
5.60%
4.85%
JonÊGarland
10.15%
10.60%
-0.45%
ClaytonÊRichard*
10.05%
10.00%
0.05%
CollinÊMcHugh
9.97%
8.80%
1.17%
JeremyÊBonderman
9.82%
13.00%
-3.18%
JakeÊWestbrook
9.63%
8.40%
1.23%
GregÊReynolds
9.30%
9.80%
-0.50%
Chien-MingÊWang
7.96%
11.40%
-3.44%
WadeÊLeBlanc*
7.28%
12.70%
-5.42%
CollinÊMcHugh
7.11%
8.80%
-1.69%
If anyone knows how to get rid of the “E” with a circumflex above it, I would appreciate your assistance.
Danny Salazar: Cleveland Indians
Although Salazar was limited in the amount of innings he pitched in 2013, a 14.6 S/Str% (swinging strike percentage) is impressive for anyone, even a reliever, and was the best S/Str% in baseball by over a full percentage point for any starting pitcher in baseball. Salazar’s proponents are as excited about his prospects for 2014 as s sorority girl that has done enough blow to incapacitate a 320-pound offensive guard. Salazar may be worth the high price of admission, but if your league mates happen to be unaware of the magnitude of his late 2013 dominance, take advantage of their ignorance. 
Burch Smith: San Diego Padres
Burch Smith was third in S/Str% for starting pitchers in 2013, a tenth of a percentage point behind Francisco Liriano, and a half of a percentage point ahead of Yu Darvish. In his limited time in the majors, Smith struggled with control, but is projected by Steamer to find the strike zone more often and have a 3.17 ERA in 2014. The optimism that Steamer shows for Smith is buoyed by Jason Parks who ranks Smith as San Diego’s sixth best prospect in a loaded Padres system, but is looked at with more suspicion by Marx Hulet who sees Smith as a “solid innings-eating No. 4 starter” or “a high-leverage reliever”. 
Tony Cingrani: Cincinnati Reds
When Tony Cingrani took baseball by storm many pundits and scouts expected that hitters would figure out the left hander as he made his second round through the league, but Cingrani actually managed to improve on his ERA, FIP, and wOBA against from the first half to the second half. While it may seem unlikely that Cingrani will be able to sustain long-term success with such pronounced use of the fastball (81.1%), he did manage to amass the fourth best xK% in all of baseball in 2013.
With better knowledge about what leads to strike out rate—S/Str%, F/Str%, and L/Str%—Mike Podhorzer has created an expected strikeout percentage that will allow Fantasy coinsures to find inefficiencies in their leagues. Work in other areas of baseball has been done to explore correlations with speed, power, and even injuries. But in the end, baseball is about people and not machines. We can make all the formulas and calculations that we want, but there will always be instances of players that exceed and underachieve our expectations.
Devin Jordan is obsessed with statistical analysis, non-fiction literature, and electronic music. If you enjoyed reading him, follow him on Twitter @devinjjordan.
Thinking About Expected Strikeout Rates: The Top “_____” xK% Leaders from 2013 is a post from: DavidGonos.com
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