Delino DeShields currently has a .395 BABIP en route to a .291 average. A .395 BABIP is probably unsustainable, but I was shocked when I saw the Steamer projection of .287 BABIP for DeShields, going forward. A .287 BABIP for a guy like DeShields is just unreasonable. He’s one of the fastest guys in the league, and his baseline BABIP should be well above .300 as he can turn groundouts into infield singles.

So I decided to crunch some numbers, which ultimately confirmed my suspicions. A BABIP of .286 is too low.  Looking at batted ball data, .315 is what I calculated his expected BABIP to be going forward. I’ll explain below:

DeShields has 13.6% infield hit%.

League average is 6.7%.

DeShields is more than twice as likely to get an infield hit, which is 6.9% more likely than average to get a hit in general. As a side note, he’s also 50% on bunting for hits, which is astounding (also more than twice league average).

Baseline BABIP for groundballs is .232

Add a DeShields speed .069 infield groundball advantage, and therefore you’re looking at a DeShields baseline groundball BABIP of .301.

Line drives are the best — .690 baseline BABIP according the source above. Fly balls have .218 baseline BABIP. Speed shouldn’t have much of an effect on these so I’m not adjusting them, other than accounting for infield fly balls which are guaranteed outs.

I’m going to calculate the expected BABIP for DeShields based on the above data. The expected BABIP will equal the summation of the following:

Flyballs — .218 x .261 (26.1% FB, minus the difference between DeShields IFFB and league average, which is .111 minus .095 = .016; .261-.016=.245) = .05341

Groundballs — .301 x .638 (63.8% GB) = .192038

Line Drives — .690 x .101 (10.1% FB) = .06969

= .315 BASELINE BABIP

We can take that average and take away his strikeouts/walks to determine his expected batting average/OBP going forward.

22.1% Ks. So we’ll take the baseline BABIP multiplied by .779. = .245 expected batting average.

13.1% BBs. So we’ll take the baseline BABIP multiplied by .648 (Ks and BBs out) = .204. Add back the BBs. = .335 expected OBP.

I haven’t even gotten into directional placement of grounders, so it could be true that DeShields is even better than these projections I just calculated.

Regardless, league averages are .252 average and .314 OBP. DeShields is proving to be roughly a league-average hitter by expected batting average, and clearly above-average hitter if you’re looking at expected OBP.

In other words, DeShields is here to stay.

I’ve been thinking about this one a lot, and I think people in general still view Price as a top-10 pitcher. I’ve seen him appearing in expert lists as such, and that’s the general vibe I’ve gotten from the fantasy community. I just think top-10 at this point is too high, especially when we’ve got such talented young stars ranked below him, both according to the expert lists and public perception (I’m talking about guys like Archer, deGrom, and Cole).

I’d actually have him closer to top 20-25 at this point (there are so many great pitchers). His K/9 has plummeted to 7.6 and K-BB% has fallen nearly nine percentage points to 14.3%.

At 14.3%, David Price is the No. 39 pitcher in the league in K-BB%.

Am I putting too much stock into a small sample, or has the decline begun, but people haven’t realized it yet (he still sports a solid 3.15 ERA)?

His peripherals also support his regression, as his xFIP is 3.94 and SIERA is 3.87.

Encouraging signs: FIP still has him at 3.27. Swinging strikes are similar to last year at 10.4% (only 0.2% difference). No velocity loss — in fact, his fastball is faster this year than last year.

Over his career, however, Price has been only slightly better than average at giving up/suppressing home runs, so I think xFIP and SIERA are the better ERA estimators than FIP. League average HR/FB is 10.8%, and Price was at 9.7% last year, 8.6% in 2013, 10.5% in 2012. So he may be slightly better than average, but unlikely to maintain 6.6% going forward.

It’s also worth noting that last year’s 9.8 K/9 was a career high. In 2013, he had a 7.3 K/9. From 2010-2012 his K/9 hovered in the 8s (and in 2008 and 2009 his K/9 was also sub-8, although I don’t give any weight to that at all as he was still developing as a pitcher). It could be that his high K/9 last year was an aberration.

I’m choosing to give weight to his current K-rate and peripherals (the sample size is now significant), while accounting for some improvement (this is David Price after all). Doing that, by my rough calculations, I’m looking at about a 3.5+ ERA ~8 K/9 pitcher going forwards.

Those are quality numbers, but not top-10 numbers, which is where people still value him. I’d flip Price for any top-20 pitcher with upside in an instant.

I don’t have an answer as to why the K-rate has plummeted so far. I did take a look at his usages, and he seems to have reduced the usage of his two-seam fastball. His entire career, that has been his most-used pitch. Last year he used it 40%. This year, he’s only throwing it 23% of the time, instead favoring a four-seam fastball as his dominant pitch. I believe this *may* be related to his K-rate drop, but it’s just an observation at this point. Regardless, we’ve reached the point in the season where it might be wise to be proactive.

Matt Harvey is getting all the hype these days, touching 99 mph on the gun, throwing nasty 84 mph curves, and looking healthy. I think he will have an excellent year. For some reason though, the world at large is still underrating Jacob deGrom.

First off, I recommend you read this FanGraphs article from midsummer, detailing the changes he made to his pitching mechanics to make this “rags to riches” leap into the upper echelon.

I’ve been notoriously high on deGrom since I watched him pitch. I wrote about him on reddit back in July 2014. I’ll update the numbers I used, infra:

He’s been excellent — and not in any flukey kind of way. deGrom’s pitch types and peripherals support that what he did last year is VERY REAL.

Let me reiterate last year’s line: 140 IP (178.1 IP of usage), 9.2 k/9, 2.69 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 2.67 FIP, 3.03 xFIP, 3.19 SIERA. Those are top-20 numbers. And unlike phenoms that regress with time (see Jesse Hahn in 2014), deGrom only got BETTER as the innings racked up.

That is what we love to see — for three reasons:

(1) His body can withstand the rigors of a 200 IP season,

(2) He IMPROVED, rather than regressing, and

(3) Hey, for those of us in H2H leagues, we want our guy pitching well for the fantasy playoffs!

His control improved with time, with increased strikeouts. As of my last post, he had an 8.8 k/9 and 2.7 K/BB. He ended year with a 9.3 k/9 and 3.4 K/BB. We love to see improvement in both those respects. Keep the walks down and strikeouts up, and success often naturally follows!

He’s generating a lot of swinging strikes. For reference, the league average sw/str% is approximately 8.6%.

Jacob deGrom has an overall 11.9 sw/str%, which is well above league average. Looking at pitch F/X data, his slider (12.4% sw/str%, 46/370 pitches), changeup (20.2%, 55/272), both fastballs (10.8%, 108/1000), and curveball (16.0%, 34/212) are all above-average, strikeout-quality pitches.

deGrom essentially features a five-pitch arsenal. Of 2,225 MLB pitches thrown:

44.9% (1000/2225) Fastballs averaging 93.5 mph. Max Velocity, 97.3 mph.

16.5% (368/2225) 2-Seam Fastballs averaging 93.2 mph, Max Velocity, 97.4 mph.

16.6% (370/2225) Sliders averaging 86.8 mph, Max Velocity 91.3 mph (adding mph to his slider is a huge part of his success).

12.2% (272/2225) Changeups averaging 83.9 mph.

9.5% (212/2225) Curveballs averaging 79.3 mph.

3 Cutters–not really a pitch he uses.

deGrom has a diverse arsenal of pitches, with some legitimate velocity differentials, and a good fastball, topping out at 97+ mph. He has 7 mph between fastballs and slider. 10 mph between fastballs and changeup. 14+ mph between fastballs and curveball. 22.5 mph between the high-end spectrum of his fastball and low-end spectrum of his curve.

Essentially, deGrom is legit. His peripherals and Pitch F/X data don’t really suggest that he’s due for any significant regression. Citi Field is still an excellent pitcher’s park, despite the fact that the fences were recently moved in (3-11 feet). I don’t think it will make a significant difference; maybe a home run or two leaves the park that wouldn’t have before.

It’s worth noting that his top speeds increased late in the year, logging his highest speed fastball in the second half of the season. Again, I love a pitcher that doesn’t fatigue.

Concerns: He had Tommy John surgery in 2010, but it seems he has worked his way back from that. Sophomore slump or hitters figuring him out are worth considering. And of course, a couple fly ball outs might turn into home runs.

Fearless prediction: 32 games, 210 IP, 2.80 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 234 Ks (10 k/9) – and deGrom finally gains some respect withing the fantasy baseball community as a top-15 fantasy pitcher. That bold prediction being said, I think he’s being criminally underrated in fantasy drafts, with his ADP of 112 in yahoo leagues.

112! At that price, go ahead and reach.