Selling David Price

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.