The early season has always been more complicated than the middle or later parts of the season. The primary reason is a lack of current data from which to work. It is always easier when there is current data, and I don’t care what they did a year ago because I need to know more about it today! However, I have found some areas where we can see things that will help and, most importantly, are not baked into the odds.
The first area is with pitchers. We will be able to identify gainers and losers of velocity. Not every spring game has velocity tracked, so it is not a complete list of pitchers, but we can use this for their first couple of starts. A pitcher who gained velocity is more difficult to hit than the prior season. A pitcher who has lost velocity is easier to hit than the previous season. With this assumption, we can look at pitchers who gained and lost velocity year-over-year samples. More guys lose velocity than do gain, and we want to focus on the guys who have lost one mph or more and those who now throw only 90 mph. Guys who lose velocity need to learn how to pitch with less. It usually takes them several starts to accomplish this, so we can take advantage of odds that do not include these pitchers as being “weaker” than they were.
One example from this year’s spring training is NYM Sean Manaea. He threw 93.6 MPH last season but has only improved to 92.3 this year. Keeping with the Mets, Jose Quintana is sitting at between 90.9 and 90.5 MPH. The below 91 mph designation is essential. These pitchers get shelled if they are not precise with location. Quintana faces the Brewers on opening day and is a pickem (-110) to win this game. The Brewers should not have issues hitting Quintana and will destroy him if he misses his locations. This is how we use this information. Quintana is more susceptible to run-scoring opportunities against him than MIL Freddie Peralta, yet Peralta is not a favorite.
There are certain guys we should be cautious about. PHI Aaron Nola threw 92.7MPH last season yet has only ramped up to 91.6MPH this spring. He is getting close to being below that 91MPH threshold. A player like that could have a rough start, even though he will significantly impact the odds in his favor. If the situation, odds, and matchup fit, he is an excellent candidate to go against early on.
PHI Christopher Sanchez, though, has increased his velocity from 92.1 to 94.1! He will be priced like last season, yet he has made improvements that will not put him into the early odds. He should overperform to his previous year’s standard, and we get odds on the cheap for him. He is a perfect candidate to watch for.
Another area to look at is how many pitches a pitcher has built up to in the spring. Some guys are throwing at least 70 pitches and will be able to get up to 85-90 for their first starts. However, others have not thrown beyond 50-60. These guys will not extend beyond 70 pitches in their first start. This lets us know we need to consider the bullpen very early. Additionally, early bullpen usage generally means weak pitching until the end of the game. A guy like ARI Tommy Henry has not thrown past 62 pitches; his last start was 44. In general, we can use 15 pitches per inning as an average number. Thus, four innings equals 60 pitches. Henry will struggle to get in five innings, so he will need assistance to get through the game.
I chart every game pitched in terms of starter velocity over the spring. This is work, but it pays dividends at this time of year. The premium side of my website will showcase these data points and mention them often. This data is time-sensitive and not for general public knowledge. It is another tool to use, and I use it!
I will also use Game Score for pitchers—another non-baked into the odds edge. Game Score is a Sabermetric measure of how a pitcher has pitched. It is not predictive as a stat. However, we can apply regression/progression to the mean and get predictive tendencies. It is a great tool to understand the quality of performance a pitcher should have on the day he is pitching. It is a tremendous edge! Game Score measures the quality of a pitcher’s performance. Knowing that a pitcher will have an average score, we can take his recent and past performances and correlate them to whether he needs to improve to get back to his average or fail to get back to his average. The worst is that we know he cannot sustain his current performance and will either improve or fail to get closer to his mean. This edge is HUGE in understanding pitchers! Again, I can give away all of my work, so it is built into the premium section of this website. The following spreadsheet shows pitchers sorted by Game Score from last season. The Cy Young winners are shown as the best pitchers via Game Score. It is not often, if ever, talked about, but it can used very effectively!
Some areas not to focus on are wins and losses, teams’ records in spring training, individual batter and pitching performances, etc. Pitchers will have faced many minor league-level players, and they may have been working on specific things in the spring. This means they are not always doing everything they can to produce outs. Similarly, batters do not face major league-level pitching for every at-bat. Individual players’ success levels in the spring do not mean a carry-over to the start of the season. Team records do not mean anything, either. Their records are mainly accumulated due to competition at positions and the youthfulness of the roster. Veteran players know who plays every day; thus, competing for playing time is unnecessary. These teams usually are not winning teams in the spring.
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