2k17: Michael Pineda

[joncarlos]

Yesterday Pineda threw 5 perfect innings in ST. He was a FIP monster and a K/BB monster last year. He led the AL in K/9. The hype is real. Can he keep the ball in the park? At all? Ever?

2016: 175.2 IP, 6-12, 4.82 ERA, 207 Ks, 1.35 WHIP. K/9 of 10.61, BB/9 of 2.72. GB% of 45.8%. Oh, and a .339 BABIP paired with a 17% HR/F. He had a 3.80 FIP and a 3.30 xFIP.

Watching him pitch is excruciating. He actually walked a lot more guys last year (2015 was 1.18 BB/9, 8.74 K/9, and 1.18 HR/9) but it didn't help him miss bats or keep the ball in the park.

ZIPS has him at 156.2ip, 3.96 ERA. Steamer has him at 152ip, 3.51 ERA.

His FIP-based WAR was 3.2. His ERA-based WAR was 1.2.

Can he finally get it together, or is he destined to go to the Pirates in 3 years, finally find a park where he can keep the ball in the park and become Ivan Nova 2.0?

[Erik]

He's just a terrible fit for that park. After I got burned by him last year, I'm not owning him again until he's on a new team.

[chancellor]

The non-sabermetric point of view is that he does not command the strike zone well. This leads to too many balls in hittable locations , which inflates his HR rate. I'm not savvy enough with PitchFx data to confirm if that's true or false.

Given his near-lifetime record of under performing his peripherals, I seem to always value him at a price point about half that's commonly listed in fantasy publications. I'm looking at three that have his value in the $8-10 range, I have him rated/valued at $5 for my league and I might go an extra buck if I need k's

[Ken]

Given his near-lifetime record of under performing his peripherals..

I've seen this summarization in several places, and I would like to understand where this comes from. I fear that this is heavily based on recency bias.

In 2011 Pineda's results basically matched his peripherals. 3.42 FIP, 9.1 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 produced a 3.74 ERA and a 1.1 WHIP with 173 Ks.
He lost 2012/2013 to injury
In 2014 his results vastly out performed his peripherals. 2.71 FIP, K/9 down to just 7.0. BBs were fantastic at 0.8 BB/9, but 1.89 ERA and 0.825 WHIP was unsustainable.
In 2015 and 2016 his peripherals went back to 2011 levels, 3.34/3.79 FIP but a 4.37/4.82 ERA, for example. But that's an oversimplification as well, as through June 1 of 2015 Pineda had a 3.33 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP.

So we are clear, when we talk about Pinada's struggles as compared to his peripherals, we're talking about a season and a half of data for a guy who has pitched since 2011.

I don't buy that it is just a given that he will continue to underperform his peripherals. I'm not overpaying just for the name, but Pineda seems like a buy opportunity if he's being priced based on results alone.

[chancellor]

Ken, we're looking at the same data, but I suspect we're just drawing different conclusions from it. There's basically six years of information; two of them are a loss due to injury. Of the other four years, he's been awesome one year, and slightly underperformed his peripherals another year (2011), and significantly underperformed his peripherals two years (2015, 2016). Plus, as you've noted, he's now significantly underperformed his peripherals for a consecutive year and a half. For a 28-year old pitcher with his experience level, unless there's a change in park, pitching style, or involvement with Ray Searage, I'm a firm believer that the trend is your friend.

In reviewing values in well-noted publications (some of which are contributed to by authors here; given your knowledge, you might even be one I don't know!), Pineda appears to have value baked in based on improving on his performance against his peripherals, as an $8-10 value certainly does not correlate to a mid 4's ERA and 1.28-1.32 WHIP even with his high K rate, which his actual performance over the last two years would indicate.

[Ken]

Ken, we're looking at the same data, but I suspect we're just drawing different conclusions from it. There's basically six years of information; two of them are a loss due to injury. Of the other four years, he's been awesome one year, and slightly underperformed his peripherals another year (2011), and significantly underperformed his peripherals two years (2015, 2016). Plus, as you've noted, he's now significantly underperformed his peripherals for a consecutive year and a half. For a 28-year old pitcher with his experience level, unless there's a change in park, pitching style, or involvement with Ray Searage, I'm a firm believer that the trend is your friend.

This assessment is completely fair, it just does not come close to matching the previously stated "near-lifetime record of under performing his peripherals".

[YourPalChrisMal]

Another data point is that Pineda pitched lights-out in Spring Training before, especially last season...and then the results were not there going into the season. Not sure what to make of it all, really. I'm approaching with caution like others seem to be.

[chancellor]

This assessment is completely fair, it just does not come close to matching the previously stated "near-lifetime record of under performing his peripherals".

Fair enough. I'll modify to "near-lifetime record of underperformance", and leave it at that.