Marcus Stroman, Best Pitcher in Baseball?

[Angrioter]

It’s not an outlandish question to ask. Over the last 30 days, which spans five starts and 32.1 innings, Marcus Stroman has posted the third highest strikeout rate in baseball and the lowest SIERA. Five starts is a tiny sample size, of course, but you can’t fake a high strikeout rate. Let’s go back a little further. Since my cherry-picked date of June 14, he has made 12 starts and has posted a strong 25.2% strikeout rate, low 4.2% walk rate, elite 61.5% GB%, and impressive 2.82 SIERA. You know who else has combined that type of strikeout ability, pinpoint control, and serious ability to induce grounders? Nobody.

 

 

Felix Hernandez is probably the best comp as he has typically posted ground ball rates in the 50% range, while striking out 20%+ of the hitters he faced. But he has only once posted a ground ball rate above 60% in a season and his walk rate never fell below 5.0%. Ground ball pitchers typically throw sinkers often and are the so-called “pitch to contact” types, hoping their defense converts their balls in play into outs around 30% of the time.........................

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/marcus-stroman-best-pitcher-in-baseball/

[Boxcar]

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/marcus-stroman-best-pitcher-in-baseball/

 

Fangraphs articles really f***ing blow these days. They all have clickbait titles with trash content.

[Nafro]

Definitely the best pitcher...pitching for a Canadian team, under 6 feet tall, Duke alumni....

[G-Snarls]

Fangraphs articles really f***ing blow these days. They all have clickbait titles with trash content.

 

Agree

 

Great data. s***** writing.

[Nafro]

Fangraphs articles really f***ing blow these days. They all have clickbait titles with trash content.

 

Boxy is right.

[G-Snarls]

Every Dodgers fan who sees this headline will click on it in anger. Click bait at it's worst. Edited August 25, 2016 by G-Snarls

[Pendleton]

Pretty stupid article, he obviously isn't.

[jays4life19]

lol.

 

Well i'd say he was one of the more under rated pitchers in baseball. You know until they just published that article.

[KingKat]

It’s not an outlandish question to ask.

 

One sentence in and it's already all wrong. I fully expected the author to start walking back the claim immediately. Nope he actually wants to maintain the charade for a bit.

[Boxcar]

One sentence in and it's already all wrong. I fully expected the author to start walking back the claim immediately. Nope he actually wants to maintain the charade for a bit.

 

5 starts tho

[Governator]

Just let us enjoy nice things.

[BTS]

Fangraphs articles really f***ing blow these days. They all have clickbait titles with trash content.

 

I read almost nothing they do these days. The site is still the best place to go for stats, but the vast majority of their articles are poorly-researched trash. Their full-time writers are asked to put out like 8-10 articles a week, so they end up sorting the leaderboards, looking for something surprising, and taking 3-4 hours to pump out 1000 words on the topic.

 

It's disappointing, because some of their writers could be very good at what they do (Jeff Sullivan, Eno Sarris, maybe August Fagerstrom). If each writer was responsible for, say, 1 long article a week I think it would almost all be interesting.

[saskjayfan]

Fangraphs articles really f***ing blow these days. They all have clickbait titles with trash content.

 

you should start your own blog to inform the masses. It's unfair of you to hoard all that baseball knowledge to yourself!

[Jonn]

😂😭💀

[candymartinez]

This is Rotographs. Don't they look at everything from the current fantasy perspective?

Don't play fantasy at all but assume best fantasy player doesn't equal best player.

[KingKat]

This is Rotographs. Don't they look at everything from the current fantasy perspective?

Don't play fantasy at all but assume best fantasy player doesn't equal best player.

 

It's true that this is RotoGraphs abut the subject matter isn't approached from a fantasy from that angle at any point. He never makes an argument that Stroman's fantasy value exceeds his real life value. He doesn't mention that his youth might make him more valuable in a dynasty league or anything like that. Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that because of the context, it's implied that he's only talking about fantasy, calling him the best pitcher in fantasy based on a 5 week sample isn't really more defensible than calling him the best pitcher in baseball based on that sample.

[Boxcar]

you should start your own blog to inform the masses. It's unfair of you to hoard all that baseball knowledge to yourself!

 

Totally warranted, this. What are you butthurt about in particular?

[Boxcar]

It's true that this is RotoGraphs abut the subject matter isn't approached from a fantasy from that angle at any point. He never makes an argument that Stroman's fantasy value exceeds his real life value. He doesn't mention that his youth might make him more valuable in a dynasty league or anything like that. Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that because of the context, it's implied that he's only talking about fantasy, calling him the best pitcher in fantasy based on a 5 week sample isn't really more defensible than calling him the best pitcher in baseball based on that sample.

 

Actually worse because it's easier to quantify in fantasy terms. GBs don't matter, SIERA doesn't matter, plenty of guys k more than he does, and ERA is good but not really special. By this logic, Kyle Hendricks might be the best pitcher in baseball. Is he? Of course not, it's a silly question, but he's still better than Stroman and has been for longer.

[King]

He's obviously not the best pitcher in baseball but the results over the past two months have been encouraging for sure. Hopefully he can keep it up because the Stroman we are seeing right now is the one that everyone first expected when he was coming up from the minors.

[burlingtonbandit]

I read almost nothing they do these days. The site is still the best place to go for stats, but the vast majority of their articles are poorly-researched trash. Their full-time writers are asked to put out like 8-10 articles a week, so they end up sorting the leaderboards, looking for something surprising, and taking 3-4 hours to pump out 1000 words on the topic.

 

It's disappointing, because some of their writers could be very good at what they do (Jeff Sullivan, Eno Sarris, maybe August Fagerstrom). If each writer was responsible for, say, 1 long article a week I think it would almost all be interesting.

 

The best was the one about Carrera saying maybe he's turned himself into a productive hitter.

[fatcowxlive]

Fangraphs articles really f***ing blow these days. They all have clickbait titles with trash content.

 

Didn't most of their original high quality writers get picked up by networks and front offices? Since then I just started taking most their articles with a grain of salt

[THANOS]

Whatever, that was an enjoyable read. Once the HR rate and BABIP stabilizes, his numbers are going to be insane.

[nmrch]

Jesus, the things some of you lose your minds over. Its a fantasy baseball article on the less reputable section of the site. Its perfectly fine for what it is.

[THANOS]

He's obviously not the best pitcher in baseball but the results over the past two months have been encouraging for sure. Hopefully he can keep it up because the Stroman we are seeing right now is the one that everyone first expected when he was coming up from the minors.

 

Correction dear friend; the Stroman we're seeing now is a Frankenstein's monster amalgamation of minors Stroman and 2015 Stroman. This is uncharted waters for him and I love every minute of it.

[BTS]

The best was the one about Carrera saying maybe he's turned himself into a productive hitter.

 

lol, I'd forgotten about that one

[Inklink]

Teeheee

[glory]

I wonder what articles were written about Goins during his second half last season.

[Boxcar]

Didn't most of their original high quality writers get picked up by networks and front offices? Since then I just started taking most their articles with a grain of salt

 

BTS listed all the good ones. Marc Hulet still writes there from time to time as well.

[jays_fever]

Jesus, the things some of you lose your minds over. Its a fantasy baseball article on the less reputable section of the site. Its perfectly fine for what it is.

 

Well it's obvious click bait ********. People in general have an issue of that regardless of where its from

[BTS]

Best pitcher in baseball getting worked over pretty good.