Using a new stat to find undervalued 2024 starting pitchers

Whenever new pitching stats are created, I love to take a look and see if we’ve stumbled onto something else that can help us identify value. I especially take notice when it’s from Kyle Bland and the Pitcher List team, who recently released a stat called Str-ICR (pronounced “Striker”), which attempts to estimate WHIP using strike rate and ICR and compare their coefficients.

You can read Kyle’s full article on the new metric above, but the cliff notes are simple. Strike rate measures how often a pitcher throws strikes and ICR (or Ideal Contact Rate) measures any batted ball that is classified as Barrel, “Solid”, or “Flare/Burner” (those classifications are explained here) and divides it by batted ball events. So, essentially, Str-ICR tells us which pitchers throw a lot of strikes and also don’t give up a lot of hard contact. Simple and smart. I love it.

Now, since Pitcher List focuses on Ideal Contact Rate at the per-pitch level, Kyle explains that “this will penalize pitchers who throw more hittable balls (pitchers who throw more mistakes), rather than only penalize pitchers who allow damage on contact, even if they don’t allow a lot of contact.” However, in his early testing, Kyle found that Str-ICR outperforms K-BB% in correlating to WHIP and that Str-ICR is actually more predictive of next season’s WHIP than WHIP itself.

That all sounds lovely, so let’s have some fun and see if Str-ICR can help us identify pitchers whose WHIPS might be misjudged by projections. Now, as Kyle mentions in the article, Str-ICR should be “a sanity check for WHIP” not a firm projection, so we’re not going to say that a pitcher’s Str-ICR WHIP in the chart below should be their real WHIP, but it can help us identify which pitchers may be inclined to over and underperform their projected WHIP based on a specific skill or previous luck issue.

To understand the chart, I should also explain that a Str-ICR of 54% and above is Elite, while 47% and below is Poor. Str-ICR also stabilizes around 1,400 pitches, so this leaderboard will not contain guys like Tarik Skubal or Max Meyer, whom we don’t have a large enough 2023 sample size for.

Potential WHIP Values

Kutter Crawford and Nick Pivetta - Red Sox

In general, projections don't love the Red Sox pitching staff as much as the analytics do, so they will be an interesting test case in 2024. Both Crawford and Pivetta also have the distinction of having split time between the bullpen and rotation last year, so they become a bit harder for projections to handle. What we do know is that both Crawford and Pivetta throw a lot of strikes and neither one gives up a lot of hard contact. They both have deep arsenals that they use to keep hitters off balance and miss bats. Kyle's note above also says a Str-ICR of 54% is elite, and Crawford comes in at 54.8% while Pivetta is just below at 52.9%. Both of their projected WHIPs, according to ATC, are not only higher than their Str-ICR but higher than their 2023 WHIPs as well. I'm buying stock in both of them this year.

Sean Manaea - Mets
Sean Manaea is projected for a 1.26 WHIP by ATC and the BAT and Steamer, but a 1.29 WHIP by ZiPS. He's also had a WHIP over 1.24 just once since 2017 and it was with the Padres in 2022. I think it's safe to side with Str-ICR here and say his projected WHIP is likely too high on basically all sites. He has looked pretty good this spring and could be a screaming value in most drafts since he's going well outside the top 300 picks.

Cole Ragans - Royals
Projections hate Cole Ragans. They think he came out of nowhere, and they don't know what to do with him, but a 1.28 WHIP is comical. He has elite stuff and rarely gives up hard contact. I will fade the projections easily here. I wrote about Ragans’ pitch mix in more detail here if you'd like to see my thoughts on him.

Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober - Twins
I wrote about the pitch mix changes for Joe Ryan here and Bailey Ober here, so I'd encourage you to check those articles out for my detailed thoughts. However, I am in on both of them and the Minnesota pitching development, so it's no surprise to be that the projections may be unfairly knocking them when it comes to projected WHIP. Ryan is the bigger wildcard because his performance swings so drastically when he loses feel of one or two of his pitches, but I'm buying in for 2024.

Justin Steele - Cubs
Steele is a pitcher who will continuously confound projections because he basically throws two pitches but he claims that he can manipulate the speed and movement of those pitchers to make multiple variations of each. That would essentially mean he throws six pitches. I'm not sure how much we trust it, but he did post a 1.17 WHIP last year and pounds the strike zone at an elite rate. ATC is the highest on him with a 1.23 WHIP but THE BAT has him at 1.28. I'm not sure I see that.

Martin Perez - Pirates
I love that Martin Perez is on here because he's a pitcher we forgot about who is locked into a starting role and has a cushy schedule to start the year. He was elite for Texas in 2022 but fairly average in 2023 and basically stopped missing bats. He throws lots of strikes and does give up some hard contact, but not a ton and he'll have a good defense behind him. A 1.43 WHIP is something he's only posted once in the last four years, so he could finish around 1.3, which isn't great but will make him deep league viable given his firm role in the Pirates rotation.

Colin Rea - Brewers
Colin Rea has a job in the Brewers rotation, and he was surprisingly solid for a few stretches last year. The final line isn't tremendous, but he did post a 1.19 WHIP and has a WHIP of 1.21 or better in his last three major league seasons. I'm not sure where projections are getting a 1.29 WHIP from. He's added a split-change this year and now features a deeper arsenal, which is interesting because he has never really given up a lot of hard contact and now has more pitches to turn to. I could see him emerging as a streamer option in deeper formats.

Potential WHIP Fades

Zac Gallen - Diamondbacks
Zac Gallen has always posted strong WHIPs, so it may be weird to see his name here, but it all comes down to hard contact. All three of his main pitches have ICRs of 40% or higher, including a whopping 47.7% rate on his curveball. He needs to keep them low, and he needs to keep hitters guessing because when they do make contact, they tend to make hard contact. Gallen is a smart pitcher who understands his arsenal and has done a good job of mixing and matching pitches, which is why he’s had consistent success at the MLB level; however, he does walk a fine line with that hard contact.

Blake Snell - Giants
It should be no surprise to you that Blake Snell would rank poorly on a WHIP-indicator stat. He posted a 1.19 WHIP in perhaps his best season ever and has never had a BB/9 under 3.19 in a season. However, unlike Gallen, Snell doesn't give up a lot of hard contact, so it would seem that he's a better bet for a solid WHIP given his raw stuff, but his strike rates are always poor. This is because Snell has admitted that he is happy to pitch around somebody if he falls behind rather than try to battle back when he's down 3-1 in a count. However, even with all that, he's had a 1.20 WHIP or better in three of the last four years, so a 1.25 from projections feels perhaps even a touch high even though Str-ICR hates Snell's strike rate.

Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier - Astros
Valdez and Javier are on here for different reasons. Javier is on here because he lost the feel for his slider last year and his strike rates plummeted. If Javier has full control over his whole arsenal, you likely won't see him post a bad WHIP, but Valdez is more of a concern. While he has posted elite WHIP rates in three of the last four years, he's also a sinkerball pitcher whose sinker got hit hard last year, with a 40.6% ICR. That’s 36th percentile in baseball. His change-up also allowed a 48th-percentile ICR and his cutter posted a 41.7% ICR after posting a tremendous 27.1% rate in 2022. That's a lot of hard contact across his whole arsenal. I wrote more about my concerns with Framber here, and while I still have him ranked as an SP2 in fantasy, I think his profile is a bit more volatile than people believe.

Shane Bieber - Guardians
Bieber is listed here based on last year's performance, but he's come into camp with a meaningful boost in velocity and sharper pitch mix. If that sticks as the season goes on, there is no reason he will produce a poor WHIP and I'd expect his mid-season Str-ICR to look much better.

Jordan Montgomery - Free Agent
I'm not sure if there's a more overrated pitcher right now than Jordan Montgomery. From the way fantasy baseball players are clamoring for him to sign to the way fans of MLB teams on Twitter are acting like he'll save their rotation, I think we've allowed Montgomery's exploits in the 2023 playoffs to wash away the years of him being a solid but not great pitcher. He throws a lot of strikes but doesn't miss many bats and gives up a lot of good amount of contact. He's not going to post a 1.34 WHIP because he's rarely ever been over 1.30, but he gives up too much hard contact for me to pencil him in for a 1.23 mark that projections believe he'll hit.

Brandon Pfaadt - Diamondbacks
I've moved Brandon Pfaadt down my rankings this preseason because I think he's fine but I don't believe the ceiling is there that some people see. He has made some good adjustments to his pitch mix and he looked solid in the postseason, but I see just one swing-and-miss pitch and a future of a lot of hard contact allowed. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if his WHIP was close to 1.30 this season.

Tanner Bibee - Guardians
Bibee is a prime regression candidate this year and not just because xFIP, xERA, and SIERA all predict that he will regress. Most of his pitches grade out just above average in terms of stuff and he had a 38% ICR last year, which is just above league average. His swinging strike rate is also just above league average, as is his CSW, while his strike rate was actually below average. I understand it all worked out for him in 2023, but I see a talented pitcher who has some issues with consistent location on his breaking balls and doesn't get a lot of called strikes, so I can't get behind another 1.18 WHIP season. He'll still be solid for you, but I think he'll regress in both ratio categories.