MLB

Fantasy Baseball: The 20 Luckiest Starting Pitchers in 2017

Matt Musico  —  @mmusico8 Nov 14th, 2017
Andrew Cashner had a fantastic year when looking at his traditional statistics, but he did so while fighting against his peripherals most of the time. Which other pitchers fall into the same category?

Which starting pitchers truly enjoyed a solid 2017 season?

When confronted with a question like this, it's common for the masses to point toward traditional statistics when coming up with an answer: win-loss record, ERA, WHIP, strikeouts generated, and walks allowed. There's no denying that these statistics are important with regard to how any pitcher's on-field performance impacts their team, but we live in a day where traditional statistics like that only tell a small part of a story.

There are tons of advanced stats to pore over when evaluating a pitcher's performance from any given period of time, but one of the best and all-encompassing ones around is Skill-Interactive ERA, also known as SIERA. According to FanGraphs, SIERA attempts to measure the underlying skill of a hurler. Unlike FIP and xFIP, SIERA doesn't ignore balls put in play, and it also attempts to give a more accurate picture as to why certain pitchers are better than others. A good SIERA is just like a good ERA -- the lower the better.

With that in mind, let's see how much certain pitchers outperformed their SIERA throughout the 2017 season. The sample looked at includes 125 hurlers who tossed at least 100 innings this past year. In addition to ERA, SIERA, and the difference (Diff) being displayed, other statistics are available for comparison's sake, such as strikeout rate (K%), walk rate (BB%), BABIP, and strand rate (LOB%).

Now, calling these pitchers "lucky" doesn't necessarily mean they didn't earn the numbers they produced. It's just means they reached these heights based on a bunch of variables going in their favor -- which is never a guarantee from year to year.

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