Fantasy Baseball: The 20 Unluckiest Pitchers in 2017
Players Ranked 10th to 1st
As we get further toward the top of this list, there are a couple of similarities -- only one starter posted a strand rate higher than 68.5%, while 6 of the 10 saw opposing hitters generate a BABIP of at least .329 against them.
| Rank | Player | IP | K% | BB% | BABIP | LOB% | ERA | SIERA | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Jeff Samardzija | 207.2 | 24.2% | 3.8% | .303 | 67.5% | 4.42 | 3.63 | 0.79 |
| 9 | Josh Tomlin | 141.0 | 18.6% | 2.4% | .329 | 68.5% | 4.98 | 4.17 | 0.81 |
| 8 | Adam Conley | 100.2 | 15.6% | 9.3% | .297 | 64.8% | 6.17 | 5.33 | 0.84 |
| 7 | Lance McCullers | 118.2 | 25.8% | 7.8% | .330 | 67.6% | 4.25 | 3.41 | 0.84 |
| 6 | Jordan Zimmermann | 160.0 | 14.5% | 6.2% | .330 | 67.2% | 6.08 | 5.22 | 0.86 |
| 5 | Yovani Gallardo | 114.2 | 16.3% | 10.3% | .297 | 68.5% | 6.28 | 5.32 | 0.96 |
| 4 | Masahiro Tanaka | 178.1 | 25.8% | 5.5% | .305 | 71.5% | 4.74 | 3.52 | 1.22 |
| 3 | Bartolo Colon | 143.0 | 13.7% | 5.4% | .331 | 61.4% | 6.48 | 5.08 | 1.40 |
| 2 | Nick Pivetta | 133.0 | 24.0% | 9.8% | .332 | 67.1% | 6.02 | 4.32 | 1.70 |
| 1 | Ubaldo Jimenez | 125.0 | 20.5% | 9.4% | .333 | 66.6% | 7.20 | 4.68 | 2.52 |
Nothing New Here
San Francisco Giants hurler Jeff Samardzija has been no stranger to these lists in 2017. Among all pitchers with 100-plus innings, he posted the second-lowest walk rate and was among the top 25 in SIERA. Furthermore, that .303 BABIP wasn't much worse than the league average, which settled in at .299.
He had three different months of an ERA above 4.60, but opposing hitters posted a .350 wOBA or better in just two months while they never produced one higher than .317 in any of the four other months. So what the heck happened?
His 30.1% hard-hit rate allowed wasn't much different than the year before (31.5%), but his line-drive rate (19.9% to 22.1%), ground-ball rate (46.5% to 41.5%), and fly-ball rate (33.6% to 36.5%) all got worse. But honestly, Samardzija could be the poster child for unlucky pitchers -- a terrible April (6.32 ERA in 31.1 innings) put him behind the eight-ball, and even though he mostly performed better the rest of the way, it seems like he just couldn't recover.
It's worth noting that two of his first four starts took place at Chase Field and Coors Field. In those starts, he combined for 10.2 innings of work, allowing 13 earned runs on 15 hits (4 homers) with 15 strikeouts and 5 walks. That's a tough way to start a season.
What a Weird Year for Tanaka
It was definitely a tale of two halves for New York Yankees hurler Masahiro Tanaka. Through 102 first-half innings, he owned a 5.47 ERA with a .354 wOBA allowed and 2.03 homers allowed per nine innings of work. In the 76.1 innings that followed that rough start, though, those numbers dropped to a 3.77 ERA, .286 wOBA, and 1.41 homers per nine.
While his strikeout rate (23.2%) and walk rate (6.1%) were already good in that tough first half, those numbers climbed up even higher following the All-Star break (29.6% strikeout rate and 4.6% walk rate in the second half). One other interesting thing about Tanaka's season was how much better he pitched at home than on the road.
Yankee Stadium was the second-best place to hit homers this past season, but the right-hander posted a 3.22 ERA in the Bronx while allowing 1.42 homers per nine innings and limiting opposing hitters to a .285 wOBA. Those are impressive numbers, but they also make you scratch your head upon seeing his road ERA all the way up at 6.48 to go along with 2.16 homers per nine innings and a .368 wOBA -- with a batted-ball profile that doesn't vary all that much.
Oh No, Ubaldo
Although he did have a 2.7-fWAR season for the Baltimore Orioles back in 2015, right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez was never consistently good during his four-year run with the club. Considering his ERA had been lower than 4.80 just once throughout the duration of his contract makes it all the more "impressive" that his 2017 campaign was his worst of all by that metric (6.81) and fWAR (0.1).
The 7.20 ERA you see above is what he did solely as a starting pitcher, since he was relegated to bullpen duty for 17.2 frames. But again, while the difference between his ERA and SIERA is significantly greater than any other starter with 100-plus innings, it doesn't mean he would've been good if a few good bounces went his way.
If we look at Jimenez's entire body of work, he allowed 2.08 homers per nine innings, which is a stunning number because it's never been higher than 1.27 in a single season prior to 2017, and that happened all the way back in 2012. Part of the problem was fewer ground balls -- his ground-ball rate had been at least 49.0% in 2015 and 2016, but it dropped to 43.1% this past year. Some of that difference went to an increased fly-ball rate (36.1%), but the big difference was his hard-hit rate.
He allowed hard contact a career-high 30.9% of the time in 2016, but he just shattered that number this year with an eye-popping (in a bad way) 37.0% mark. This was all made possible by a subpar sinker, which was his most-used pitch this past year -- opposing hitters posted a 202 wRC+ and .286 ISO against that offering.
