The fantasy baseball ranking season is in full swing. For me, that typically starts with searching advanced stats leaderboards. Advanced statistics are often more predictive than traditional box score statistics. Thus, they’re an excellent jumping-off point. This series will dive into a variety of my favorite advanced metrics. However, I must caution that no statistic in isolation is the secret sauce for unearthing a hidden gem or burgeoning stud. Instead, they are a piece of the puzzle and best viewed through that lens, using other statistics in conjunction with them to formulate a well-rounded opinion of the fantasy value of players.
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Zone-Contact Percentage
As described by FanGraphs, Zone-Contact Percentage (Z-Contact%) is the pitches on which contact was made inside the strike zone divided by swings on pitches inside the zone. Therefore, it’s better for pitchers to have a lower than average Z-Contact%. According to FanGraphs, in 2021, the league average Z-Contact% was 76.1%. So, anything lower than that mark is indicative of a pitcher’s ability to get empty swings from hitters on pitches in the strike zone.
Intuitively, pitchers that can miss bats in the strike zone should be among the game’s best strikeout artists. Unsurprisingly, that’s true. All top-10 qualified pitchers in strikeout rate in 2021 are on the top-20 leaderboard for Z-Contact%. Moreover, last year, only five qualified pitchers with a top-20 strikeout rate aren’t in the forthcoming leaderboard table. Only two members of the Z-Contact% top-20 pitchers had a strikeout rate below 20%, and the remainder had a strikeout rate of 23.9% or higher. Further, the median strikeout rate for the Z-Contact% leaders was 29.1%. Therefore, a low Z-Contact% is an excellent indicator for a pitcher’s ability to strike out hitters in bunches.
2021 Qualified Starters Z-Contact% Leaders
As I noted above, almost all of the pitchers in the table are elite strikeout pitchers. Corbin Burnes, Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, Robbie Ray, Dylan Cease, Brandon Woodruff, Aaron Nola, Kevin Gausman, Yu Darvish, Zack Wheeler, Charlie Morton, Lucas Giolito, and Tyler Mahle comprised the top-14 qualified pitchers in strikeout rate last year and are featured in the above table. Conversely, Joe Musgrove and Lance McCullers Jr. in 14th and 15th for strikeout rate last year are the first two players on the strikeout leaderboard that aren't among the Z-Contact% leaders. Additionally, Julio Urias (17th), Jose Berrios (18th), and Walker Buehler (19th) are the only other qualified pitchers in the top-20 for strikeout percentage that aren't in this group of elite bat-missing pitchers in the strike zone.
The two outliers in this section were Tyler Anderson and Wade Miley. The lefties struck out only 19.1% and 18.1% of the batters they faced in 2021. Digging under the hood, they had the two lowest marks in Called strikes plus whiffs percentage (CSW%). Anderson had only a 26.7 CSW%, and Miley's was lower at 25.4%. So, how are they getting empty swings in the strike zone and failing to strike out tons of hitters? Both lefties throw a bunch of changeups, missing bats in the strike zone with that offering. As a result, there is an explanation for their lackluster strikeout rates, and I'm not expecting either to suddenly start striking out hitters at a high rate in 2022.
Noteworthy Non-Qualified Starting Pitchers in 2021
If you've been following along with the series of advanced stats articles, Jacob deGrom and Freddy Peralta have frequently appeared in this section of each. In addition, Chris Sale and Patrick Sandoval have also appeared in this section a few times. Sandoval is one of my favorite mid to late-round targets, sporting an average draft position (ADP) of only 208.5.
John Means is a rock-solid pitcher. Further, he might benefit from the Orioles moving the fences back and raising the walls in left field at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in the offseason. Carlos Rodon had a breakout campaign in 2021. However, the White Sox non-tendered him. Rodon battled shoulder fatigue toward the end of the year, making Chicago's decision to non-tender him a red flag, in my opinion. My concerns will be alleviated if a team signs him to something more than a make-good, one-year, incentive-laden contract after the lockout ends.
Alek Manoah is the last player in the table. He's a high-upside hurler after an eye-opening rookie season. Manoah started 20 games for the Blue Jays, spinning a 3.22 ERA, 3.88 SIERA, 1.05 WHIP, 8.7 BB%, 27.7 K%, 25.7 Hard%, and 28.2 CSW%. Manoah is being selected in the top-100 picks. It's a justifiable ADP.
- Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers CStr%
- Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers CSW%
- Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers O-Swing%
- Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers GB%
- Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers SwStr%
- Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers Soft%
- Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers IFFB%
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.