2024 Starting Pitching Targets using Stuff+ Data
We'll go over different thresholds using Stuff+ and Location+ to find the ideal starting pitchers to target for 2024
I’ve already gone over my top 155 SP dynasty ranks. You can see them here. We’ll bring in another data point — Eno Sarris’ new Stuff+ and Location+ model.
We’ll go over different thresholds to find our ideal starting pitchers at both the MLB and AAA levels to target in 2024 and compare them to where I have them ranked personally.
First, let’s get into what Stuff+ and Location+ are:
This is an explanation from Eno Sarris, over at the Athletic:
Stuff+ is the statistic that uses machine learning to evaluate pitchers based entirely on the physical characteristics of their arsenals. It is now housed on FanGraphs (and updated daily during the season) for your perusal. Generally, Stuff+ takes the movement and velocity of the fastball and then defines a pitcher’s secondaries off of that pitch. The most important inputs are velocity, release point, and movement differential. When working with small samples, Stuff+ is a very powerful predictive statistic.
Location+ looks at how well pitchers locate their pitches based on the count and the pitch type they’re throwing. Pitching+ is a third model that attempts to look at stuff and command in its own way. One hundred is the average for all three of these bespoke statistics, and while 10 points is one standard deviation on the single pitch level, the spread is different once you aggregate at the pitcher level.
Now let’s get started with our first threshold:
2023 MLB SP with a Stuff+ > 110 & Location+ > 100 with at least 1200 pitches thrown and at least 80 pitches per appearance:
Ten of the 15 starters above were ranked in my top 30 while Fourteen of the 15 starters were ranked in my top 50 with the exception being Justin Verlander, who ranked 71st almost entirely due to his age.
Besides the obvious names, here are some targets from this grouping you can potentially get for fair value or lesser perceived value == I’ll keep the ranking and blurb next to each target:
27) Bryan Woo (SEA)(24):
I’ve been sounding the Bryan Woo horn ever since before he got called up — early last year while he was at AA mowing down hitters. He was relatively unknown and underrated coming in and he’s still being absolutely underrated given what his ceiling is. I ranked Woo 28th on my top 40 SP for 2024 and here is what I wrote:
“I referred to Woo before he was called up last year as baby-deGrom. Now, don’t get me wrong — when I made the call I was referencing deGrom in 2014 when he first came up as an unknown prospect and dominated a Yankees lineup mid-season. The fastball was reminiscent of the early days of deGrom but nothing comes close to the post-2019 deGrom fastball where he was averaging nearly triple digits.
Let’s get back to Woo. He throws his fastball with a Vertical Approach Angle — VAA — of -3.8 degrees to be exact. He averaged 95.2 mph on it last year but it plays up because of the angle.
Last year, Woo’s fastball had an xAVG of .183 (97th percentile) and an xwOBA of .275 (95th percentile) and he threw it 47% of the time. That’s bonkers. He threw a pitch that hitters knew was coming at a 47% clip and still managed to produce incredible results with it. His ideal contact rate was 34% on the pitch which was good for the 95th percentile of all MLB fastballs.
The sinker was an effective pitch he threw hard and in to right-handed batters and he threw it 26% of the time. I know what you’re thinking. What about the breaking pitches? Well, Woo’s slider shows promise but he had a hard time honing his command with the pitch. Batters rarely barreled it up when they did make contact — as his Barrel% was only 3.8% on the pitch. 2024 is a breakout year for Woo as he’ll have a decent workload allowing him to go further into games and with an offseason to work on the slider which will be a great pitch to work off his elite fastball.”
Don’t draft Woo, experience a bump or two, and then call it quits. Woo has the upside to be a legitimate #2 starter in this league and you should view him as such.
46) Bryce Miller (SEA)(25):
Bryce Miller got by on his fastball last year. He needs to change the shape of his sweeper which he’s been doing this offseason. The biggest development though has been the news of Miller working on a Splitter. The metrics on the splitter during the offseason have been excellent. We’ll see how much he utilizes the pitch in 2024 but like Greene, Miller’s splitter can be a true breakout pitch for him. I’m looking at 2024 as a breakout season for Bryce as he complements the fastball with a better sweeper and a newfound splitter.
12) Grayson Rodriguez (BAL)(24):
Rodriguez had a tale of two halves last year and luckily we can take the second half sample as a sign of things to come. Over his final 71.2 IP, Rodriguez pitched to a 2.26 ERA and a 2.75 FIP.
Coming into the league Rodriguez was seen as the next budding ace but like many, it took him some time to get adjusted. I’m telling you to look at Grayson’s second half as an omen of what’s to come. Just throw that first half out the window — Grayson has an elite fastball, often touching 100 mph, and has great separation on his changeup which sits at about 84-85 mph. It’s a stupendous combination. He’ll have to mix in his breakers a bit more and that’s an adjustment I think Baltimore is already working on him with. His first season in the bigs might’ve been a mixed bag, but his sophomore season will be the year he ascends to ace status.
45) Hunter Greene (CIN)(24):
Hunter Greene has so much promise that he should probably be ranked higher. He throws a hard 98.3 mph 4-seamer which he throws 54% of the time. It elicited a 25.2% whiff rate. Don’t let the 4.82 ERA from last year fool you. He had a 3.82 xERA. As of writing this, I know I’m ranking him too low, but I’m going to need to see the usage of the splitter that he’s reportedly working on this offseason. That can be a true breakout pitch for someone like Greene. If his cost is low, I’d be looking to target Greene everywhere based on his upside because he has SP1/SP2 potential given his stuff.
Now let’s lower the pitching threshold to a Stuff+>105 & Location+ > 101.5 with at least 600 pitches thrown and at least 80 pitches per appearance: