This Week's Best MLB Trends

Four to Fade
By Joe Nelson
Nellysports.com

The second half of the MLB season is underway and it is time to look at four American League starting pitchers who may be due for a negative adjustment in the second half. The starters below have delivered solid results in the first half but there is reason to be wary of the numbers. In many situations and pricings these may be pitchers to consider fading in the second half.

American League

Jeremy Hellickson, Tampa Bay Rays

Jeremy Hellickson has only four wins on the season so he won’t exactly be overvalued but with a 3.48 ERA and coming off his rookie of the year campaign in 2011 Hellickson demands some attention, particularly at home where is numbers are pretty strong. The Rays are a losing team behind the 25-year old right-hander however and Hellickson is holding a 5.45 FIP on the season. He has benefited from a .254 BABIP and last season he had an incredibly low BABIP at .223. Some of that comes from a low-scoring home park and that won’t change but Hellickson is getting less than six strikeouts per nine innings and he has battled with walks in recent games with four or more walks in three of his last five starts. Facing off with some of the big bats in the AL East in the second half won’t help his cause and his season may start to look like a real sophomore slump in the coming weeks. The Rays do have a strong bullpen that can help to ward of some problems for Tampa Bay starters but the offense continues to provide minimal support as Tampa Bay seems to be slowly sinking out of the playoff race.

Jarrod Parker, Oakland Athletics

The 23-year old rookie leads Oakland in ERA at 3.16 and he has made the most of his low scoring home ballpark with a 2.45 ERA in home games. Jarrod Parker has just six wins on the season and his last two starts have been pretty marginal, leading to some possible concerns ahead. Parker already has 91 innings under his belt after pitching a total of around 136 innings last season between Arizona and the minors. Control has not always been there for Parker this season even with his strong overall numbers as he has walked 41 batters in 91 innings and has a less than 2:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Parker owns a xFIP of 4.28 suggesting that the could be some negative adjustments to his numbers ahead, benefiting from a .271 BABIP so far this season while also incredibly allowing only four home runs. Even the best pitchers in baseball don’t have home run rates that low and Parker could regress to the mean in the coming weeks. Oakland has shown more promise on offense of late to help Parker’s cause, netting him a win in a marginal outing in his first start of the second half but with the Angels and Rangers in his division there are likely to be some rocky outings in the coming weeks.

C.J. Wilson, Los Angeles Angels

The Angels have surged to the thick of the AL West race after an awful start to the season and C.J. Wilson has been a rock for the Angels in the rotation all season long. His 2.43 ERA is one of the best marks in baseball and only four of his 19 starts have not been quality starts. The Angels have gone 13-6 in his starts this season as Wilson has pitched extremely well away from home with a 2.07 ERA and his team going 9-3 in those twelve starts. Wilson is well off his strikeout pace from last season however when he averaged 8.3 strikeouts per nine innings. His 7.2 mark this season is nothing to scoff at but Wilson has been pretty fortunate this season. His .241 BABIP indicates a great deal of luck and his season xFIP is 4.04, suggesting a much more average pitcher than what his conventional numbers suggest. In the last month that figure rises to 4.50 with his strikeout-per-nine rate down to less than 5.3. Wilson has always walked more batters than ideal and this season that has been no different, allowing 51 free passes for a less than 2:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and he has not yet been hurt significantly by the extra base runners. That could change in the months ahead if the numbers even out and Wilson really has pretty average numbers at home this season. Wilson is starting to see pretty steep favorite lines and he may not be worth the upcoming pricing.

Wei-Yin Chen, Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles are probably a fade team in the second half and while the Taiwanese import Wei-Yen Chen has been a pretty reliable starter for Baltimore in his first MLB season there is reason to skeptical of him moving forward. Chen has benefited from a .264 BABIP this season and his xFIP of 4.42 is dramatically higher than his 3.80 ERA. Chen has strong control which has helped his cause in many outings but he also has been prone to allowing home runs with 15 surrendered in 18 games. Baltimore’s bullpen had some of the best numbers in baseball in the first half of the season but in the last few weeks the unit has started to slide a bit. Recent struggles in the starting staff have contributed and the injury to top starter Jason Hammel will only make matters worse as the workload is likely to increase for the relievers. Baltimore also got by with a solid winning record in the first half of the season despite being a negative run differential team and the offense is not producing in line with its current record. The Orioles actually have the second worst run differential in the entire AL despite having a winning record. The home run pace for the Orioles will likely slow and the defense has been very poor in recent weeks, now with the most errors committed in baseball and poor defense will take a toll on the entire pitching staff. Opponents will no longer be seeing Chen for the first time in the second half of the season as well.

National League

Aaron Harang, Los Angeles Dodgers

The burly veteran went 14-7 last season with a 3.64 ERA pitching for the Padres but his numbers were certainly aided by Petco Park. This season Harang is enjoying a ballpark advantage again at Dodger Stadium and riding his way to another solid season. Harang has just six wins but an ERA of 3.53, numbers just about any team would love to have in the back of the rotation. Harang saw his numbers start to fade in late July last season and he could be on similar path in 2012. The Dodgers have lost four of his last five starts and he has allowed three or more runs in four of those five outings. Harang owns a 2.97 ERA at home but his season WHIP is 1.37 as walks have been a bit of a problem. Harang is featuring a worse than 2:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and for the year he has an xFIP of 4.63, a figure significantly higher than his ERA and actually the eighth worst in all of baseball among qualified starters. Harang has only allowed ten home runs this season, a number quite out of line with his career averages so a few rough outings may be ahead.

Ryan Vogelsong, San Francisco Giants

Ryan Vogelsong had an impressive breakthrough season in 2011 and he is on an even better pace this season for the Giants, featuring a 2.36 ERA to be among the league leaders. Vogelsong incredibly owns a 4.48 xFIP however; a figure over two runs higher than his ERA. He has benefited from an extremely low .250 BABIP which is the fifth lowest in baseball among qualified starters. Vogelsong is only producing about six strikeouts per nine innings while walking nearly three batters per nine innings as he has not had dominant stuff. Vogelsong has allowed just eight home runs in over 110 innings this season and AT&T Park has also played a huge role in his success as he owns an incredible 1.43 ERA at home. Only once in 16 starts has Vogelsong not had a quality start this season, a run that will simply be too hard to keep up especially considering he will be due to pitch on the road several times in the coming weeks. Vogelsong has one of the best runners-left-on-base percentages in baseball which has also boosted his cause. The numbers simply don’t add up for Vogelsong to continue this brilliant run.

Tommy Hanson, Atlanta Braves

On the periphery it looks like Tommy Hanson is having a fine season with a 10-5 record but he has been consistently mediocre. Hanson has allowed at least two runs in nine consecutive outings and it appears that for the third straight year his season ERA will rise following his great rookie campaign in 2009.The Braves are 7-1 in his last eight outings but Hanson has allowed 26 runs in those eight games and he has benefited from strong run support with over 4.7 runs per game in his starts. Hanson has allowed 17 home runs in 19 starts and he has allowed almost a hit per inning on the season. His season FIP of 4.47 is even higher than his average 4.02 ERA and opponents are batting a solid .256 against him despite a well below average BABIP. A big reason for his success has been his ability to strand runners with nearly 78 percent of base runners failing to score, one of the better marks in the NL. With his strong record Hanson is going to be overvalued in the coming weeks and he has resembled a league-average pitcher far more than the Atlanta ace many have expected him to be.

Kyle Lohse, St. Louis Cardinals

Since coming to the Cardinals Kyle Lohse has resurrected his career, now 48-34 in St. Louis but it has been with some inconsistency. Lohse had a brilliant 2008 season but then really struggled in 2009 and 2010 before bouncing back with strong numbers in the World Series championship season in St. Louis last year. This season Lohse has pitched incredibly well, going 9-2 with a 2.80 ERA. Lohse has always had excellent control and this season he walked just 21 batters in 122 innings, one of the lowest walk rates in the National League. Lohse owns a xFIP of 4.24 however suggesting that he has been very fortunate so far in 2012. His .261 BABIP is extremely low, even lower than last season when he was very fortunate and he is getting more groundballs than you would expect based on his recent past seasons. He is also allowing far fewer home runs than earlier in his career. Lohse has just 70 strikeouts this season so he has been far from overpowering and he has not had more than six strikeouts in any game this season. Lohse has great numbers in St. Louis despite high scoring numbers overall at Busch Stadium this season. Road trips to Milwaukee, Colorado, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati are on the horizon in the next several weeks so Lohse could see his numbers swell in the second half.