Where Have All the Strikeouts Gone?

Over the past two games, the Tigers' starters have only 3 strikeouts in 12 1/3 innings.  Anibal Sanchez had 2 in yesterday's game and David Price only had 1 two days ago.  This is a microcosm of the whole year as the Tigers' starters are only averaging a little over 6 K/9.  Remember when the Tigers starting rotation was regularly striking out batters on a daily basis?  Here's how the ranked in recent years:

Year	K/9	MLB Rank
2012	8.19	2nd
2013	8.63	1st
2014	7.68	9th
2015	6.02	27th

In 2013, the Tigers pitching staff as a whole set a MLB record with 1,428 strikeouts helped by 3 starting pitchers who had 200+ K's each, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez.   Of course Scherzer is now gone along with Doug Fister and Rick Porcello.  Verlander has been on the DL all year.  The only one remaining from the 2013 rotation is Sanchez, who is now in a rotation consisting of David Price, Shane Greene, Alfredo Simon and Kyle Lobstein.  

Anibal Sanchez is the only member of the starting rotation who currently has a K/9 of over 7 at 7.74, which isn't much different than his career mark of 7.92.  Sanchez has had two big strikeout years, a 9.26 K/9 in 2011 and a 9.99 K/9 in 2013.  Sanchez has been struggling this year, mainly due to giving up the long ball.  He has given up 6 home runs already this year, which is 2 more than he gave up all of last year.  

David Price, who usually is a strikeout machine, only has a 6.41 K/9 so far this year, which is by far the lowest of his career and almost 2 K/9 below his career 8.38 K/9 mark.  Last year, Price led MLB with 271 strikeouts. So far the lack of strikeouts hasn't effected him much as his 3.30 ERA is exactly the same as his 3.30 FIP and isn't much different than his 3.26 ERA that he posted last year.  

Shane Greene surprised everyone by striking out over a batter per inning last year at 9.27 K/9 in his shortened rookie year last year.  He had an 8.15 K/9 in 562 minor league innings, so it was expected that he'd have an above average strikeout rate in the majors.  Along with a decent FIP and SIERA, it was expected that Greene would be decent going forward.  However, he's only at 5.56 K/9 so far this year and his ERA has suffered at 5.56.  

Alfredo Simon was already a questionable acquisition among Tiger fans before he even threw one pitch in a Tiger uniform.  However, his strikeout rate isn't much different than it was last year (5.82 in 2014 and 5.65 in 2015) and his ERA is exactly the same at 3.44.  

Out of the 6 regular pitchers who started games for the Tigers last year, only one had a K/9 below 6, Rick Porcello.  This year the Tigers have 3: Green, Simon and Kyle Lobstein.  Lobstein has held his own filling in for the injured Justin Verlander with an ERA of only 3.00.  However, his strikeout rate of only 4.09 K/9 leaves a lot to be desired.  His K/9 ranks 6th lowest in all of MLB, (right ahead of former Tiger Doug Fister who is currently at 4.06 for the Nationals).  This is way below his minor league mark of 7.79 K/9.  

This is cause for concern for the Tigers as there's usually an inverse correlation between strikeouts and ERA.  The Tigers' rotation currently stand with a 4.15 ERA, which ranks 17th in MLB.  However, their SIERA ranks 25th at 4.24.  Whether this is a change in philosophy on the pitching coach's part to have these pitchers pitch to contact more or just random variation, this isn't a good sign going forward.  The best thing to happen would be if some of these pitchers would put up strikeout rates that they are capable of.  

2015 Preseason Prediction #2 - David Price

David Price pitched better for the Tigers than you realize (stats are from FanGraphs).  

2014	IP	BABIP	LD%	GB%	FB%	K%	BB%
TB	170 2/3	0.301	20.7%	40.5%	38.8%	27.4%	3.3%
DET	77 2/3	0.317	20.5%	42.7%	36.8%	25.6%	4.7%

There's not much difference in the batted ball data (line drive, fly ball and ground ball rates).  The strikeout rate is lower, but still higher than any other season.  The walk rate is the biggest jump, but not at an alarming rate.  However, Price had a 3.59 ERA for the Tigers, which was up from a 3.11 ERA on the Rays.  The stats show it is most likely the defense that was the biggest difference.  

2014	ERA	FIP	xFIP	SIERA
TB	3.11	2.93	2.70	2.63
DET	3.59	2.44	2.89	2.92

The ERA estimators show that Price should have had an ERA below 3.00 last year, for both the Tigers and Tampa Bay.  The good news is that the Tigers should have a better overall defense in 2015.  If Jose Iglesias is healthy and is the primary shortshop, that is a huge improvement in the infield defense.  It's also hard to imagine Nick Castellanos to be worse than his historically bad 3B defense.  All three OF spots should also provide better overall defense.  

David Price is entering his age 29 season in 2015, an age that is usually right in the middle of "prime" years, therefore a repeat performance shouldn't be out of the question.  His K/9 was over 9.0 for the first time in his career last year.  For the 2nd straight year, his BB/9 was under 2.0.  If both these trends continue in 2015, he could have his best season yet.  

The other number that jumps out is his innings pitched.  Price had pitched a total of 248 1/3 innings in 2015, which is the 5th most a pitcher has thrown in a single season over the last 5 years.  Given his age, it shouldn't be a cause for alarm yet; the four pitchers ahead of him pitched somewhere between 227 and 238 innings the following year.  Bearing injury, there should be no reason to expect Price to not pitch over 200 innings again in 2015.  I do find it interesting that there is a lot of similarity to Justin Verlander in innings pitched per game started over the years: 

IP/GS	Age 26	Age 27	Age 28	Age 29	Age 30	Age 31
Verlander	6.9	6.8	7.4	7.2	6.4	6.4
Price	6.8	6.9	7.3	???	???	???

There might be some cause for concern later on, but not in 2015, if there is any correlation to decreasing number of innings and performance that Verlander has shown.    

Experts' Projections/Predictions:

	IP	W/L	ERA	WHIP	K	BB
Steamer	192	13-9	3.23	1.11	179	37
CAIRO	218	14-10	3.03	1.15	215	39
ZiPS	210 2/3	15-9	3.67	1.19	204	40
RotoChamp	200	16-7	2.88	1.09	202	33
CBS Sports	240	19-7	2.89	1.09	253	43
ESPN	224	17 W	3.25	1.08	216	37
MLB.com	220	16-9	3.03	1.07	218	31
FanGraphs' Fans (21)	228	16-9	3.23	1.04	231	40

My Prediction:

	IP	W/L	ERA	WHIP	K	BB
2014 Prediction	-	-	-	-	-	-
2014 Actual	248 1/3	15-12	3.26	1.079	271	38
2015 Predicion	234 2/3	18-7	3.03	1.074	238	40

Fantasy Impact:  According to Mock Draft Central, Price is being taken 35th overall, which is the end of the 3rd round in a standard 12-team league.  This is about where I'd put him.  Price may barely be out of the top 5 SP ranking, but he's definitely in the top 10.  With a high strikeout rate, low ERA and WHIP, he'll be able to anchor your starting pitching.