The 2016 season is in its early stages, though sample sizes obviously remain way too small to take very seriously. So let’s just sit back and enjoy the 2016 games for now, and continue our ball-in-play-based analysis of 2015 starting pitcher performance. Two more to go. Last time, we looked at the AL East. Today, the AL Central is on tap.

First, some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one starting rotation per team, the minimum number of batted balls allowed with Statcast readings was set at 243. Pitchers are listed with their 2015 division mates; those who were traded during the season will appear in the division in which they compiled the most innings. Pitchers are listed in “tru” ERA order. For those who have not read my previous articles on the topic, “tru” ERA is the ERA pitchers “should” have compiled based on the actual BIP frequency and authority they allowed relative to the league. Here we go:

Starting Pitcher BIP Profiles – AL Central

	AVG MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP %	FLY %	LD %	GB %	ADJ C	K %	BB %	ERA –	FIP –	TRU –
Sale	85.93	89.75	81.38	3.5%	31.8%	22.1%	42.6%	97	32.1%	4.9%	85	68	61
Carrasco	88.70	92.53	86.33	2.0%	27.8%	19.0%	51.2%	98	29.6%	5.9%	91	71	69
Verlander	87.42	89.65	87.67	6.3%	39.2%	19.9%	34.6%	77	21.1%	6.0%	84	87	69
Kluber	88.05	91.96	84.76	2.8%	33.1%	21.7%	42.4%	105	27.7%	5.1%	87	74	75
Price	87.95	90.96	85.42	4.0%	32.5%	23.1%	40.4%	98	25.3%	5.3%	61	69	76
Salazar	89.76	92.12	87.89	2.2%	35.2%	18.7%	43.9%	102	25.8%	7.0%	86	90	81
C.Young	87.62	90.88	85.31	8.6%	49.3%	16.6%	25.5%	85	16.6%	8.6%	76	113	82
T.May	88.41	90.14	87.90	4.0%	35.6%	21.4%	39.0%	100	22.4%	5.3%	100	81	83
Milone	87.23	91.32	84.67	5.5%	29.9%	23.0%	41.6%	84	16.8%	6.6%	98	107	84
Quintana	88.10	91.28	86.50	1.9%	27.8%	23.2%	47.1%	100	20.5%	5.1%	84	79	86
An.Sanchez	87.65	90.75	85.37	5.0%	34.1%	21.0%	40.0%	98	20.9%	7.4%	124	118	89
K.Gibson	88.70	93.34	86.39	2.4%	24.4%	19.8%	53.4%	92	17.7%	7.9%	96	99	91
Samardzija	87.98	90.32	87.00	4.0%	35.8%	21.2%	39.0%	102	17.9%	5.4%	124	105	94
Danks	87.01	90.87	83.60	4.4%	36.3%	21.1%	38.2%	92	16.2%	7.3%	117	112	94
Ventura	89.81	93.03	86.97	2.1%	25.1%	20.6%	52.2%	109	22.5%	8.4%	102	89	96
Bauer	88.53	91.45	87.42	5.6%	35.1%	20.1%	39.2%	106	22.9%	10.6%	113	108	97
Volquez	87.96	90.60	86.38	1.6%	31.3%	21.1%	46.0%	100	18.2%	8.5%	89	95	99
Rodon	89.00	91.92	87.77	2.4%	27.4%	23.4%	46.8%	114	22.9%	11.7%	94	97	105
E.Santana	90.42	93.12	88.94	5.5%	32.1%	21.5%	40.9%	111	17.9%	7.9%	100	104	108
Pelfrey	88.37	91.68	87.35	1.8%	24.6%	22.6%	51.0%	102	12.0%	6.3%	106	100	109
Duffy	89.32	91.75	89.42	6.5%	30.0%	24.7%	38.8%	111	17.4%	9.0%	102	110	112
Hughes	90.27	91.99	88.99	4.5%	35.9%	24.2%	35.3%	133	14.4%	2.5%	110	117	124
Simon	90.55	94.43	87.21	4.1%	30.6%	21.7%	43.6%	123	14.3%	8.3%	126	119	129
Guthrie	89.09	90.88	87.84	3.3%	36.5%	25.8%	34.4%	126	12.7%	6.6%	148	140	132
AVERAGE	88.49	91.53	86.60	3.9%	32.6%	21.6%	42.0%	103	20.2%	7.0%	100	98	94

Most of the column headers are self-explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and traditional ERA-, FIP-, and “tru” ERA-. Each pitchers’ Adjusted Contact Score (ADJ C) is also listed. Again, for those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Unadjusted Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from opposing hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100. Adjusted Contact Score applies league-average production to each pitchers’ individual actual BIP type and velocity mix, and compares it to league average of 100.

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Stephen Strasburg didn’t pitch the game of his life on Wednesday or anything, but he was plenty solid, allowing one run over six innings. He threw his fastball around the familiar 95. He threw his changeup around the familiar 88. He threw his curveball around the familiar 81. And then it seemed like there was something else. The Nationals broadcast on several occasions noted that it looked like Strasburg was throwing some kind of slider, at 89 – 90. He’s fiddled with the pitch before, but only infrequently. Strasburg himself? He later denied that he was up to anything.

Strasburg appeared to get Norris on a slider, which would be a new pitch in his arsenal that he seemed to mix in a few times throughout the night. After the game, however, Strasburg denied that he had added a slider.

“No, same stuff I’ve been doing in Spring Training,” he said.

Now, that’s not the most firm denial. But it also just doesn’t matter much. Strasburg can say what he wants, but he can’t control what we see with PITCHf/x. And PITCHf/x picked up on something.

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Did you, like many others, come into this season wondering what to expect out of Robinson Cano? Did you believe that reports of his demise might be greatly exaggerated? Well, if three games are any indication, wonder no longer. He’s hit four home runs in 14 plate appearances! I don’t really need to dive too deep into his wRC+ (it’s 340), or many other stats at this point in the season, because they’ll simply reinforce for you that he’s been pretty impossibly good in 27 innings of baseball. The “I don’t need to hit the ball in the field of play” second baseman has a BABIP of .000. The point of this piece, then, is to tell you how and why Cano has been good, and the specific parts of his plate approach that are assuaging some of the fears people had about him last season.

Cano’s 2015 featured, at root, two halves. Every season of every player’s career features two halves, but Cano’s were relevant in that his production was starkly divided between the two of them. There was pre-July 1st Cano, he of the .105 ISO and 71 wRC+. And then there was post-July 1st Cano, he of the .209 ISO and 157 wRC+. Second-half Cano was literally 100% better than first-half Cano when compared to league average.

If you’re reading this, you probably know that everyone was trying to figure out what was wrong in that first half. Here’s Jeff mainly talking about him hitting too many ground balls. Here’s Dan going in-depth on how his hitting mechanics were a little messed-up. Here’s an interview in which Cano says a stomach parasite sapped his strength. There was obviously a lot going on, and his first-half performance was probably all of those negative forces coming together in the form of terrible baseballing.

The second half of 2015 was a complete turnaround, however. He started to hit more line drives and fly balls. He went to the opposite field at something closer to his career rates. His home run/fly ball rate and BABIP regressed toward (and surpassed) his career norms. His first half probably wasn’t as bad as it looked, but his second half was a pretty effective inversion of that. Players in their early 30s who play poorly for extended periods while on massive contracts tend to be placed under a microscope, however, so questions about Cano’s partial 2015 failures followed him into 2016.

He’s answered those questions pretty effectively in the early going. And, while we shouldn’t take anything away from what Cano’s done so far, we also need to ask some questions of how the Rangers approached him in their just-concluded opening series. Sure, we should remind ourselves that it’s just three games, but the very obvious way Texas pitched to him could act as a bit of a warning for those teams about to face him. So how did the Rangers approach him? The answer was, unequivocally, “witin the zone.” Take a look at Cano’s in-zone rate and rate of first-pitch strikes from 2013 to 2015 as compared to the series against the Rangers:

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A little more than a decade ago, an undersized, often-overlooked second baseman climbed the ranks through the minor leagues and made his debut in Boston, peppering line drives off the Green Monster in Fenway Park’s left field while capturing the hearts of Red Sox fans with his aggressive and well-rounded style of play.

After 10 years of Dustin Pedroia, watching Mookie Betts burst onto the scene over the last two years must be like déjà vu in Boston.

Of course, the players have their differences, the most obvious being Betts’ place in the outfield. His move from his natural place at second base was dictated by Pedroia’s presence at the position. But the similarities in stature, and approach, cannot be understated:

In the early stages of his career, Betts has put the ball in the air a bit more often, and thus hit for a bit more power. Pedroia’s struck out less and gotten on base slightly more. But these differences are minuscule; both have an elite control of the strike zone due to their ability to make a ton of contact while possessing the eye to draw a good number of walks. And the most striking similarity is that both inflict massive damage to the pull field.

Highest pull-field wRC+, 2015

1. Kris Bryant, 290
2. Bryce Harper, 261
3. Colby Rasmus, 260
4. Edwin Encarnacion, 257
5. Mookie Betts, 254

Last year, Betts was one of the five best pull hitters in the game, his name appearing alongside four of baseball’s best power hitters in overall pull production despite his 5-foot-9 frame. His power output to the pull side, admittedly aided somewhat by the Green Monster, exceeded that of Josh Donaldson’s. Pedroia, meanwhile, has been among baseball’s most consistent pull threats for a decade.

Red Sox hitting coach Chili Davis is quick to point out, though, that while both do the brunt of their damage to the pull side, neither hitter goes to the plate with a pull-field approach.

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We have launch angle for all batted balls last year! We’re still in the infancy of Statcast, and there have been some wiggles in the wobble so far, but with the new update to Baseball Savant, it looks like we can search all batted balls for launch angle. I’m giddy.

This should give us the chance to all sorts of great things later, but for now I’ll do something relatively simple that’s relevant to the newest big slugger in the game, Matt Duffy. We all knew he’d bust out like this, and now we know why.

Turn back to Alan Nathan’s excellent post on the long ball yesterday at The Hardball Times. It’s full of nerdy goodness, but there’s also a fun little factoid that runs through most of his analysis: the ideal launch angle for a home run is between 25 and 30 degrees. Given a certain exit velocity, that range is where distance on a batted ball peaks:

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It took only three games for us to be able to refer to Trevor Story as a rookie sensation. For the most part, this is because Story is currently out-homering most of the teams in major-league baseball. He got Zack Greinke twice on opening day, and that’s remarkable enough, but Story homered again in each of the following two contests, so now here we are, with Story owning four dingers before the overwhelming majority of rookie players are even called up so as to preserve that extra year of control. Hot start. We’re good at noticing hot starts.

After the hot start will come a cooler period. In time, when we have more information, Story will resemble some kind of familiar shortstop, and we’ll have a better idea of how he’s going to work out. In the long run, I mean. The reality is we don’t know that much more now than we did a week ago. This is the hazard of trying to talk about anything so early in a season, and so early in a career. But the word “irresponsibly” is right in that headline. I think we can allow ourselves to have some fun. What’s the downside? So let’s discuss just a few notable observations. Exactly what they mean, I’ll leave to time to settle.

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FanGraphs uses Slack in order to keep all the writers in communication, and it’s in there that we claim post topics so that we don’t accidentally overlap. A couple days ago, I made a soft commitment to write about Aaron Sanchez’s secondary stuff, regardless of how he actually did on Tuesday. The way I figured, one way or the other, it was going to be worth an article. Now, what I didn’t know was that the Rays/Blue Jays game would end with a very 2016 type of controversial call. That’s overshadowed everything else, and few care anymore about how Sanchez did in the earlier innings. But I’m here to fulfill my commitment. And, guess what: I’ve long been a Sanchez skeptic, as his being a starter is concerned, but he had a wonderful, wonderful outing, before the Jose Bautista slide. He made it very easy to be encouraged.

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Let’s talk about the King. Felix Hernandez lost his start on opening day. In one sense, it was just the same old Mariners — Felix allowed one earned run, and literally just one hit, a fly-ball blooper into the shallow outfield. So, that makes it sound crazy, but Felix also walked five batters in six innings, and put a sixth on base by hitting him. Fewer than 60% of his pitches were strikes, which would be a bad mark for anyone, and Felix acknowledged he wasn’t working like himself. The plus side, naturally, is that he still wasn’t hittable. But he was kind of wild, and — and — his velocity was down.

It was down a full couple ticks. This follows a string of appearances in spring when Felix was below his previous velocity. That wasn’t a big deal then, but it’s a bigger deal now, with the season underway. According to PITCHf/x, Felix threw just two pitches at at least 91 miles per hour. Last year’s average fastball was 91.8. Every so often, there can be these blips — in one April start in 2013, Felix threw just one pitch north of 91 — yet this could be a developing pattern. And it’s worth taking a step back to consider just how far Felix’s velocity has fallen.

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Jake Lamb is off to a solid start in the production department. The left-handed-hitting third baseman homered in Arizona’s opener, and he doubled in game two. There’s more where that came from. Lamb slugged just .386 in 109 games with the Diamondbacks last year, but he did so as a young player with a foot injury. In three-plus seasons on the farm, he slashed .321/.408/.552.

Lamb isn’t without his supporters as he heads into his age-25 season. Eno Sarris has predicted he’ll hit 20 home runs, and just last week August Fagerstrom called him one of the Real Winners of Spring Training.

Lamb discussed his hitting approach, which includes a healthy dose of line drives to the left-center-field gap, prior to the D-Backs breaking camp to begin the 2016 campaign.

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Lamb on his up-the-middle approach: “For the most part, my stock approach is to hit the ball hard to center field. I’m trying to line out to the center fielder. In saying that, what I really want is to hit a low line drive. If I’m a little late on a heater, hopefully I’ll hit it over the shortstop. If I’m a little early, it will be the right-center gap.

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Aroldis Chapman was supposed to be a starter. Maybe supposed is a strong word, but when he debuted in professional baseball as a 22-year-old out of Cuba in Triple-A, he did so as a starting pitcher, and if not for injuries to then-Reds closer Ryan Madson and a handful of other Cincinnati relief pitchers, the club seemed prepared to have Chapman open the 2012 season in the starting rotation.

But those injuries happened, and Chapman instead returned to the bullpen, where he’d pitched for the previous season and a half. He returned to the bullpen, he was handed the keys to the ninth inning, and he hasn’t given them back since. Watching Chapman on the baseball field in the ninth inning has been a treat all these years, but it’s always felt like something of a missed opportunity. Sure, we see the 104 mph fastball and the strikeout rates over 50%, but it’s almost felt like cheating, in a sense. It’s all still remarkable, yeah, but this is a guy who could start, throwing just one inning at a time.

Don’t we all want to see what he could do if he came out in the first and pitched as deep as he could every game? Aren’t we curious how much of the stuff would carry over during the transition? Wouldn’t it be fun if Chapman didn’t lose anything, and routinely threw six or seven innings with the same caliber stuff he throws in the ninth? At some point over the last couple years, we’ve all accepted the fact that we’d probably never get to see it in action, Aroldis Chapman the starter.

And then Noah Syndergaard made his first start of the 2016 season.

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