Earlier this week, we again utilized granular batted-ball data to determine whether Vince Velasquez could hold onto the championship belt for the best single-game pitching performance of the season. He did so, beating out Max Scherzer‘s 20-strikeout performance. To this point, we’ve also matched the Phils’ righthander against Jaime Garcia‘s one-hitter and Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter.

When one is discussing pitching excellence, it’s only a matter of time before Clayton Kershaw enters the discussion. Today, let’s match up Velasquez’16 K, 0 BB vanquishing of the Padres on April 14 to, well, Kershaw’s entire body of 2016 work.

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A few weeks back, we matched up three of the most dominant pitching performances from April, utilizing granular ball-in-play data, to determine which of Vince Velasquez, Jaime Garcia or Jake Arrieta had the best day. Velasquez won that time around, and with Max Scherzer recently authoring a 20-strikeout, no-walk complete game shutout over the Tigers, we have a worthy contender for the single-game pitching championship belt.

There’s one rule for entry into this competition: you had to finish what you started. Only complete games apply. Then we simply look at every batted ball allowed, and first calculate each pitcher’s single-game Adjusted Contact Score based on exit speed and angle data. Then, we add back the Ks and BBs, and calculate each pitcher’s single-game “tru” ERA-. With these two performances, we don’t need to worry about adding back any BBs.

Velasquez vs. Scherzer – Exit Speed/Angle Data

			AVG ALL	AVG FLY	AVG LD	AVG GB	AVG VERT
Velasquez	vs. SD	14-Apr	88.1	89.1	87.2	87.4	20.8
Scherzer	vs. DET	11-May	86.6	93.1	93.5	56.8	19.1
MLB Avg.	Thru	18-May	89.4	90.0	93.5	87.4	11.0

Both of these pitchers followed similar paths in their dominant outings. Besides striking out 36 and walking none between them, both pitchers allowed very high average exit angles, and very few grounders. Only extreme fly-ball/pop-up pitchers sustain average exit angles near 20 over a full season, the Chris Youngs and Jered Weavers of this world.

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It’s May 19th, and the Phillies are in first second place in the National League East. Yes, the Phillies. The team that generated a 1,000 “tanking is ruining the sport” articles this winter has, six weeks into the season, the third-best record in the National League. As Jeff Sullivan noted this morning, their remarkably excellent bullpen has been one of the primary drivers of the early success, with David Hernandez and Hector Neris surprisingly emerging as dominant forces in the middle innings, and Jeanmar Gomez driving another nail into the coffin of the necessity of a “proven closer”. And yet, despite being in second place at this point, if you look at our current playoff odds, you wouldn’t actually know that the Phillies are off to a great start.

See that flat line across the bottom? That’s the Phillies. Their 24-17 start hasn’t moved the needle, at all, on our forecasts expectations for their chances of reaching the postseason. Okay, that’s not exactly true; they’ve gone from a 0.1% chance of winning one of the two Wild Card spots in our preseason forecast all the way up to a 0.3% chance of getting to the play-in game now. But their odds of hanging on to the NL East? Still close enough zero to round down when displaying one decimal point.

This is, to some, puzzling. A question in my chat yesterday brought up the point that our system is far more bearish on the Phillies hot start leading to postseason success than others; Baseball Prospectus gives them a 2.3% chance of winning the division and a 7.6% chance of getting a Wild Card spot, for 10% overall odds of reaching the playoffs. FiveThirtyEight is even more bullish than that, putting them at 4% to win the NL East and 13% to reach the postseason. So why is our system so stubborn relative to others attempting to look into the same crystal ball in order to see what the final standings will look like in October?

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The Phillies won again on Wednesday. So this is already off to a silly start, but anyhow, here’s more or less how they did it.

When you allow two runs, you don’t have to do much at the plate to win, and though the Phillies never do much at the plate, they did enough against Tom Koehler to make a winner out of Jeremy Hellickson. Hellickson gave way to David Hernandez, who turned in a scoreless inning. Hernandez gave way to Hector Neris, who turned in a scoreless inning. And Neris gave way to Jeanmar Gomez, who turned in the final scoreless inning necessary. Sometimes good teams are said to have bullpen formulas. This is the Phillies’ formula, and it’s helped propel them into a wild-card spot. The Phillies are in a wild-card spot. You know who’s in a wild-card spot? The Phillies.

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Believe it or not, I actually agonized over how to title this post. Ultimately, I couldn’t come up with anything better, not if I didn’t want to outright deceive. Because this is a post about Hector Neris, and about Brad Brach, and there’s no way around that. You should be aware of that from the start. Now the only people in here are people who might give a damn, and that’s better than me feeling like I tricked you.

Neris is someone who’s been on my radar for a few weeks. Before that, he was absolutely not on my radar, even though he pitched in the majors in each of the previous two years. I became aware of him after a Phillies person told me to become aware of him, and Neris is in the early stages of a breakthrough major-league campaign. It’s been quiet, because he’s not a closer, and because he’s not a starter. Non-closing relievers take a while to command attention. But Neris has allowed four runs in 20 innings. More impressively, he’s increased his strikeout rate by more than fifty percent.

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The Phillies are off to a really good start this season, sitting at 16-12 in what is expected to be a rebuilding season as the team finally separates itself from its former glory in a move to the future. The team has some exciting young pitchers already succeeding in the majors with Vincent Velasquez and Aaron Nola putting together some very good performances. Maikel Franco is a promising young hitter and J.P. Crawford should be ready to contribute at some point. To get to their record this season, the team has succeeded by limiting runs and winning close games. The starting pitching has led the way, but the bullpen has been key, as well. No pitcher has surprised more than Hector Neris, who has upped the use of his splitter and gotten fantastic results.

So far this season, Hector Neris has faced 63 batters and struck out 27 of them. If you look at the strikeout-rate leaderboard for relievers who’ve recorded least 10 innings, you find that Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, and Craig Kimbrel are the first three names to appear there, which isn’t surprising. Hector Neris is fourth, which is. The Phillies reliever struck out more than a batter an inning last year, but has taken that performance to new heights this season. Neris’ secret is out, as he has increased his splitter usage from 21% last season to 52% this year.

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How do you identify the very best pitches? It’s actually not easy, since every pitch in someone’s repertoire has an effect on every other pitch. So let’s say this: I don’t know if Aaron Nola’s “true-talent” curveball is the best in the game. What I know is, to this point, it’s been the most effective curveball in the game. By lots! Here’s the top of the run-value leaderboard for curves in 2016:

1. Aaron Nola, +9.5 runs
2. Jerad Eickhoff, +3.6
3. Carlos Carrasco, +3.2
4. Justin Grimm, +3.1
5. Aaron Sanchez, +3.0

Nola’s value is nearly the sum of the next three values combined. How great is +9.5 runs? Only one pitch so far has a higher value, and that’s Jose Quintana’s fastball, at +10.0. Quintana has thrown almost 400 fastballs. Nola has thrown fewer than 200 curves.

We’ve written plenty about the Phillies so far. Countless people have, because the Phillies have surprised, and it’s no secret the key to that has been unbelievable pitching. This has become the core of the Phillies’ whole rebuild, and they love what they’re getting from Eickhoff. They love what they’re getting from Vincent Velasquez. But you can’t forget about Nola. Nola was always thought of as the safe, polished one, but now he’s flashing upside, such that he might be the best of them all. He might be turning into one of the best, period, and the curveball is fueling his ascent.

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If the season ended today, it would be chaos. There would be significant protestation from players, owners, and fans alike, all parties confused by the suddenly truncated schedule. But if matters were allowed to proceed from there, the National League would have the Mets grab one wild-card slot. The other entry would be determined through a different one-game playoff — that one played between the Pirates and the Phillies.

The Phillies! It’s understood that anything can happen on any given day. What that means is that anything can also happen during any given month. And here the Phillies sit, tied for baseball’s fifth-best record. The Phillies came in as a clear contender for baseball’s worst record, but they have a better record than the defending champs. They have a better record than everyone in the AL West, and also the NL West. The Phillies have won six games in a row — baseball’s longest active streak — and they’ve completed series sweeps against the Nationals and Indians. A handful of teams in the league are rebuilding. The Phillies have had the best start of any.

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It’s almost time to rip the first page from the regular-season calendar, and many players and moments have already left indelible marks that will live on in our memories. From Trevor Story to Kenta Maeda, from the Cubs and Nationals on the good end to the Twins and Astros on the bad, it’s been an exciting ride thus far.

There are a number of dominant pitching performances already in the books, with Jake Arrieta’s second no-hitter in as many years an obvious highlight. Just a week before his vanquishing of the Reds, the Phils’ Vincent Velasquez and the Cards’ Jaime Garcia unfurled identical game scores of 97 in complete game victories over the Padres and Brewers, respectively. Since it’s still early in the season, and sample sizes remain quite small, let’s use batted-ball data in a more laid-back, fun manner, and attempt to split some hairs among these three gems, and crown one as April’s most impressive pitching performance.

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This year, Odubel Herrera is an everyday player, and only two players in baseball have drawn more walks. On its own, maybe that doesn’t convey its real significance, so consider that, last year, Odubel Herrera was an everyday player, and 193 players in baseball drew more walks. Herrera today has more than twice as many walks drawn as Joey Votto. Votto last year out-walked Herrera by literally 115. In the first 29 games after the All-Star break, Votto drew more walks than Herrera did in the entire season. This point actually captures two things — Herrera has been surprisingly good, and Votto has been surprisingly bad. Separate the last one, though, and you’re left with the fact that Herrera has been surprisingly good.

The Phillies presumably expected Herrera to be useful. He was just rather astonishingly a four-win player, and though there was plenty of room for him to come down, the talent was obvious and Herrera can defend his premium position. Yet I’m sure the Phillies weren’t looking for Herrera to boost his OBP damn near a hundred points. Herrera isn’t going to stay at .432 all season long, but this has been a glorious start. And Herrera is showing something he didn’t show as a rookie.

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