Braves Ace Has Been Historically Unlucky So Far In His Career
The Atlanta Braves have reason to believe that the luck is going to turn for one of their best players.
Because after the start of his career, it can’t get that much worse…can it?
Braves starter Spencer Strider dominated MLB in 2023, leading the league in strikeouts (281), strikeout rate (13.5 K/9) wins (20) and winning percentage (.800), but was “only” a 4th-place finisher in the NL Cy Young voting owing to his ERA of 3.86, which would have been the highest mark of any Cy Young winner since the award was created.
A lot of it can be attributed to luck – specifically, bad luck.
Strider actually led the National League in Fielding Independent Pitching, at 2.85, indicating that he was dealing with bad luck when balls were put into play.
Fielding Independent Pitching, shortened to “FIP”, is a variation of ERA that isolates only what a pitcher can directly control by removing batted balls that are left to the defense to handle – FIP’s only looking at strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches, and home runs.
When a pitcher’s FIP is higher than their ERA, that’s usually a sign that that pitcher’s batted balls are falling at a higher average than usual across the league.
And for Spencer Strider, not only has that been happening, it’s been happening a lot.
Per Codify Baseball, the difference in Strider’s FIP (2.48) versus his ERA (3.37) across his first 50 starts is the highest since baseball switched to overhand pitching in 1884.
That’s one hundred and forty years.
Per research done at FanGraphs, there’s multiple reasons for a discrepancy in FIP and ERA – defense, sequencing, and luck…and apparently none of them are on Strider’s side.
The defense’s role in batted ball events
This one makes the most sense when trying to explain the issue, right? If a pitcher has a poor defense behind them, statistically they’re less likely to have plays made in their favor than with an hypothetical “average” defense. Was this an issue for Strider in his first two years in the league?
Looking at both individual and team rankings, it was!
In 2023, Atlanta was 15th in total defense, per Fielding Bible’s “Defensive Runs Saved”, with a collective 16 DRS. Digging into the specifics, Atlanta’s most significant struggles were on balls hit to shortstop (-13 DRS) and outfielders (-10), excluding Michael Harris II (+8 DRS).
Let’s check Strider’s spray charts, to see where his hits
