The fantasy baseball ranking season is in full swing. For me, that typically starts with searching advanced stats leaderboards. Advanced statistics are often more predictive than traditional box score statistics. Thus, they’re an excellent jumping-off point. This series will dive into a variety of my favorite advanced metrics. However, I must caution that no statistic in isolation is the secret sauce for unearthing a hidden gem or burgeoning stud. Instead, they are a piece of the puzzle and best viewed through that lens, using other statistics in conjunction with them to formulate a well-rounded opinion of the fantasy value of players.

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Infield Fly Ball Percentage

Infield fly ball percentage (IFFB%) is unique among the sortable batted balls at FanGraphs. Unlike line drive percentage, fly ball percentage and ground ball percentage, the denominator isn’t total balls in play. Instead, the denominator for infield fly ball percentage is total fly balls, as infield fly ball percentage measures the rate of fly balls that don’t leave the infield.

Unfortunately, this article is a cautionary tale for putting too much weight in infield fly ball percentage instead of pointing you to a secretly helpful advanced metric. In 2019, Ben Clemens analyzed whether infield fly ball rate correlates highly from season to season. As you likely deduced from my cautionary tale statement, he didn’t find a high correlation from year-to-year. Clemens explicitly said, “the result looks pretty clear: there’s nearly no relationship between year-one IFFB% and year-two IFFB%.” So, be careful if you are using last year’s IFFB% leaderboard to project 2022 expectations. Still, let’s take a look back at last year’s leaders below.

2021 Qualified Starters IFFB% Leaders

Yes, year-to-year correlation is poor for IFFB%. Nevertheless, some of the pitchers on last year's leaderboard have rock-solid IFFB% rates looking at 2018 through 2020. For instance, last year's IFFB% leader, Lucas Giolito (SP - CWS), had a 12.1 IFFB% from 2018 through 2020. The highest mark among the leaders in 2021 from that stretch was recorded by Max Scherzer (SP - NYM), with a 12.8 IFFB%. Julio Urias (SP - LAD) was second during those years, recording a 12.2 IFFB%.

Zack Wheeler (SP - PHI) (11.9 IFFB%) and Tyler Anderson (SP - FA) (11.8 IFFB%) are the other two pitchers that had an IFFB% above 11% during the discussed time frame. Meanwhile, only five of last year's top-15 qualified starters in IFFB% had a sub-10 IFFB%, including Anthony DeSclafani (SP - SF) (9.3 IFFB%), Aaron Nola (SP - PHI) (9.1 IFFB%), Tyler Mahle (SP - CIN) (8.9 IFFB%), Walker Buehler (SP - LAD) (7.1 IFFB%) and Wade Miley (SP - CHC) (6.9 IFFB%). The biggest takeaway is that it's better to use a multi-year sample for setting IFFB% expectations for 2022 instead of leaning too heavily on last year's marks.

Noteworthy Non-Qualified Starting Pitchers in 2021

Josiah Gray (SP - WSH) and Max Kranick (SP - PIT) made their debuts in The Show last year. So, take their small samples with more than a grain of salt. Jacob deGrom (SP - NYM) (14.4 IFFB%), Triston McKenzie (SP - CLE) (12.5 IFFB%), Freddy Peralta (SP - MIL) (11.9 IFFB%) and John Means (SP - BAL) (11.7 IFFB%) each had stellar marks from 2018 through 2020 -- or since debuting in 2020 in the case of McKenzie. Meanwhile, Jose Urquidy's (SP - HOU) 16.4 IFFB% in 2021 is in stark contrast to his solid, but not as spectacular 9.9 IFFB% in a dozen starts between his 2019 debut and 2020 season.

• Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers CStr%
• Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers CSW%
• Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers O-Swing%
• Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers GB%
• Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers SwStr%
• Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers Soft%

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Whether you’re new to fantasy baseball or a seasoned pro, our Fantasy Baseball 101: Strategy Tips & Advice page is for you. You can get started with our Sabermetrics Glossary or head to a more advanced strategy – like How to Make Custom Fantasy Baseball Rankings with Microsoft Excel – to learn more.

Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.