Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Starting Pitchers SIERA (2022 Fantasy Baseball)

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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Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average (SIERA)

Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average (SIERA) is my go-to ERA estimator. Sure, I look at FIP, xFIP, and xERA regularly, too. However, as FanGraphs notes in their detailed explanation of SIERA that you should read, SIERA is slightly more predictive than xFIP.

Unlike its ERA estimator predecessor, SIERA uses batted-ball data in its calculation. As a result, as Piper Slowinski says in the linked definition at FanGraphs, “SIERA tells us more about the how and why of pitching.” Moreover, while I always advise using multiple data points for analyzing players, SIERA is my favorite standalone pitching metric.

The good to bad SIERA scale aligns with a good to bad ERA. However, let’s add more context. According to FanGraphs, out of 38 qualified starting pitchers in 2021, the lowest SIERA was 2.61, the highest was 4.85, and the median was 3.745.

2021 Qualified Starters SIERA Leaders

The National League Cy Young Award winner, Corbin Burnes, had the lowest SIERA in 2021 among qualified pitchers. Additionally, the American League Cy Young Award Winner, Robbie Ray, had the fifth-lowest SIERA. So, their underlying numbers supported their sterling 2021 campaigns.

Largely, the leaderboard above is littered with players that pitched at a high level in 2021. However, Aaron Nola and Yu Darvish are a pair of pitchers that stand out like a sore thumb as underachievers relative to their SIERA. Nola had a 4.63 ERA, much higher than his 3.26 SIERA. Unfortunately, there are some warts on Nola's profile. First, his GB% cratered to a career-low 40.5%, a whopping 10% lower than his career rate before 2021. Second, he struggled to strand baserunners. Nola's 66.8 LOB% was the second-lowest mark of his seven-year career, following netting a 72.3 LOB% that was the third-lowest mark of his career in 2020. Therefore, I'm unwilling to handwave away his strand-rate issues wholly. Still, he should improve in that area in 2022, and SIERA is an excellent data point to support a rebound in 2022.

Darvish was hurt last year by a slide in GB%, a lower than usual LOB%, and homer woes. However, I believe entirely in a bounce-back from Darvish in 2022.

Noteworthy Non-Qualified Starting Pitchers in 2021

I've previously discussed almost all of the pitchers in this table. Still, I'll use this opportunity to pound the table for Logan Webb again and voice my infatuation with Tanner Houck. Webb followed up a breakout 2021 that included elite underlying statistics with an eye-popping two starts against the Dodgers in the playoffs, holding them to one earned run on nine hits, one walk, and 17 strikeouts in 14.2 innings.

Houck made his MLB debut in 2020, starting three games. He pitched a half-dozen starts at the Triple-A level last year, but the majority of his time was spent on the Red Sox, making five relief appearances and 13 starts. In 16 starts spanning 75.2 innings for the Red Sox in his young career, Houck has dazzled to the tune of a 2.97 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 3.39 SIERA, 7.8 BB%, 30.7 K%, 48.6 GB%, and 29.6 CSW%. The biggest concern for Houck this year is a likely innings cap. Including the minors and postseason, Houck pitched just 100.1 innings in 2021. Regardless, only 65 starting pitchers pitched more than 140 innings in 2021. So, I'm not sweating an innings cap for Houck too much.

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

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About Author

Josh Shepardson

@BChad50

Josh is a savvy, grizzled veteran in the realm of make-believe sports. He's thoroughly experienced playing in season-long re-draft leagues, keeper formats and daily games. His fantasy advice for baseball and football has been found at many locations around the internet. He's finished in the top 10 accuracy scores among experts here, at Fantasy Pros, in three of four years competing with his colleagues including a first-place finish in 2012.