The Perfect Cheer For Pomeranz

I feel the need to take a moment and give some love to Drew Pomeranz as The Dirty Cheerleader has been wildly underappreciated through the season. After a 5.1 IP, 0 ER,...

I feel the need to take a moment and give some love to Drew Pomeranz as The Dirty Cheerleader has been wildly underappreciated through the season. After a 5.1 IP, 0 ER, 2 Hits, 4 BBs, 9 Ks outing against the Indians, he's holding a 3.18 ERA, 9.80 K/9, and a 13-4 record. Solid stuff from a guy that is most likely tucked away as your #5. Now, it's not all sunshine and roses here as his 1.34 WHIP hurts you and his 5.44 IPS means he's averaging about 5.5 Ks per game, but he's overall helping your team throw the weeks and has gotten no love. Seriously, I can't remember the last time someone even talked about The Dirty Cheerleader in any context. He's not going to climb into the Top 30 anytime soon with his walk rates and low IPS as he sits at the backend of the 40s, but sending him out there every five days is working. And let's not forget about him next season for the end of your staff.

Let’s see how every other SP did yesterday:

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Nick Pollack

Founder of Pitcher List. Creator of CSW, The List, and SP Roundup. Worked with MSG, FanGraphs, CBS Sports, and Washington Post. Former college pitcher, travel coach, pitching coach, and Brandeis alum. Wants every pitcher to be dope.

9 responses to “The Perfect Cheer For Pomeranz”

  1. Vinny says:

    Clevinger (KC) on Sat or Straily (SD) on Sunday?

    Thanks as always!

  2. Mickey says:

    Jerad Eickhoff is no longer starting, but tomorrow instead. Would you still stream Conley over Eickhoff?

  3. Larry says:

    Nick: I’ve got Mark Leiter on my fantasy roster, along with Nola, Godley, Castillo and Taillon. I like to look back 30 days when reviewing my player’s stats. When I opened up my spreadsheet this morning, Leiter had the lowest SIERA of the bunch, as well as the lowest xFIP. Now only two of his five appearances over the past 30 days have been starts, but regardless, his K/9 is 9.3 and his BB/9 is 2.0, his GB% is an even 50%. His SwStr% is 11.0%, better than Nola, Castillo and Taillon over that time period. Leiter’s Z-Contact% is 82.8%; only Castillo’s is better (81.3%). And Leiter’s Hard Contact % is 27.1%, lower than any of the other pitchers mentioned herein. Thirty days is a small sample size, obviously, and it seems like the others have all been in a funk recently, but having admitted all that, it still looks like Leiter is worth keeping an eye on. By the way, I’ve really been enjoying your work over at FanGraphs.

    • Nick Pollack says:

      Good stuff Larry!

      I looked into this and I’m slightly intrigued. The numbers are swayed heavily by two straight dominant relief appearances: The first was an unreal 4.1 innings in relief inside Coors, where he fanned 9 without walking a batter, 0 ER and 2 Hits. Then was 5.0 against the Mets of 1 ER ball, 7 Ks and 0 BBs.

      Now, it hurt to see that he followed it up with a terrible outing against the Padres, and this could be just one of those brief moments in his career where it stuck. I’ll take a look at his start last night against the Marlins to see if I feel it’s real or not. My guess is that we can’t buy into this, but as you said it’s worth keeping an eye on.

      Thanks for the deep dive!

  4. Bobby says:

    Since you think Peacock will eventually be removed from the rotation should I drop him for Weaver while he’s still available?

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