Hello all, and welcome to the Using PLA to Evaluate Pitchers series for the 2026 season! Every week, I will be taking a look at a few pitchers throughout the league and evaluating their season’s performance up to date using PLA and other ERA estimators.
PLA is our own ERA estimator created with PLV, a pitch quality metric grading every pitch based on characteristics such as velocity, movement, location, count, and batter handedness. To read more about what goes into PLV and how reliably the stat correlates to actual performance, see Nick Pollack and Kyle Bland’s breakdown here.
While my articles will focus on major league pitchers, keep an eye out for other PLV weekly articles looking at hitters, individual pitches, minor leaguers, and more.
This week, I will be taking a look at three starters who have dominated through their first two starts of the season. I will be using PLA, along with other ERA estimators, to evaluate how sustainable this success is and how some upcoming matchups may be affected.
Sandy Alcantara
Sandy Alcantara has been off to a great start in 2026, following up his strong finish to 2025 with a strong seven innings against the Rockies and a complete game shutout against the White Sox.
Compared to his 2025 arsenal, Alcantara has seen PLV jumps in his changeup (5.30), four-seam (5.00), sinker (5.42), and slider (5.26). He also swapped out his curveball for a sweeper, which has a decent 5.00 PLV and offers 29 inches of horizontal separation from his sinker at a solid ~84 mph.
The biggest key to Alcantara’s success has been execution; he’s thrown his four-seam and sinker for strikes 78.4% and 86.2% of the time, respectively, allowing his changeup and slider to return chases over 50% of the time. This elite execution allows Alcantara to get ahead of batters early and consistently work deep into games, a strength of the former Cy Young winner.
Alcantara’s 1.71 PLA reflects his sharp stuff and elite results to begin the year. Combined with no homers and just two walks in 16.0 innings, other run-expectancy metrics generally like Alcantara as an above-average starter.
Despite a rough 2025 season, Alcantara has a strong track record and looks healthy to begin 2026. He looks to keep up this success in his next matchup, a favorable home game against the Reds.
José Soriano
Note: does not include 4/6 start vs. Braves: 8.0 IP 3 H 1 ER 10 K 0 BB – xFIP down to 2.85, 37.0 CSW% on the night, one of the best starts of the season. This guy might be elite.
José Soriano has looked sharp to start 2026, firing 6 scoreless innings against the Astros and Cubs while flashing elite stuff and strong command. Soriano’s stuff has always been elite, but a new level of command in these two starts allowed Soriano to continue striking out batters (career-best 24.4% K rate as a starter) and generating ground balls (63.0% GB rate).
The locations of his two fastballs and knuckle curve, especially, stand out despite semi-frequent misses outside of the zone. Soriano’s elite velocity should allow his fastballs to continue working in-zone, and his knuckle curve will continue to shine when consistently thrown in good locations.
Soriano’s pitches are also a little different from 2025, where he was about league-average over 31 starts (4.26 ERA/3.73 FIP). His sinker is running armside another two inches with another inch of drop, while his four-seam gained an inch of carry and arm-side break; all while being thrown about a tick harder across the board. His splitter is also dropping another two inches without losing any velocity.
This step-up in stuff and command contributes to his strong 2.58 PLA, slightly better than some other ERA estimators like xFIP (3.55) and SIERA (3.98). This reflects how important the combination of ground balls and strikeouts is for a pitcher, yet a slight vulnerability to walks (6 in 12.0 innings) would hurt run expectancy. Look for Soriano to retain this elite stuff while fighting to keep walks down in 2026.
Bryce Elder
Bryce Elder has surprised many in 2026, firing 13.0 scoreless innings over two starts as a key piece of a heavily injured Braves pitching staff. After a breakout 2023 season, Elder has gotten shelled over the last two seasons, yet his ERA estimators like FIP and SIERA were fairly unchanged.
Elder’s stuff has never quite stood out, yet his “death ball” slider and heavy sinker have gotten the job done in 2026. PLV does not like the changes he made to his slider (4.95 PLV, down from 5.39), which has added 3 inches of depth and 2 inches gloveside at one mph slower. Still, it has generated an elite 77.8% ground ball rate and 29.7% called-strike-whiff rate so far.
This has likely been helped by the addition of a cutter, bridging the gap between his four-seam and slider with a solid 5.40 PLV. Elder’s sinker has been another big difference, jumping to a 5.38 PLV thanks to an extra inch of drop and far better strike rates (78.3%, up from 61.1% in 2025). Elder’s changeup and four-seam continue to grade out poorly, but serve as important pieces of the soft-tosser’s deepening arsenal.
This development has led Elder to post a great 2.73 PLA, in line with other ERA estimators, as Elder’s elite strikeout (27.7%) and walk (4.3%) rates are easily career bests. While I would obviously not expect this level of execution to remain, these changes certainly give me more hope that Elder can find his 2023 form again as the rock of the Braves’ rotation.
Now lined up for a start later this week at home against the Guardians, look for Elder to continue generating ground balls and avoiding barrels when possible.
