Fantasy Baseball: Statistical Nuances from the Nomad- Reds Tony Cingrani

Fantasy Baseball: Statistical Nuances from the Nomad- Reds Tony Cingrani

by Michael Pichan (@FantasyNomad)

[caption id="attachment_16230" align="alignleft" width="240"] Reds SP Tony Cingrani[/caption]

Hear that? It’s the Tony Cingrani Hype Machine getting cranked harder than Yovani Gallardo after a bad start. The buzz of any prospect getting called up is always fairly heavy, but for Cingrani it has reached an absurd level. I have even heard people state that Cingrani will be as good as his Reds' teammate Mat Latos (fun twitter follow is @Fat_Mat_Latos) and I have heard Cingrani mentioned in the same breath as Nationals' ace Stephen Strasburg. I doubt many of my readers may be that “high” on Cingrani, but indeed I believe the overall consensus on the expectations for Cingrani is dangerously over hyped. I will ignore the Strasburg comp as that is just ridiculous, but let’s take a look at the Latos comp.

First off, Mat Latos and Tony Cingrani are two totally different pitchers, if you look at their pitch frequency/repertoire below. Now granted Cingrani’s stats will be in a small sample size, but it is indicative of what he relied on in the minors, along with pinpoint command/control, to dominate lesser competition where he struck out 172 batters in 146 innings pitched between High-A and Double-A last season and has already struck out 26 batters in 14.1 innings pitched at Triple-A this season.

Pitch Frequency Chart Comparing the Early Years of Mat Latos and Tony Cingrani

(stats derived from brooksbaseball.com)

Latos threw 862 pitches (50.2 IP)  in 2009 and over 3,000 pitches (184.2 IP) in 2010. As for Cingrani, again we are dealing with a small sample size, but if you watched his spring training outings you could see he did not have a good feel for either his slider or change. (I am going to ignore Cingrani’s 2013 pitch frequency as he threw only about 20 pitches). As you can see from the “Pitch Frequency Chart” above, there really is not a comparison to be made between Mat Latos and Tony Cingrani. Latos incorporates his sinker, slider, and change into his arsenal often, whereas Cingrani will use them sparingly, and with much less success than Latos.

Again, Cingrani’s minor league stats look good on paper, and with the recent success of some other young pitchers, including Mets' Matt Harvey and Cingrani’s opponent Thursday night, Marlins' Jose Fernandez, it is easy to dream on Cingrani. Consider this though, Cingrani was a third round pick who, as Ray Flowers pointed out in his recent “By The Numbers: Rookie Hot Shots or Veterans?” came into the season as the 82nd ranked prospect by Baseball America. Whereas, Jose Fernandez was a top 15 pick in 2011 and Matt Harvey was a top 10 pick in 2010 and both were much higher ranked prospects coming up through the minors than Cingrani.

All this said, I do recommend you pick/pitch Tony Cingrani against the Marlins Thursday, but ideally I would be shopping him, even before his start, while is stock is “Red” hot. Cingrani may have some success, but his arsenal, at this part of his career, is more fitting of a relief pitcher than a starter who will have to face the same batters two, three, four times in a game.

Here is a look at Cingrani's debut, which highlights the points I made above, especially the one where I said "try and trade him now while his stock is at it's highest," Cingrani will have his struggles due to the fact he mainly just throws fastballs.

Cingrani went five innings in his Major League debut Thursday striking out eight Marlins' hitters, allowing just one run on five hits, and walked three. Yes this was an impressive debut, but to put it into perspective it came against a Miami team that is currently dead last in all of baseball in runs scored (23), home runs (4), and team average (.208). Cingrani looks to have another favorable match up in his next outing, which will be against the last place Chicago Cubs, so do not feel you have to rush to make a deal, but do make a deal sooner than later of Cingrani, who only threw just 19 non-fastballs of his 101 pitches in Thursday's game.

For more Fantasy Baseball insight listen to our Shows on RotoInfo.com Radio Network by clicking on the show banners below:

For those of you who play in daily leagues be sure to bookmark RotoInfo.com's MLB Lineup Grid page it will make setting your lineup a breeze.

Here is a free $5 challenge at Draft Day just for reading this article (no cost to play, click on banner to enter).

If you are looking to play daily league baseball and want to be entered into a Free Roll at no cost click on banner below and use promocode: FantasyNomad