Quality Starts and Kikuchi Starts

Fantasy players hate it, but common sense prevails (most of the time)

I promise not to go on a diatribe this time, perhaps I’ll just add some emphasis here or there, but no rant, just the facts.

Last offseason I did a study of quality starts across the league and found that teams that got a quality start won almost 70% of the time and teams that got a quality start when the opponent did not won nearly 80% of the time in the 2023 season.

I haven’t done the same for 2024 across the league, but one thing is for sure: The Astros won when they got a quality start last season.

I give Framber a lot of grief, but that’s mostly because I don’t think an “Ace” should lose concentration as often as he seems to, especially over “trivial” things, like a called ball in the first inning, for example.

Those things aside, Framber is an excellent pitcher, on balance.

But he didn’t lead the Astros in quality starts.

That was Hunter Brown. He of the 9.78 ERA entering May and a 6.39 ERA entering June.

Things began to change for Brown on May 22 when the righty ripped off the first of 8 consecutive quality starts a run that eventually reached 11 quality starts in 12 outings.

After losing the first 3 of those 11, Houston won the last 8.

There is no rant this year because this is no longer debatable in my mind, it’s just common sense.

You have a better chance to win with a quality start.

But, in addition to quality starts, I’ll have a new metric to track in 2025.

Yusei Kikuchi and the Kikuchi Start

And then there is the “Kikuchi Start”.

You’ll notice above that Yusei Kikuchi had 4 quality starts after being traded to the Astros, those came in starts 6, 7, 8 and 10 with Houston.

In starts 1 through 4 Kikuchi pitched 5.1 or 5.2 innings and gave up less than 3 earned runs and in start 5 he pitched 5.2 innings and gave up 3 earned runs.

He didn’t qualify for a quality start in any of those, but the Astros won all 5 games, in the middle of a pennant race no less.

That led me to postulate that the first four of Kikuchi’s starts with Houston, and any similar game, should henceforth be known as Kikuchi Starts, which is defined as:

A starting pitcher who pitches 5.1 or 5.2 innings and gives up 2 or fewer earned runs shall be credited with a Kikuchi Start.

Why 5.1 or 5.2? It shows the starter had an opportunity for a quality start, as he pitched into the 6th inning and had given up 2 or fewer runs.

He just didn’t get there for whatever reason, but he also didn’t get bombed.

I lowered the earned runs to 2 or less precisely because he didn’t complete the 6th inning, avoiding the 5.1 inning 3 run scenario that results in a 5.06 ERA (or the 5.2 IP/4.76 ERA) for the day.

It turns out Houston had 14 such starts in 2024, winning 11 for a 78.6% winning percentage, significantly above their 68.5% winning percentage for quality starts, small sample size acknowledged.

Also note that all three Kikuchi Start losses for Houston were by one run and all three were in 10 innings.

The Astros were very close to going undefeated in these starts, though that’s not sustainable.

The point remains these starts “give you a chance to win”.

Across the league in 2024 teams that got a Kikuchi Start won 203 of 310 games, or 65.4%.

Because I’ve lowered the upper earned run threshold to 2, the average ERA for the starter in a Kikuchi Start is a minuscule 2.15 (the Astros ERA in Kikuchi Starts was 2.76).

In 160 of the 310 Kikuchi Starts the starter allowed 0 (50) or 1 run (110).

It’s not quite the win rate of quality starts, but it’s not bad either.

Simple math tells us adding the 50 quality start wins and 11 Kikuchi Start wins means 61 of the Astros 88 wins in 2024 fit into one of these two categories - 69.3%.

My takeaway is this: If your starter gives up 3 or less earned runs and qualifies for a Quality Start or Kikuchi Start, you have a good chance to win.

That’s not rocket science, just common sense.

That and you can never have too much starting pitching.

The best Kikuchi Starters in 2024 include a familiar name

Eight pitchers recorded 5 Kikuchi Starts in 2024: Aaron Civale, Ben Lively, Brayan Bello, Collin Rea, Javier Assad, Ryan Pepiot, Tanner Bibee and Trevor Rogers.

Two pitchers had 6: Mitch Spence and, wait for it…Yusei Kikuchi.

Thanks for reading!