Once Yu Darvish agreed to his fat new contract with the Rangers a few weeks ago, we crowdsourced his traditional 5×5 stats to determine his fantasy worth. The results came back, and the 560 responses indicated that most of RotoGraphs’ readership expects him to approximate the 2011 version of Madison Bumgarner next season, meaning he’s a top 15-20 starting pitcher. This week we’re going to take it a step further and crowdsource Darvish’s ottoneu points stats.

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If you’re using ADP to help guide you through your draft, it’s always good to see it in action.  The lists you see on Mock Draft Central are great because of the aggregate data, but you know how a lot of mocks go — sometimes you get guys that stay for the first 10 rounds and then leave, putting it on auto-pick the rest of the way.  That just skews the data towards the site’s rankings and becomes less helpful.  So while the sample size is tiny, let’s look at the RotoGraphs Reader Mock Draft and see how a group of informed and dedicated fantasy baseball citizens did with their catchers in comparison to the ADP data we see.

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Last week, Eno Sarris put up a post asking our wonderful readers to participate in a mock draft. As usual, the readers came through. Since this is a website that makes a living doing analysis, it would only be fair if we looked at the reader mock draft and offered our opinions. Here’s a look at some of the early rounds of our reader mock draft.

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Today I continue on with the Pod pitcher projections, this time with AL Rookie of the Year winner, Jeremy Hellickson. I have written a lot about Hellickson over the off-season, all with similar analysis. As FanGraphs readers, you are all likely well aware of the huge disparity between Hellickson’s ERA and SIERA last year. I have speculated that he would improve his peripherals enough this upcoming season that his ERA would not balloon to a level close to his SIERA, and would instead settle into the high-3.00 range. Let’s see if my prediction from just eyeing the skills is right.

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Here is a short list of relievers that had a higher xFIP than the Indians’ Vinnie Pestano last season, John Axford, Mike Adams, Jonny Venters, Glen Perkins, and Ryan Madson. That is an extremely impressive list of closers and set-up men that Pestano was, at worst, comparable with last year.

Currently, Pestano is being drafted in just 1.5% of Mock Draft Central drafts, less than Joel Peralta, Mark Melancon, Nick Masset, and Evan Meek, to name a few. This is not to say that the aforementioned are bad relievers, but they probably do not have the same fantasy value that Pestano has at this point.

While he does not have tremendous velocity or great secondary offerings, his assortment of fastball variations and a solid slurve-slider have made him an incredibly productive reliever. While he sat on his four-seam fastball 44.4% of the time according to PITCHf/x last year, his two-seamer and cutter were thrown a combined 34.6%, all of which sat between 92 and 93 mph on average. It is certainly difficult to strike batters out at a 33.6% clip with 80% of offerings being thrown at the same average speed, but the former Cal State Fullerton closer was able to do so. Pestano does not throw his slider much more frequently in two-strike counts either, throwing it on just 19.4% of two strike pitches.

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A few users (especially Oliver) expressed some interest in doing a RotoGraphs Reader Mock Draft, and we love the idea. Please use this post as a meeting point to figure out the draft, its’ details, and to post the results. If it’s okay with you, the RotoGraphs team will (politely) discuss the results once the draft is concluded. We think you guys are well-informed and among the best fantasy players on the interwebs, so this makes a whole grip of sense.

When Scott Boras and company decided they didn’t like the smell of the longer term offers Edwin Jackson was receiving and started kicking the tires on a one-year deal, it was almost tailor made for a team like the Washington Nationals.

They project well back of the Atlanta Braves, but after failing to acquire an impact bat, there were still a few wins to squeak out of a rotation spot at the expense of trotting John Lannan out there every fifth day. Three wins (which might be optimistic) might keep them hanging around long enough to keep their fan base excited throughout the summer and if the ball bounces their way more often than not, perhaps even flirt with a wild card birth.

And heck, even if the wheels fall off, Jackson should be pretty easy to unload at the trade deadline for some toolsy kind of kid few have heard of in Portland.

But Jackson has been rather sneaky-valuable in fantasy circles and according to Mock Draft Central, he’s being selected right around the 19th round in standard 12 team drafts, so he doesn’t come at a high price. Does this move to Washington help or hurt his fantasy value (assuming he passes the physical, of course)?

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It’s time for the first pitcher to experience the Pod projection process. Aside from Yu Darvish, Michael Pineda has probably been the most newsworthy pitcher of the off-season after the recent trade to New York. FanGraphs covered every angle of the trade, including speculation on how he might perform moving away from the pitcher’s haven in Seattle to the home-run happy Yankee Stadium. As such, I figured it would be appropriate to actually try to figure this out by mixing all the numbers together and spitting out a projection. But before you go any further, make sure you read my pitcher projection introduction.

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Dead arm used to be one of the more common terms heard during spring training. A pitcher would get railed during a March or early April start and the manager would explain it away by saying he just has dead arm — a term which is virtually useless, but which more or less prevents more in-depth questioning. Thanks in no small part to the growth and proliferation of diagnostic tools and techniques, we’re getting more actual diagnoses and fewer euphemisms. While the term still gets some play, just one pitcher actually went on the DL with dead arm — the Yankees called it tired arm, but that’s six of one, half a dozen of the other — and it was actually a pretty apt diagnosis. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday night was the ottoneu keeper deadline and every owner was busy deciding who had earned a roster spot for 2012 and who was being tossed back into the pond. While I was debating a $40 Matt Holliday and a $26 Pablo Sandoval, others were wrestling over a $42 Roy Halladay or a $27 Mat Latos.

The kept players can provide some great insight into where the ottoneu owner universe stands on the ottoneu player universe as we head into auction season.

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