Some fantasy baseball players here and there, sort of, in a way, kind of think that already. But they may not be eager to draft Alex Cobb like one, and they shouldn’t need to do so. In terms of performance, there haven’t been too many hurlers better in the last couple of years. He finished 34^th in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for the position. The right-hander has yet to pitch even 170 innings in a single campaign at any level, however. He likely doesn’t strike the populace as dependable.

There really isn’t a need to make the case that Cobb is good. Fantasy owners know that he’s good. But would they call him an ace? Probably not. For now, then, I’ll call him a pseudo ace.

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The Phillies “rebuild” (or lack thereof) is a common source of scorn around these parts, but there’s a method to their madness. Interim team president Pat Gillick spoke with reporters on Monday about the club’s plans, and his comments resonated with me. The Phillies are in the same position as I was in ottoneu last offseason – few real assets with a need to get younger and cheaper. And so, today’s topic is about being methodical.

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There were few expectations placed on Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura last season. While he was considered the favorite to open the year as the team’s fifth starter, Ventura had only made three starts in the majors. The potential was there, but Ventura came with a lot of uncertainty. Once he got the job, Ventura proved he was a fifth starter in name only. Over 183 innings, the 23-year-old posted a 3.20 ERA, with a 3.60 FIP. By the playoffs, Ventura had emerged as the Royals second most dependable starter behind James Shields. With Shields expected to leave town during the offseason, Ventura will enter 2015 with enormous expectations. Will he provide an encore?

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Yesterday, the Athletics continued their wheeling and dealing this offseason by trading the pitcher they just traded for over the summer. Jeff Samardzija will now be calling the South side of Chicago home and given the perception of each home park, this is seemingly a bad move for his fantasy value. Let’s check out the park factors.

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This past spring, Jake Odorizzi had an opportunity, but not much in the way of expectations from fantasy baseball players. He hadn’t yet been exceptional at anything. There had existed a decent chance that he would eventually lose his rotation spot. For the first couple of months of the season, he struggled in each outing after his first time through the opposition’s lineup. Rotisserie owners might even consider his 76^th-place finish in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for starting pitchers a bit of a coup. According to the list, he earned a buck – on the nose. How exciting.

But Odorizzi also did something interesting: strike people out more frequently. He finished with a 4.13 ERA and 1.29 WHIP, but the 174 K’s (24.2 K%) in 168 innings were quite nice. They lowered the right-hander’s FIP, xFIP, and SIERA, naturally, to more eye-catching figures and raised the level of interest of the fantasy population. How great should that interest be in 2015?

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By the time James Paxton left in the sixth inning of his second start of 2014, he had done little in his young career to dampen expectations of him becoming a solid major league starter. After all, between the four starts he made in September 2013 and his first two in April, Paxton had gone 5-0 with a 1.75 ERA, an 8.5 K/9 and flashed an especially encouraging ability to generate ground balls, displaying some of the ingredients that comprise the finest fantasy starters.

Unfortunately, a strain of the left latissimus dorsi muscle curtailed his outing on April 8, causing him to miss nearly four months and finish 102nd among starting pitchers, according to Zach Sanders’ end of the season rankings. But upon returning, Paxton was able to redeem what was left of his season, enough so to make 2014 a step forward for the southpaw and perhaps, at the age of 26, setting him up as a breakout candidate for 2015.

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I have been asked a few times to list the hitters who where shifted the most in 2014 along with their results. Well, here they are along with a few thoughts.

Hitters who hit into a shift 100 or more times during the 2014 season.
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It may be an understatement to claim that fantasy owners were excited about Danny Salazar heading into the season. And who could blame us? After undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2010, he returned with a new arm and rose swiftly through the Indians farm system. He then hinted at his vast potential during his 2013 MLB debut, as he struck out nearly 31% of batters faced, while displaying strong control. And that performance was backed by a sizzling 96 mph fastball, lethal changeup and good slider. It was enough to get us RotoGraphs rankers to place him 24th among starters, despite having just 52.0 Major League innings under his belt.

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Well, I will take one for the Rotographs team and publish our first rankings to get torn part. I am going with the simplest of all pitcher rankings …. strikeouts minus walks. Basically, how much easily measurable talent does a pitcher have. Can the pitcher strikeout hitters? Does he not walk many? Can he keep pitching for an entire season? Just by running this simple formula and creating a graph of the rankings, some initial thoughts can be formulated for the 2015 draft/auction season.

For the rankings, I used our Steamer projections. These numbers can be re-run at a later date with other projections for more clarity. The entire list is available here. In addition to the list, I have the top 100 pitchers ranked. What I look for now is tiers are any pitchers group together. I like to get one of these pitchers before the talent level drops off.
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It’s tempting to say Brandon Moss will be about the same in his new digs. Without delving too deep, it looks like the slugger goes from a good lineup in one pitcher’s park to a good lineup in another. But there are plenty of reasons to like Moss more today than yesterday. He’s an Indian now.

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