2015 Roto Sigh Young

It’s best of and worst of week at RotoGraphs. I’m here with 2015’s worst starting pitchers.

There’s a lot of ways to approach this. A lot of pitchers’ values are conditional upon their circumstances, so I’ve tried to keep this in mind when creating this list. When it comes down to it, though, this is all just one man’s opinion.

Fantasy Pros calculated the aggregate average draft position (ADP) using several premier fantasy baseball websites, so that’s the value upon which I’ve based my decisions.

But first, let us acknowledge 2015’s All-Injury Sigh Young Squad:

Adam Wainwright
Alex Cobb
Yu Darvish
Hyun-Jin Ryu
Homer Bailey
Cliff Lee
Marcus Stroman
Zack Wheeler

Only Waino, Stroman and Bailey saw any time on the mound this year, and only the former two made their limited time count. Note that a pitcher’s inclusion on the All-Injury Squad does not preclude them from a Sigh Young Award.

Here’s my all-MLB Sigh Young ballot for 2015.

Legend:
Position: ADP, per Fantasy Pros / Actual Rank, per ESPN’s Player Rater
Hitters/Pitchers: ADP / Actual
Overall: ADP / Actual

10. Steve Cishek
RP: 13th / 187th
Pitchers: 40th / 306th
Overall: 118th / 579th

The closer position experiences all kinds of turnover every year, nor was he drafted especially early on among closers. However, considering Cishek was borderline useless for most teams and was selected during largely non-trivial middle rounds in most drafts, he earned himself the opportunity to bring up the rear for the Sigh Young ballot.

Cishek became relevant when he ramped up the velocity on his change-up, and he came crashing down to earth this year after losing more than 3 mph on the pitch, all while seeing his walk rate (BB%) spike big-time. A.J. Ramos‘ blown saves forsake his actual performance, which was admirable but not remarkable. The strikeout rate is excellent, but the walk rate (BB%) was occasionally troublesome. Still, Ramos should have no trouble keeping the closer role to himself, banishing Cishek to irrelevance for 2016.

9. James Shields
SP: 18th / 46th
Pitchers: 21st / 76th
Overall: 72nd / 164th

Shields didn’t have a particularly bad season, but it was certainly a strange one. Shields made a hobby out of sending balls into orbit, causing his ratios to explode. Meanwhile, he found the zone at a career-low rate, inflating his walk rate while also burgeoning his strikeout rate (K%). What we were left with was a James Shields who, by xFIP, was really no more or less effective than in past seasons — he just got there a very different way.

Hitters pounded Shields’ fastball this year. PitchF/X says he lost roughly 1.4 mph on the pitch. It doesn’t represent a career-low, but his fastball was wildly ineffective last time his velocity dropped this low. Dude will be 34 next year, so the extra home runs and loss of control could wind up being mainstays.

8. Phil Hughes
SP: 33rd / 102nd
Pitchers: 47th / 166th
Overall: 131st / 355th

Just when it seemed like Hughes had it all figured out and finally tamed the long ball… Nope. Frankly, we should’ve seen it coming. To his credit, Hughes once again kept free passes to a minimum. However, he struck out one-third fewer hitters than last year, making 2015 his most worthless season on a per-inning basis.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s this: the last time Hughes’ K-rate plummeted (in 2011), it bounced back to normal levels the next year. The silver loses its luster, however, when I toss out the “small sample size” caveat. Few guys can make the Tim Hudson thing work — namely, Tim Hudson. This don’t-walk-anyone thing will draw you in, but the home runs will always push you away.

7. Mat Latos
SP: 44th / 178th
Pitchers: 62nd / 309th
Overall: 162nd / 583rd

After a disappointing, injury-plagued 2014 season, Latos received a draft day discount in 2015. I thought he might be a bargain, but he turned out to be anything but, hitting the disabled list again and bouncing from team to team.

His ERA shows a bit of bad luck, as exemplified by his unfairly-low left-on-base rate (63.8 LOB%). Otherwise, his numbers don’t actually look that bad. He has a lot of baggage for a soon-to-be 28-year-old, but he could, again, be a worthwhile flyer next year in deeper leagues. At this point, it’ll all depend on health.

6. Doug Fister
SP: 35th / 173rd
Pitchers: 50th / 300th
Overall: 140th / 565th

Hughes looks like a saint when compared to Fister. Drafted at roughly the same ADP, Fister got smacked around and lost his grip on the No. 5 slot in the Nationals’ rotation.

The strikeouts continue to wane, as does the ground ball rate (GB%). He may have gotten a bit unlucky on fly balls, but his Phil Hughesian plate discipline doesn’t do much in standard leagues. Fister will find a new home somewhere, and he’ll probably come at a discount to his new team. He’s a 2016 late-round flyer at best.

5. Alex Cobb
SP: 28th / UR
Pitchers: 32nd / UR
Overall: 101st / UR

This one’s an in-betweener, as Cobb’s forearm tendinitis was announced during spring training. His ADP reflected this news, as Cobb, who was at one point ranked in the top-25 starting pitchers, began to slip down draft boards — but was often still drafted as a late-round gamble.

For many teams, his season-ending Tommy John surgery represented a small loss. For teams that drafted early in March, however, Cobb’s loss was a devastating blow. It’s a tough call, but he kind of has to make the list. Look for him to rebound next year.

4. Greg Holland
RP: 3rd / 45th
Pitchers: 18th / 97th
Overall: 58th / 222nd

Despite recording 32 saves, Holland completely unraveled in 2015. He was lucky to blow only five saves, and fantasy owners held their collective breaths every time he took the mound. I hadn’t followed his season closely, but it seems that he was pitching with a partially torn ligament during the season.

He underwent Tommy John surgery two weeks ago and will likely miss the entire 2016 season and will be a free agent prior to the 2017 season. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a small market team take a gamble on him.

3. Julio Teheran
SP: 17th / 64th
Pitchers: 20th / 102nd
Overall: 68th / 231st

Home runs have always kind of been a problem for Teheran, but the issue really escalated in 2015. Moreover, his 400-plus innings of solid control prior to 2015 devolved into merely adequate control, as his walk rate ballooned more than an additional walk per nine innings. As the 17th starter off the board, a 4.04 ERA and 1.31 WHIP were far from encouraging. Moreover, I know he continued to damage teams, as he remained more than 85-percent owned for a majority of the season.

Looks to me like Teheran’s off-speed pitches lost some of their oomph. Hitters chased his out-of-zone pitches less often, but not to an alarming extent. Alas, the fluctuations in his home run and walk rates may be the result of the natural ebbs and flows of player performance. Given he induced a career-best ground ball rate, I may target him as a value pick in 2016.

2. Adam Wainwright
SP: 13th / 142nd
Pitchers: 14th /
Overall: 46th / 478th

All right. So maybe Waino should be 2015’s Sigh Young. He made only four starts and, due to a ruptured Achilles tendon, completed only three of them. He then hit the disabled list, where he stayed until he was activated very recently by the Cardinals for the playoffs to pitch out of the bullpen.

So his absence can be construed as lost value and, indeed, it is. But at least Wainwright’s injury allowed you to replace him without a conflicted conscience. At least you didn’t endure terrible start after terrible start, waiting for Wainwright to come around. Wainwright’s absence was certifiably more value than the 2015 Sigh Young’s presence. Indeed — Wainwright produced almost as much value in 28 innings as the Sigh Young did in 214, according to the Player Rater.

And your 2015 Sigh Young winner is…

1. Jeff Samardzija
SP: 16th / 107th
Pitchers: 19th /
Overall: 64th / 368th

Right. At least he pitched. But let’s be honest: you could have plugged in myriad waiver wire options to replace Wainwright and would have actually produced better results than if you ran out Samardzija every fifth day. The strikeouts and ground balls abandoned Samardzijzja, leading to more hits and, on top of it, more home runs. The 1.29 WHIP is tolerable, if not even league-average or good in deep leagues, but you don’t draft the 16th starting pitcher overall expecting simply good. Nor do you expect your 7th-round draft pick to damage you with a 4.96 ERA.

Because Samardzifdazja’s near-5 ERA and 6.86 K/9 certainly did just that. He finished the season ESPN’s 49th-most-owned starting pitcher, which, really, says the same thing as: ESPN owners still valued Samardzifazxaja as the 49th-best pitcher.

Granted, Samardzididfazzzjja may have ridden the pine for many teams for many months. He may have seen just as much playing time for fantasy rosters as Wainwright did, given his prevalent lack of results. But I doubt it. Moreover, even if he didn’t pitch, he wasted valuable bench space for at least two-thirds of teams for most of the season.

It appears his slider might be the culprit, as he posted a negative value with it for the first time in his career, really. Simultaneously, hitters made contact with out-of-zone pitches far more often than usual. I imagine these two occurrences are correlated, given the overall contact rate on his slider catapulted almost 10 percentage points over last year both in and out of the zone. The strikeouts he lost from his slider account for about half of the strikeouts he lost from 2014.

Certainly, it may not all be his fault. The regression fairies may grant him some wishes this offseason, and he’ll likely see things turn around next season.

But that’s not the point. Samardzija hurt you, he hurt you for a long time, and he’ll still hurt . For that, my friends, Jeff Samardzija is your 2015 Roto Sigh Young.