2016 Pod’s Picks & Pans: Starting Pitcher

You’re not sick of reading about my Picks and Pans yet, right? Of course not, you love them! We’re winding down the series and today we move along to the starting pitchers. As you no doubt have argued in the comments, my valuations take innings into consideration. It has to. We’re valuing the player’s contributions to our team. This is from a strict dollar value perspective. This is different than where I might suggest drafting the player in a snake draft, as I’d be more willing to take a lower ranked pitcher projected for better ratios than a higher ranked one with worse ratios, but more innings.

Pod’s Picks: Starting Pitcher

Player	Mike	Consensus	Diff
Corey Kluber	4	9	-5
Stephen Strasburg	7	13	-6
Justin Verlander	28	48	-20
Ian Kennedy	38	65	-27

Corey Kluber is perhaps the most undervalued ace in fantasy baseball this season. Of course, it’s fairly easy to see why — his ERA sat at 3.49 last year and his meaningless win-loss record was a brutal 9-16. But we’re smarter than that and know to look deeper than the former and completely ignore the latter. His SIERA was actually a much more impressive 2.98 and he’ll benefit from what promises to be the best Indians defense in years. He’ll also pitch a ton of innings and rack up a boatload of strikeouts.

Speaking of undervalued aces, why the pessimism on Stephen Strasburg?! Actually, once again, it’s easy to pinpoint the reason — he battled injuries last season and finished the year with a meh 3.46 ERA. He’s also only pitched more than 183 innings once in his career. But it was clear that his early season injury issues hampered his performance. Why was it so obvious? Because when he returned from his second, and last, disabled list stint, he finished with a 10-game stretch that was masterful. He struck out 37% of the batters he faced and posted a tiny 1.90 ERA. This was a needed reminder of what a healthy Strasburg is capable of. It’s silly to rank him outside the top 10, but provides another opportunity to grab an ace at a discounted rate.

My Justin Verlander projection surprised me as I figured for sure he would be overvalued this year and I would be on the bearish side. And there seems to be a clear divide in opinion as both Steamer and ZiPS are forecasting a high-3.00 ERA, while the Fans are expecting a low-3.00 ERA. Naturally, I’m right in the middle, projecting a 3.48 mark. For some reason, Steamer is projecting a steep decline in strikeout rate. That probably stems from his decreased velocity the last couple of years, combined with the effects of aging.

But his season performance was also clearly pulled down by his work immediately after returning from a triceps injury. He struck out just 8.8% of the batters he faced when he returned in June and actually walked more batters than he struck out. But once the calendar flipped to July, he seemingly got healthier and he was back up above 21% for the rest of the season. I expect a similar performance in 2016.

Ian Kennedy is going to prove to be a bargain, especially in deep leagues. Last year he managed to sustain the strikeout rate spike he enjoyed in 2014, but a ridiculous 17.2% HR/FB rate marred his results. Moving to the American League is never a positive, but he has ended up in the best possible situation in Kansas City. The Royals figure to employ the best defense, by far, in baseball, including easily the best outfield defense. That’s important because Kennedy is a fly ball pitcher. Furthermore, Kauffman Stadium sports the fourth lowest home run park factor in baseball. It’s pretty amazing to see the discrepancy between the Steamer and ZiPS projections, with the latter being a full run higher than the former. It makes me truly question the entire ZiPS pitcher projection engine.

Pod’s Pans: Starting Pitcher

Player	Mike	Consensus	Diff
Lance McCullers	74	43	31
Yu Darvish	82	49	33
Madison Bumgarner	8	5	3
Wei-Yin Chen	50	32	18

Obviously, these rankings were published before Lance McCullers‘ shoulder injury that’s going to delay the start of his season. But, this risk was precisely why my ranking was so much more bearish to begin with. There were many question marks here. First, he hasn’t thrown a pitch at the Triple-A level. Yes, pitchers could more easily make the jump from Double-A to the Majors and succeed than hitters. But it’s still a risky move.

Second, the Astros essentially have six starting pitchers for five slots. I’m no Scott Feldman fan, but he’s given the team better than league average ERA marks, even if those marks were built upon a shaky skills foundation. I just couldn’t imagine Feldman being banished to the bullpen all season. So innings was going to be an issue for McCullers. From a performance standpoint, assuming full health, I was a bit more optimistic than the two projection systems and slightly more bearish than the Fans. As is usually the case. The shoulder injury increases the risk even further, but of course his price is now going to come down, perhaps making him a reasonable gamble.

How are people so bullish on Yu Darvish? He’s coming back from TJ surgery! Not only is it unlikely he starts much more than 20 games, but there’s serious performance risk as well. Pitchers typically struggle with their control and command upon returning from the procedure and their fastball velocity is often down as well. Darvish hasn’t exactly possessed pinpoint control during his career, so he could take some time to get his feel back. He does have enough of an assortment of pitches to get by without his best fastball, but given the strong correlation between fastball velocity and strikeout rate, a decline in the former may very well lead to a decline in the latter. I totally get the upside, but it seems to ignore the massive risk associated with pitchers returning from this surgery.

Man, I didn’t realize I was bearish on Madison Bumgarner, though three spots in the rankings isn’t a whole lot. But it’s clear when comparing my projection to the various systems, I’m certainly more pessimistic. The other systems are all in the 2.70 ERA range, I’m at 3.07! There are essentially two drivers of the discrepancy — the strikeout rate and the LOB%. Bumgarner’s strikeout rate has risen for three straight seasons and last year all four of his primary pitches sported SwStk% marks above his career average. That trend simply cannot continue, so I’m betting on some regression. In addition, he has outperformed his xK% marks, and that’s not a skill I think can last.

Second, the projection systems are all forecasting a LOB% mark in the 77%-78% range, which is well above his 76% career average. Only once in a full season has he posted a LOB% above 75.8%, so what could possibly be leading to such a projection? I think it’s far too aggressive. You could see how that affects his ERA projection as both Steamer and ZiPS are projecting Bumgarner to set a new career best ERA! That’s a rarity for an established veteran and pretty surprising to see.

It’s easy to get somewhat excited about Wei-Yin Chen’s move to the National League. He’s coming off a strikeout rate spike and the best ERA of his career. But you’re making a mistake if you project an NL boost off of his 2015 performance. Instead, you need to project his 2016 performance as if he were staying in the AL and then adjust based on league and park factors. At 30 years old, it’s difficult to project Chen to sustain that strikeout rate surge. His four-seam fastball produced a career high SwStk%, despite no increase in velocity, so you have to figure in some regression.

Once you account for a decline in strikeout rate had he remained in the AL, a boost from the move to the NL isn’t going to result in that much higher a strikeout rate mark than what he posted in 2015. But perhaps more importantly, Chen significantly outperformed his SIERA! A 3.34 ERA hid a soft skill set, and he accomplished this by stranding a ridiculous 80.5% of runners. That’s not going to happen again. The league and park switches are indeed a positive, though he’ll be trading in one of the best defenses in baseball for a mediocre one.