Aceves, McCutchen, Laffey: SP/RP Qualified Relievers

by
July 22, 2011

I have profiled several SP/RP qualified relievers so far this season (here and here and here) with David Hernandez currently being the best out of the bunch. Today I am going to dig a little deeper and look at some SP/RP relievers on the fringe of being owned.

Alfredo Aceves (0.6% owned ESPN) – On the surface, Aceves looks to have pitched OK as a reliever this season with 7 Holds, 2.64 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP. These stats are all smoke and mirrors. The rate stats are being driven by a low BABIP of 0.188. His FIP (4.72) and xFIP (4.60) are much higher.

The one item he has been able to improve has a reliever is his walks. As a starter his walk rate is 5.57 BB/9, but as a reliever it is down to 2.64 BB/9.

I would not count on him padding your rate stats. I could see him being a decent source of counting stats like Holds (Boston should have plenty of leads) or Wins.

Daniel McCutchen (0.1% owned ESPN) – Like Aceves, McCutchen has some nice stats as a reliever, a 3-1 record, 8 Holds, a 1.20 WHIP and a 2.19 ERA. His low ERA is being driven down by a low BABIP (0.265) and HR/FB (6.3%). McCutchen has not been much of a strikeout pitcher in his time in the majors (4.9 K/9) and has walked a few too many batters (3.1 BB/9). All these stats lead to a FIP (3.87), xFIP (4.34) and SIERA (4.13) that are each about twice his ERA.

The only reason I see to own him is if an owner is in desperate need of Holds.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Aaron Laffey (0.0% owned ESPN) – Another player with a nice and pretty ERA (2.39). His ERA is not being suppessed by a super low BABIP (0.280) or HR/FB (13.9%). Instead, he has some how stranded 91.3% of the base runners allowed this season. Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but his FIP (4.61), xFIP (4.00) and SIERA (3.83) are all a bit higher than his ERA. With a K/BB of 1.75, he doesn’t provide much promise.

Also, he is generally not even used as a setup man, so his chances of generating Holds is at a minimum.

Final thoughts

All 3 of these pitchers have an ERA that is not sustainable and provide little in the way of Ks. If you are looking for some SP/RP qualified pitchers, I would look for one mention in one of my previous articles.





 

Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.

8 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
pbjsandwichMember since 2022
14 years ago

picked up McCutchen a couple of days ago. Really need the holds lol

0