In 2009, Ricky Nolasco was the poster boy for performing well below your predictors. His ERA ended at 5.06 while his FIP suggested 3.35. This disparity was in large part due to his high strikeouts and modest walk rate which collided with an abnormally low strand rate and piles of hits allowed. He was a classic buy low kind of guy in fantasy circles, with most expecting a major improvement in 2010.

Nolasco did improve, but not by a whole lot. And what’s happened since then is he has continued to underperform his FIP, and yet he has very much declined in performance. This can be summed up pretty quickly:

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David Price was awfully good in 2012. So good, that he earned himself some hardware which has been hotly debated in recent days. Fortunately, I’m not here to contribute to that conversation (argument). I’m simply here to wonder if we’ve yet to see the best from Price, and if not, what we might reasonably expect in his follow up to a career season.

Looking back over the last twelve American League Cy Young winners, it appears that it’s more the norm to underperform your Cy standard. This is far from scientific, it’s merely an observation, and a small sample observation at that:

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In 2012, Ryan Doumit played in the most games in a season in his eight year professional career. That, right there, could be the beginning and the end to this post — because almost every snippet, write-up, and crystal ball-ism for Ryan Doumit headed into 2012 revolved around his inability to stay on the field. If he could find the at-bats, chances are he would be pretty useful. Surprisingly, he managed to stay (mostly) on the field, and he was unsurprisingly useful.

According to Zach Sanders’ mathematical genius, Doumit was the 10th ranked (qualified) catcher, with a value of $7, or to the Facebook generation, the price of promoting your post. For the Minnesota Twins, they got a 1.6 WAR performance which amounts to a tidy little bargain on what became a 3-year $10 million dollar deal after his June extension. And chances are, savvy owner, if you picked up Doumit for $3 bucks or around the 20th round where he projected, you found yourself an equally nice bargain at a notoriously fickle position.

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Comparing Everth Cabrera to the likes of Davey Lopes, Willie Wilson, Otis Nixon and Tim Raines would be ridiculous, but Cabrera has something in common with all of them. Only ten players in Major League Baseball history have had fewer than 450 plate appearances and stolen 44 or more bases. Cabrera is one of them.

As you know, Cabrera wasn’t originally in the San Diego Padres’ plans for 2012. They started the season with Orlando Hudson at second base and Jason Bartlett at shortstop. After miserable starts for both (and an injury to Bartlett), the Padres recalled Cabrera in late May and he summarily turned in a nice little season.

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It’s hard to believe, but 2013 will be the 10th major league season for David Wright. In those ten years, it seems like he’s been about three different players.

Wright has hit as many as 33 home runs and as few as 10. He stole 34 bases one year only to follow it up with 15 the next. He’s gone from a decent to a terrible to a very good defender. Indeed, in fantasy baseball circles, if you’re a Wright owner, it has been a bit of a roller coaster — but he has always provided good value at third base with the exception of 2011.

And good he was in 2012. If you count his defense, Wright was great — but chances are you don’t, which limits just how high you’re jumping up and down about him. His .306/.391/.492 line with 21 home runs, 91 runs, 93 RBI, and 15 stolen bases is awfully nice production from a third baseman, but if you’re a Wright owner, you’re always looking for a little more than that, right? Even if it’s unreasonable, you kind of expect 26, 27 home runs and triple digit runs and RBI.

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Dustin Pedroia must have wondered exactly how he insulted the patron saint of thumbs. He injured the abductor muscle in his right thumb in May, causing him to miss six games, and then a month later, he hyperextended the same thumb. As my kid would say, “ouchers miscouchers.”

There’s no way of knowing how that specifically impacted his hitting, but you have to believe it certainly didn’t help. Despite the thumb injuries (and a host of other dings), Pedroia still managed to hit 15 home runs, steal 20 bags and amass a triple slash of .290/.347/.449, placing him eighth on the Zach Sanders supernatural end of season rankings at second base.

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I hit .307/.354/.522 with 22 home runs, 92 RBI, and 76 runs scored in just 469 at bats and yet ottoneu hates me.  I’m Allen Craig and I disapprove of this message.

But based on Zach Sanders and his magical ranking system, Allen Craig squeaks into the top ten rankings among first basemen in typical 5×5 leagues, ahead of the likes of Adrian Gonzalez and sometimes catcher Joe Mauer, which ain’t a terrible place to be for a guy that was going for a song when the 2012 season started.

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It was largely a forgettable season for Kevin Youkilis in 2012, and certainly forgettable for fantasy owners who expected anything close to his typical performance. He was frequently injured, run out of Boston by a rookie, and ultimately never resembled the Youkilis of old. Looking at his end of season value, Zach Sanders puts him basically at replacement level with a zero dollar value, and ranked 36th overall. Yeeks.

What went wrong? Pretty much everything.

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The American League “Fantasy Turtle” has provided a good deal of fodder over the past couple of weeks.  Recall that the “fantasy turtle” is considered the best buy-low player in the AL for fantasy purposes. For more background on the fantasy awards, please see this post.

There was hardly consensus when the staff voted for this award. Alex Rios, Doug Fister, Brandon Moss (see Cwik’s Turtle argument), Torii Hunter (whom David Weirs made a case for), Carlos Santana, Derek Jeter, and Yoenis Cespedes all received at least one vote. Ben Zobrist and Max Scherzer each received three votes, so I’m going to key in on them.

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Looking back at the 2012 season, we’re out to attempt to identify players that represent the very best return on the dollar in the respective “award” categories. Recall that this is a best value kind of series, not necessarily the best player.

To that end, we need to award the American League Cy Young to the pitcher who provided you the most production for the least possible cost. And among the staff votes, we have a tie between Chris Sale and Jake Peavy, thus the regrettable title of this piece. And it’s not hard to see why we’re divided.

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