I considered titling this article “Buying Low on Sleepers.” But what is low? It feels more relative than the term discount. We have a general idea of what a player’s preseason market value was. Acquiring a player at less than said market value would be considered buying at a discount. So that’s what I’ll go with here, as the phrase “buying low” is generic advice that lacks the proper context to take action.
The first week of the season is always a fun time of the year. The limited amount of data in the books makes it difficult to provide any sort of valuable analysis and any advice is going to essentially be given based on the tiniest of sample sizes. So what’s a fantasy player to do? Nothing. That’s right, the best moves you can make now are no moves.
On Monday, I unveiled the first edition of my American League starting pitcher tiers. Of course, it didn’t include every pitcher currently part of a team’s rotation. Don’t feel bad for them, as their day has come. Today, I’ll discuss the remainder of the crop that missed the cut. Do any of these guys have the potential to join the tiered?
Warning: this is a boring list. Try to stay awake while reading about these names.
Yesterday, I unveiled my bold hitter league leaders, with the acknowledgement that these are a lot tougher to hit than the generic Bold Predictions. The pitching side of the ledger is a bit easier, but still difficult, of course. Given that there is more luck and factors outside the specific pitcher’s control involved that shape his surface results, it’s more conceivable that a non-favorite leads the league in a category.
In an effort to avoid double dipping and naming the same pitcher in two categories, there may have been a slightly better bold choice for a particular category. I opted to come up with different names in each. Also keep in mind that it is difficult to balance boldness with realistic. I eliminated many names that I didn’t think were bold, but maybe you do. I also eliminated names that have no real chance at leading in the category.
Every season, in addition to posting my standard bold predictions, I up the ante with my bold league leaders. If you thought nailing a bold prediction was tough, the bold league leaders is even more difficult! Just getting one right is worthy of celebration. Because these are bold, I automatically disqualify players I don’t personally believe should be considered bold. So I challenge myself and it typically causes me to bat .000.
We’ll start with the hitting league leaders in each of the five categories, split up by league.
Alas, it’s tier time. Your first chance to either praise my crystal ball or politely ask precisely what it is that I’m smoking. Full disclosure — I’m not a fan of tiers. To be honest, I’m not sure what the point of them is. In my mind, you’re only doing half the work. Calculate dollar values that indicate exactly who you project to perform better, rather than throw up your hands and lump a group of pitchers together arbitrarily.
Reminders:
• This is American League only rankings! No, I did not forget about Clayton Kershaw or your favorite sleeper who isn’t, Raisel Iglesias.
• My rankings are almost a straight sorting of my projected dollar values earned.
• Tiers are determined in the aforementioned arbitrary way. The gaps are easier to separate toward the top, completely random as we get further down the list.
• For the first time, I have made adjustments to the rankings, somewhat reducing the impact of my innings pitched projection. This is the R.A. Dickey Adjustment. You want better ratios and can worry about innings limits later in the season. For now, you just desire the best performance.
Because I’m too lazy to come up with new tiers, once again, they will be named after characters from the brilliant FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.
It brings tears to my eyes seeing the Bold Predictions series I first started here at RotoGraphs back in 2011 so enthusiastically embraced. In that first post, I actually doled out 20 boldies, giving myself double the chances to look like a fool! This year, few of my bold predictions will be a surprise, as the majority of these names have appeared in at least one of my preseason articles, signaling a clear bullish or bearish stance.
About four years ago, Matt Swartz helped me find that strikeout and walk rates posted during spring training for starting pitchers do have some predictive value. It’s very small, of course, but it’s there, and using the data improved the pre-season projection. The findings were validated when Dan Rosenheck completed an exhaustive study and discovered the same thing a year ago. It’s not the surface stats that matter, which we knew, but the underlying skill metrics, like strikeout and walk rates, that hold some value. It’s not much value, but it’s not nothing like some of us may have thought.
At last, it’s the final Pod’s Picks and Pans, as we finish things off with catcher. In the past, there have been years I haven’t even published a catcher version because there just wasn’t much disagreement. Which is strange because often times we all know the top tier, which is Buster Posey first, a couple of guys in the next couple of slots, and then a massive tier where we could make a reasonable case for a slew of guys to finish the season at said ranking at season’s end. Luckily, this year there does seem to be some disagreement worth discussing. Here are the updated consensus rankings.
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.
