If you only play in a 12-team mixed or shallower league, chances are you have rarely, if ever, rostered a non-closing relief pitcher, let alone included him in your active lineup. However, in deep leagues, especially mono formats, non-closing relievers can earn meaningful fantasy value, even without recording a single save. As starting pitcher innings have declined (only eight amassed at least 200 innings last year, versus a whopping 31 back in 2012, for example!), the gap in wins and strikeouts between starters and relievers have shrunk, increasing the value of relievers vs starters in deeper fantasy leagues. So these relievers are now more valuable than they had been, which means it’s worth researching them regularly, as pitchers are promoted from the minors all the time.

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Let’s flip back to the rookie hitters and discuss another four recent recalls.

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Let’s finish reviewing the rookie starting pitchers with a trio that have posted underwhelming results so far. Two of these three names were former top prospects. Let’s find out whether it’s worth sticking with them.

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I last reviewed rookie starting pitchers just over a month ago. Naturally, there have been a host of new faces that have ascended to the Majors since. So let’s get back to reviewing some of the more recently recalled rookies starting pitchers.

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Yesterday, I highlighted and discussed four starting pitchers ranking high on the last 30 day SwStk% leaderboard. Let’s now flip to the other end of the leaderboard — those starters who surprisingly find themselves closer to the bottom.

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Pitcher skills change far more frequently than hitters and pitchers can seemingly transform themselves mid-season simply by changing up their pitch mix or adding or losing velocity. So it pays to not only look at a pitcher’s full season line when evaluating his performance and forecasting the rest of the season, but also how he has performed more recently. So with that in mind, let’s discuss some of the most interesting names on the last 30 day SwStk% leaderboard.

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We still have a number of teams remaining with new everyday players to discuss, so let’s continue on!

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Let’s pick back up with the new starters as games resume after the All-Star break. Consider this a Pirates edition, as three of the four names play their home games at the convergence of three rivers.

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Yesterday, I asked you to vote on which group of pitchers you expect to post a better ERA over the rest of the season. One group was composed of the 10 biggest SIERA overperformers, while the other comprised the underperformers. Now let’s poll you on hitters. I’ll follow the same concept and compare two groups of hitters based on xwOBA overperformance and underperformance. We know that xwOBA isn’t perfect. Neither is SIERA. In fact, no estimated/expected/forecasted equation is going to be perfect, because there will always be players that do something we have a difficult time quantifying. Furthermore, there will always be players each year that fall into either end of the extremes for no other reason than complete randomness. So let’s keep that in mind when reviewing these two groups.

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Since 2013, I have polled you wonderful readers on which group of pitchers you think will post the better aggregate ERA post all-star break. The two groups were determined based on ERA-SIERA disparity, pitting the overperformers versus the underperformers during the pre-all-star break period.

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