Stock down

Aaron Crow

Aaron started out 2011 with a bang. He had a 2.08 ERA, which he rode into the All-Star game as the Royals’ only invitee. The problem was that he was riding a bit of a lucky streak led by a .243 BABIP. He regressed quite a bit in the second half of the season when his ERA jumped to 4.34 because of a .393 BABIP. Also in the second half of the season, he did not record 1 Save or Hold. He was though able to accumulate five Blown Saves during that time frame.

Going into spring training, he attempted to become one of several relief pitchers league wide to transition into becoming a starting pitcher. After a few weeks, the experimentation was stopped when Joakim Soria was lost for the season and Crow was moved back to the bullpen.

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Like last week, I will continue to look at players officially on the DL that may be be picked up in a league and stashed in a DL slot. I am not looking at DL eligible players owned in almost all leagues like Michael Pineda, Chris Carpenter and Scott Baker. I will try to look a little deeper for players to fill a team’s DL slots.

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Maximizing pitchers that make 2 starts in a week is a strategy used by some fantasy owners, especially in H2H leagues. The owners cycle through less desirable starters each week and get a new set the next week in order to win the counting stats. The first week of the season offers a unique situation because most of the 2-start pitchers are #1 and #2 starters for a team. Most of these pitchers are already owned. Today I am going to look at some of the few 2-start “aces” that may be available in a league

(Owned % are ESPN and Yahoo)

Erik Bedard (7%, 39%) – Erik is by far the best option among the pitchers I will look at today. His main issue in the past has been staying healthy. While he has a lower chance of getting a Win than a starter on a better team, he will supply a decent number of strikeouts (ZiPS projection is 8.15 K/9). Since an owner is looking to have him around a only a week, they might as well take the chance on him stating healthy that long. In a deep league, owners should actually look to keep him until he eventually goes on the DL.

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Brandon Morrow has always been an enigma to me. He has great stuff, but just can seem to put it all together for one good season. I am going to try to look at similar pitchers from the recent past to see if there is any hope of him breaking out.

Since the right-handed pitcher broke into the league with Seattle in 2007, here is where he ranks among the 156 starting pitchers with 400 or more innings.

K/9: 1st (10.0 K/9)
BB/9: 149th (4.5 BB/9)
% of PA that end in a BB or K: 1st (37.3%)

Brandon is a true outcome pitcher with most at bats ending up as either a walk or a strikeout. Besides being a true outcome pitcher, his career ERA has been significantly worse than his ERA predictors:

ERA: 4.37
FIP: 3.85
xFIP: 3.94
SIERA: 3.71

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Almost all fantasy leagues have a few spots to place players that are on the DL. Fantasy owners should look at filling these available roster spots with players currently on the DL. I will look at a few players that can be used in these slots.

Victor Martinez – C, DH (1.4% owned in ESPN, 13% in Yahoo) – Victor will not be playing in 2012, so if an owner is in a 1-year league, ignore him. In a keeper league, he has some definate value. Good hitting qualified catchers are hard to find. While an owner may not be able to stash him for a season, why not try hold onto him until the end of the season. If there is a point when he must be dropped to the waiver wire, try to trade him off. Attempt to turn the release into a bidding war. State that owner A, the owner with the best waiver wire ranking and an open DL slot, will get him up unless another owner offers up a trade.

Salvador Perez – C (6.4% ESPN, 11% Yahoo) – Sal is expected to miss 12 to 14 weeks. His return should be in late July at the earliest. All catchers wear down and are generally bad offensively. Sal will be a decent C option when he returns in all but the shallowest of leagues.

Brett Anderson – P (0.4% ESPN, 4% Yahoo) – Brett has been a decent fantasy option when healthy. The problem is that he is rarely healthy. He will not be the same pitcher that he was when he came up in 2009. Since 2009, he has lost 1.5 MPH to his fastball and his strikeout and gone down (7.7 K/9 in 2009 to 6.6 K/9 in 2011). This last injury will degrade his talent even more. Brett looks to return in August when many pitchers may be getting shutdown. He could step in for some innings late in the season.

Rubby de la Rosa – P (0% ESPN, 1% Yahoo) – I like Rubby potential fantasy value more than Brett Anderson. He threw hard (96 MPH) and averaged 8.9 K/9 in 13 games last season. The main problem holding him down in 2011 was his 4.6 BB/9. He could be a great pitcher if he could get the walks under control. He looks to be ready to return from TJS late in the season.

After releasing our consensus ranking of the 2B, I am going to put the 2B into tiers. My personal projections where close to the overall 2B rankings, so I don’t have a ton of disagreements.

Tier 1
Robinson Cano
Dustin Pedroia
Ian Kinsler

The same top 3. If, and it is a big if, Kinsler can stay healthy, he has the stats to be the top of this group.

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Andy Pettitte

Andy Pettitte will be joining the Yankees tomorrow to see if he can be a useful starter. Don’t get caught up in the recent hype. The 39-year-old will have a lower than expected fantasy value for a few reasons.

First, a production level needs to guesstimated. To get an idea of his possible production level, here are his K/9 and BB/9 levels over the last three years he pitched:

Year, K/9, BB/9
2008, 7.0, 2.4
2009, 6.8, 3.5
2010, 7.1, 2.9

We should expect a K/9 value near 7.0 and BB/9 near 3.0. For reference, here are 3 pitchers from 2011 with similar K/9 and BB/9 rates:

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Currently, Erick Aybar is being touted as the lead off hitter for the Angels. Even though he has held this position in the batting order before, it is even more important with Albert Pujols on the team. If he is able to get on base at any decent clip, he will be an excellent source of Runs.

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Recently, I posted my 2012 starting pitcher DL projections. In the projections, I used games started, age, and injury history to predict the percentage chance a pitcher will end up on the DL. Today, I am going to give an initial stab at how throwing a large number of curveballs and sliders affects a pitcher’s DL chances.

I started by looking at the season after the season in which a pitcher threw over 120 innings. Normally, 39% of these pitchers will end up on the DL. The percentage increases even more if the pitcher threw a large number of sliders or curveballs.

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1. Under almost no circumstance, fly through O’Hare. It is not worth it.

2. On Wednesday, in his first spring training game, Jonathan Sanchez’s fastball was off by 2-3 MPH. He may get the speed back. He may not. If a person has a draft before his next start, there is a no need to pick up a below average pitcher with velocity issues. Just go for the below average pitcher with no velocity issues.

More fastball speed updates

3. Ubaldo Jimenez fastball (94 to 96 MPH) is closer to his 2009 and 2010 levels (96 MPH) than 2011 levels (93.5 MPH) .

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