Yesterday, I noticed someone slid into my DM’s and I got my hopes up but instead I got this:

Maybe. Many of the Astros players didn’t think it helped.

Some Astros players told my investigators that they did not believe the sign-stealing scheme was effective, and it was more distracting than useful to hitters.

We just don’t know for sure of the effects of cheating so I guess I better take a stab and find out.

To start with, I went to the projection sources to find out how the projections weigh each year’s results. The weighted averages, along with some aging adjustments and regression, create the final projections. ZiPS is up first.

Dan Szymborski uses individual weightings for each component (strikeouts, doubles, etc) but at the end, the weighting is close to 8-5-4-2 where ‘8’ is the last season. According to the commissioner’s report, the Astros “only” cheated at home in 2017 so only 2 units (half of four, the third value) of the weighting will be boosted. The percentage of the projection’s input from the cheating is 10.5% (2/[8+5+4+2] or 2/19).

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*Bad in this case is a 4.50 ERA or higher^ in 2019

^Except for one guy, who had a 4.49

We all know that ERA isn’t an end-all, be-all on skill, but those of us in the fantasy realm don’t roster guys with ERAs at 4.50 or higher so using that as a cutoff for this exercise felt right. The purpose here is to find some useful pitches these guys could build upon to get them on the right side of a 4.50 ERA going forward.

As for what determines a good pitch, I took a look at the average OPS, K%, SwStr%, and Chase% among starters with at least 700 fastballs thrown and 200 thrown of all the other pitches (slider, curveball, changeup, cutter, and splitter) and then found the strongest offerings of each pitch from those who struggled in 2019. The pitches didn’t have to be better than average in all four categories, but at least two of the four and in most cases, it’s better than three of the four.

I’m going to make this a two-parter with four-seamers, sliders, and cutters today and curves, changeups, and splitters later this week (probably tomorrow).

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I recently released my top 125 starting pitchers for 2020 and I couldn’t believe that nobody had a single question about them and everyone who saw them found them to be perfect top to bottom. OK, dumb joke. Anyway, I appreciate everyone getting in the comments and discussing the rankings with me. I’m still responding to questions and comments if you want to ask me about someone in the rankings.

Today I want to look the biggest differences between my rankings and the early average draft position (ADP) information at the NFBC in their Draft Champions leagues (50-round draft-and-hold format). On their list, they group all pitchers together so I took out the relievers making it more of a 1:1 comparison with my SP ranks. This will be a two-part piece with the first being the pitchers where I’m higher.

10 Where I’m Higher

Jeff Samardzija, SF | 107th SP in ADP; 52nd SP by me

I wouldn’t even say I’m a huge fan of The Shark, but his current ADP seems like a great price for someone who finished 33rd among SP on Razzball’s Player Rater last year. Even if you don’t fully buy the 3.52 ERA, he offers high volume with a strong WHIP. At the very least, he has Oracle Park protecting him for half of his starts. It’s a boring investment, but I’ll gladly take him outside the top 100 SPs.

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How to correctly value catchers has always been up for debate. As a position, they are by far the worst hitters in the league. Last season, catchers posted a .713 OPS while second basemen were next with a .745 OPS. Most player calculations give catchers a valuation boost to attempt to even them out with the other hitters. This theoretical boost always exceeds the actual cost paid by draft picks or auction dollars. I assumed some experts knew more than me (safe bet) and the catcher projections have a wider range of outcomes. Owners don’t want to pay for these gambles. By examining historical values, I found the complete opposite. Catcher projections are the least volatile.

I’m not going to rehash why catchers need a positional adjustment. I’ve written a whole section on it in The Process. For anyone new to the subject or just wants a refresher, Ariel Cohen wrote an in-depth article on the subject.
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01/09/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

STARTING PITCHER RANKING REVIEW: Paul’s, Justin’s 

• Guys Justin Didn’t Rank in Paul’s Top 100
  • Josh Lindblom (2:34)
  • Merrill Kelly/Matt Shoemaker (6:08)
• 6 Major Differences: Paul’s Higher
  • Dylan Bundy (10:15)
    • Jeff Samardzija (17:55)
  • Ryan Yarbrough/Yonny Chirinos (20:50)
  • Jake Odorizzi (25:18)
  • Jordan Lyles (30:15)
  • Aaron Civale (32:47)
  • Max Fried (38:42)

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I was wrong. About seven years ago, I wrote on how hitters may overperform their projections since they played through an injury. The injury hampered their production in the season in question, lowered the future projection, and created a buying opportunity. For years, I believed this steadily until last season when I re-ran the numbers and found “jack squat”.

Earlier this week, I examined some of this past season’s hitters who fought through the pain and felt a deeper analysis was needed. I dove in and the results were backwards. I found no bounceback should be expected from hitters who played through injuries, but there is more. For those hitters who play through the discomfort, their future production will take a major hit.

The key to uncovering the following results was getting a usable dataset which is easier said than done. Many of the injuries I’m using for the analysis aren’t well documented, if at all. Real men play baseball and they play hurt because that is what real men do and most importantly, they don’t complain about. Besides the machismo, a player has every right to keep his medical data to himself so vagueness thrives. Simply, there is no good available data. Even with the hurdles, I dug into each of the hitters who were reported to have played through an injury the past three seasons (2017, 2018, 2019).

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Hello Draft Season!

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It’s time.

After offering up a first run all the way back in mid-August, I let the rest of the season play out but since then I’ve been working on SP rankings day-in and day-out. I contributed the starting pitcher section to the 2020 Fantasy Black Book so I had a working ranking for that but even since then (it was due back in early-December), I’ve made a ton of changes.

As you know, I feel there are globs of talent throughout the SP rankings wherein a 20, even 30 spot difference isn’t as vast as it seems because we’re splitting hairs between very similar arms and yet even knowing that I still agonize over the slottings and move guys up or down 2-3 spots like crazy before posting a new set of ranks. I decided on 125 for this one after paring down a list of 156 and yes, some of those remaining 31 are just as good as the last 7-8 on the list, but I had to cut it somewhere.

You’ll see tiers set up by the blue bars and that indicates the beginning of a new tier, but even those were hard to decide upon except the one starting at 99 which marks a group of prospects who I parked at that level because none are likely to make a rotation out of spring but all could be impactful at some point in 2020.

Enough chatter, let’s get to the rankings and start discussing them in the comments below. Again, if you think #44 should #38, I’m less interested in that as I probably agree that he could be. Let’s focus on the bigger splits, like if you feel #77 should be #40 or #28 should be #66, etc… Of course you can also just make comments or ask questions about a pitcher without relating it to their ranking. I’m open to discussing my thought process on any of the 125 pitchers.

These will be updated again in February and then once more in early March.

Check out Justin’s Top 126 SPs.

Note: these are catered for a roto league of 12-15 teams

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01/07/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• WAS super busy:
  • Will Harris (10:53)
  • Daniel Hudson (12:15)
  • Starlin Castro (19:00)
  • Asdrúbal Cabrera (21:40)
  • Eric Thames (23:07)

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The scorching hot stove put the ACL series on the backburner a bit, but we’re diving back in this week and starting with the Angels, who have been very busy in the month-plus since our last piece in this series.

OTHER TEAMS:

• Pittsburgh Pirates
• Seattle Mariners
• Houston Astros
• Baltimore Orioles
• Cincinnati Reds

3 QUESTIONS

Can Tommy La Stella pick up where ’19 left off?

Few players personified the bouncy ball of 2019 better than La Stella. He entered his age-30 season with a career .711 OPS and 10 HR in 947 PA only to nearly double his career total in April alone when he smacked 7 HR. He stayed hot through May and June with a .324/.358/.485 line and another 9 HR before disaster struck. On July 2nd, he fouled a ball off his leg that was originally diagnosed as a contusion, but eventually turned out to be a broken leg and effectively ended his season (he returned for two games in September).

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