Remember fantasy baseball before the PITCHf/x era? I fondly recall arguments over player valuations. “I think” was the primary selling point, usually followed by an outlandish projection based purely in wishcasting. Stats were found on ESPN or Yahoo. In other words, they were unsophisticated. Maybe you were already reading a fledgling FanGraphs where you could peruse any number of articles about how Player X will regress from high/low BABIP. We’ve all come a long way.

Nowadays, I can’t imagine evaluating a pitcher without the help of PITCHf/x. When another site asked me to rate dynasty starting pitching prospects, I basically told them it was a waste of time. There are the guys we already know about, i.e. Julio Urias. Then there is a mountain of muck to throw against the wall. Some of it will stick. Without minor league PITCHf/x (and MLB translations), I lack the necessary tools to find the next Jacob deGrom.

There’s another issue, and it’s the primary purpose of this article – pitchers are not static talents. Command can change suddenly, new pitches may be discovered, or the next Carlos Carrasco might spontaneously figure out how to use his already excellent repertoire. Previously dominant sliders can lose their tilt or hitters might adjust to a predictable high fastball.

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When your leaguemates start paying too much for closers, there’s only one thing to do – queue up your closer sleepers. The following is quick analysis of my favorite closers-in-waiting. You can use these guys as elite sources for holds or handcuffs to unstable closers. Yesterday’s post covered the NL, today we move to the AL.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

I know what you’re thinking about the Miami Marlins rotation, you’re all “Jose Fernandez and IDGAF about the rest!”, but there’s a chance for some sneaky upside behind the undisputed ace and top-10 (at least… he’s 6th among SPs in NFBC draft data) arm in Fernandez. The Marlins got just 64.7 innings from their ace last year so they were unsurprisingly below average as a unit. They finished 18th in ERA and FIP, 27th in K-BB%, and 17th in WHIP. A full season of Fernandez will go a long way toward improving those numbers, so the guys you so callously discarded will be instrumental to any success the Marlins have in 2016.

The battles such as they are in the Miami rotation are at the backend, but let’s talk about their #2 starter first. Wei-Yin Chen come over on a 5-year, $80 million dollar deal and while he was a nerve-wracking pitcher to have on your roster as part of the Baltimore Orioles, his outlook greatly improves in the NL and Miami, specifically. As an Oriole, he posted a 3.72 ERA in 706.7 innings with 31+ starts in three of the four seasons. Chen doesn’t miss a ton of bats and has home run tendencies, but he doesn’t walk guys which helps minimize the longball damage.

Camden Yards exacerbated the home run issue, but the AL Beast ensured that homers were an issue everywhere (1.3 at home, 1.1 on the road). His new home park alone is a massive upgrade on that front. Yeah, I know they moved the fences in and lowered them, but they aren’t turning it into a bandbox by any stretch of the imagination:

The big change will be to the right of the home run sculpture where the distance from home plate is being reduced from 418 to 407 feet.

Camden Yards has a three-year factor of 128 for lefties, 107 for righties on homers per StatCorner. Marlins Park is at 70/77, respectively, so even a big change (which I doubt is forthcoming) would still make it a much better environment for Chen. And that says nothing of the rest of the division which only has one HR-friendly park (Philly) compared to the AL East which only has one HR-suppressing park and that’s Fenway which severely curbs lefty homers, but is still hitter-friendly in runs.

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When your leaguemates start paying too much for closers, there’s only one thing to do – queue up your closer sleepers. The following is quick analysis of my favorite closers-in-waiting. You can use these guys as elite sources for holds or handcuffs to unstable closers. We’ll do the NL today and the AL tomorrow.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Well, would you look at that. Another season down, another season where the St. Louis Cardinals cycle through an embarrassment of riches on their way to one of the best records in baseball, and earn another playoff spot in the process. Yawn.

The Cardinals rode a 2.94 staff ERA, by far the best in baseball, in 2015, and while their peripherals – a 3.48 FIP and 3.71 xFIP – didn’t quite back up that dominance, their pitchers still produced the sixth-highest wins above replacement in either league. That’s not necessarily some Cardinals-specific magic, as it’s only the second time in five seasons their ERA has beaten their FIP. Still, thanks to a pitcher-friendly home park and a great bullpen to help strand runners, the Cardinals as a rotation outperformed their xFIP for a fourth consecutive year.

That bullpen was even a shade better than their rotation, a ludicrously high bar considering their entire rotation together had a sub-3.00 ERA. Trevor Rosenthal and company have just got it like that.

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Las Vegas seems to think that 2016 might just be the year when Cubs fans finally celebrate a World Series win in the streets of Wrigleyville. Stacked with a potent lineup from top to bottom and arguably the best starting five in baseball, Theo Epstein’s deity status could extend westward some 850 miles come October. But while there’s no position battle in the rotation to speak of, injury concerns, like curses, are real something to write about.

John Lackey joins Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks, and Jason Hammel in a formidable rotation that ZiPs projects for nearly 17 WAR. But they also enter 2016 having pitched a combined 6,674.1 career innings. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at who stands to step in should any of the Cubs’, let’s go with, seasoned starters miss some time.

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Below is the Relief Pitcher installment of our 2016 Ottoneu FGpt rankings.

Previous Rankings: Catcher/First Base/Third Base/Second Base/Shortstop/Outfield

In the context of Ottoneu, perhaps rankings are a misnomer, because you really want to know the dollar value each player is worth. We’ve included this information for our benefit. In all, these rankings should help to give you a spread of four dollar values for each player, as well as a comparison to average prices (post-arbitration, pre-cut deadline) within the Ottoneu FGpts universe. Each player’s Ottoneu eligibility (5GS, 10 appearances) is included as well, though players are ranked at their most valuable position. If you have questions on a specific ranking, or a question for a specific ranker, feel free to let us know in the comments.

Consider this your very early, subject to change, Ottoneu pricing cheat sheet.
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The worst kept secret in the fantasy sports industry is that the people in it are amazing. A little over a year ago, with the help of some friends (with fantasy benefits), I entered the industry with a silly little podcast, a website, and no real expectations that it would ever turn into anything more than a hobby. I was pleasantly surprised to find out how helpful and encouraging the majority of the fantasy industry is. No one ever said no to an appearance. I was given a ton of advice on what works and what doesn’t in the industry. You read what these people write and listen to what they have to say, but what you don’t realize is that they are just as cool in real life as they appear to be from the outside. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

The Red Sox were supposed to be quite good in 2015. They failed for a number of reasons. Yes, the lineup underperformed, but the pitching staff was the most glaring issue. For as long as a year, it was glaringly obvious that the Sox would trade for Phillies ace Cole Hamels. They never ponied up the necessary prospects. The rotation posted a 4.39 ERA – seventh worst in the majors. The bullpen was comparably bad with a 4.24 ERA – fifth worst. In retrospect, they needed a lot more than Hamels.

Boston hopes that regression and two very big offseason acquisitions stabilize both units. We’ll see, won’t we?

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What was Wade Davis like as a starting pitcher? Boring, hittable, and barely a major leaguer. As a reliever? Possibly the top player at the position. Davis has an interesting history – he was a mediocre starter, then a good reliever, then a bad starter, and then an elite reliever. Some thought that second stint as a starter would go a lot better.

Compare that to Carlos Carrasco. He scuffled as a starter, pitched well out of the pen, then pitched just as well back in the rotation. Why did it turn out differently for Carrasco? Today we’ll examine that question and talk about the types of players who benefit from stints in the bullpen. But mostly, we’ll look at the more common trend of pitchers getting stuck in relief.

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