The Cardinals have added Jordan Hicks to their major league bullpen. The move comes as a surprise with Hicks skipping both Double and Triple-A. While Hicks’s role is not defined, he’s a talented pitcher who can’t be ignored.

The 21-year-old righty has previously shown a plus fastball. Here are the various scouting reports on it.

• FanGraphs: Grade 50/55, “…routinely sitting 94 or better during the regular season, Hicks’ heater sat 97-100 in the Fall League … trouble keeping it down … doesn’t play like an 80-grade fastball…”
• MLB.com: Grade: 70, “… fastball will sit in the mid-90s, frequently touch the upper-90s and flirt with triple digits, all with plus natural movement…”
• Baseball America: Grade: 70, “… 93-98 mph with his fastball, sits 95, and touches 101 in short bursts…holds his velocity … fastball plays up further with arm side life…”
• BHQ: Grade: 4+, 93-98 “… sits 93-96, topping at 100 mph with good late sink…”

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Yesterday, I unveiled my bold hitter league leaders, with the acknowledgement that far more difficult to hit than the generic Bold Predictions. The pitching side of the ledger is a bit easier, though. Given that there is both more luck and factors outside the specific pitcher’s control 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 challenging to balance boldness with realistic, considering this requires me to bet against a group of names in which it’s like a 95% lock that one of them wins the category. 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. I decided against a bold wins league leader, because wins are silly and unpredictable. All I usually do is pick a good pitcher on a top offense.

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After a relatively quiet start to Spring Training, injuries are starting to pile up. You may have already had a waiver run in your league, but even if not the first one will run this weekend and a lot of interesting arms have won fourth and fifth starter jobs. Plenty of them are already being drafted as potential contributors (Tyler Chatwood 204th in NFBC, Jordan Montgomery 213th, and Lucas Giolito 215th to name a few). I plucked a few who are intriguing to me and here are some thoughts about them:

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In a small subset of leagues, relievers who have starting pitcher eligibility are gold. If an owner hasn’t been in such a league, the following information is useless and confusing. The specific league requirements which boost these pitcher values are (Note: normally seen in Yahoo leagues):

• Daily lineup changes
• Starting and relief pitcher slots
• Inning limits

I used to be in such a league and I would scavenge the waiver wire looking for any of these pitchers. They allow an owner to accumulate great rate stats when their starter isn’t starting. Two or three can just sit permanently in the starting slots. And every year, it seems like one guy ends up getting a few Saves.

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According to the novelist Rick Moody, the purpose of literature is “to cast in language the nature of being.” And sure enough, that’s the Birchwood Brothers’ purpose, too–well, that and to recommend underpriced starting pitchers for your Fantasy Baseball draft or auction. To that end, we hereby cast in language the 2018 Trinity and Quadrinity, Starting Pitcher Edition. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I listed and discussed nine hitters who I ranked significantly higher than the rest of my fellow RotoGraphers. Today, I move on to starting pitchers. I limited this list to those in my top 60 and also did a bit of cherry picking. Why? Because of this comment I added to the starting pitcher composite rankings post:

Before I get a million questions, remember these are projected end of season rankings based on dollar values earned. It’s absolutely not exactly how I would draft these pitchers, as I will always prefer a lower IP guy with better ratio projections than a higher IP guy with worse ratios, but more wins and Ks to boost his dollar value. That preference is not reflected in the ranking above, as it’s a strategic choice, not a mathematical one.

So I excluded guys like Rick Porcello, Julio Teheran, and Cole Hamels, whose betters rankings are likely due to differences in how we ranked players. All get most of their value from volume, rather than strong ratios. It’s more valuable to discuss players I ranked better due to a more bullish projection.

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Last week, I offered some reasons why the Diamondbacks may prefer to keep Archie Bradley away from closing duties. I’ve been snagging value shares of Brad Boxberger and Yoshihisa Hirano just in case.

One of my strongest arguments was Arizona’s starting pitcher shortage. Although their top five is a talented group, they have no depth. Bradley is probably the sixth best starter in the system. Further, they’ll need to replace Patrick Corbin next offseason. Bradley is an apparent fit for the job. However, once a pitcher becomes a successful closer, it’s very rare for them to return to starting.

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Our staff composite rankings are back! We’re onto starters and we’ll be rolling out a new position each day over the next week-plus.

We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. These rankings assume the standard 5×5 categories and a re-draft league. If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. If you have questions for a specific ranker on something he did, let us know in the comments. We can also be reached via Twitter:

• Paul Sporer
• Jeff Zimmerman
• Mike Podhorzer
• Justin Mason

There will be differences, sharp differences, within the rankings. The rankers have different philosophies when it comes to ranking, some of which you’re no doubt familiar with through previous iterations. Of course the idea that we’d all think the same would be silly because then what would be the point of including multiple rankers?! Think someone should be higher or lower? Make a case. Let us know why you think that. The chart is sortable. If a ranker didn’t rank someone that the others did, he was given that ranker’s last rank +1.

Key:

• AVG– just the average of the seven ranking sets
• Adj. AVG– the average minus the high and low rankings
• SPLIT– the difference between the high and low rankings

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3/15/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

Follow us on Twitter

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

Strategy Section: SP Review

• ADP page – set start date at 3/10/18

(apologies for no time tags… I’m getting ready for my trip to NYC this weekend and a little pressed for time)

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The 2018 Pod Projections are now available! For the first time, the package includes NFBC ADP, along with all historical Pod-developed xMetrics. My projections are based on the methodology shared in my eBook Projecting X 2.0, and the process continues to evolve and improve (thanks Statcast!).

2018 Pod Projections Index:
Shohei Ohtani
Tommy Pham
Whit Merrifield

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