Yesterday, a trio of fifth starters were announced. They are all worthy of different levels of excitement, but Vincent Velasquez, Aaron Sanchez, and Nate Karns all won jobs, and now we’re all scrambling to re-rank them based on this new information. Here’s the thing, though — don’t move them very far.

The announcement is nice, because it’s like the closer’s role. You either have the fifth starter’s spot, or you don’t, and if you don’t, the innings are hard to find. But you might be surprised how little those announcements may have meant.

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Starting pitching used to be the calling card of the Tigers with Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, Anibal Sanchez, and Rick Porcello giving them one of the most potent quintets in the game. Fister was traded to the Nationals with Drew Smyly next in line, but then they upgraded him to David Price for the 2014 stretch run. Then Scherzer went to the Nationals, Porcello was traded to the Red Sox, Verlander fell on hard times, and Sanchez’s health went south again and all of a sudden it was Price & pray in 2015. Instead of running out the rest of his final year, they traded him to the Blue Jays last year and sealed a last-place finish in the AL Central, their worst finish since 2008.

The Price trade helped the Tigers retool instead of rebuild thanks to the acquisitions of Daniel Norris and Matt Boyd. Meanwhile, Verlander got his groove back (2.27 ERA in final 99.3 IP), and the Nationals once again figured prominently in Detroit’s pitching plans – this time with an acquisition from them as Jordan Zimmermann inked a 5-year, $110-million dollar deal this offseason. Verlander and Zimmermann are locked in as the workhorses atop the rotation and the Tigers will need 400+ innings from them to compete this year. Sanchez got a late start in Spring Training due to triceps inflammation, but after one solid start, there is already talk of him pitching game two in Miami to open the season. So the top three spots are set (as long as Sanchez stays upright, at least).

That leaves four candidates for the remaining two spots – Norris, Boyd, Shane Greene, and the less-heralded offseason signing: Mike Pelfrey (2 yrs, $16-mil). Pelfrey has the four-spot, but I still can’t muster a case to draft him and his 13% career strikeout rate. He has looked good in Spring Training (and not just the numbers, but I saw him pitch well on my TV), but it’s still a no. Let’s focus on the fifth-starter candidates.

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You’re not sick of reading about my Picks and Pans yet, right? Of course not, you love them! We’re winding down the series and today we move along to the starting pitchers. As you no doubt have argued in the comments, my valuations take innings into consideration. It has to. We’re valuing the player’s contributions to our team. This is from a strict dollar value perspective. This is different than where I might suggest drafting the player in a snake draft, as I’d be more willing to take a lower ranked pitcher projected for better ratios than a higher ranked one with worse ratios, but more innings.

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Julio Teheran wasn’t great last year, especially from a fantasy standpoint. His 4.04 ERA and 1.31 WHIP were very different from the 3.03/1.12 he put together in 2013-14. He looked like an emerging star on the mound and was treated as such, going 20th among starting pitchers in 2015 drafts. He finished just 63rd on ESPN’s player rater and now has many running for the hills, but I’m not sure it’s all doom-and-gloom for the 25-year old righty.

First off, he stayed healthy and took his 33 turns in the rotation. Additionally, I think his struggles are overstated and primarily confined to a handful of hideous starts as opposed to sustained mediocrity (or worse). Bill James’ Game Score stat is hardly perfect, but it gives us a general idea of how a pitcher fared in a given start. You want at least a 50 score and anything below a 40 is awful.

He had as many 40 or worse Game Scores in 2015 as he did in 2013 and 2014 combined. Meanwhile, he was in line with his output of 50+ Game Scores. To put it another way, Teheran’s five starts of 6+ ER were tied for the third-most with a large group. It should come as no surprise then, that as he cut down the implosion outings, he looked more and more like himself. From July on, he posted a 3.23 ERA in 106 IP with just one of those 6+ ER outings on his ledger (an 8 ER demolition at the hands of the Yankees).

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Time to update the pitching ranks, as we’ve received more information and depth charts are starting to sort themselves out.

There are velocity changes to report. Jeff Samardzija hasn’t averaged 93 in a start yet, so that’s not good. Scott Kazmir is under 90 for a couple starts now, also not good — but it turns out those were cutters! So maybe he’s fine. Doug Fister is up! Around 90. Jacob deGrom was down to 92 in the last start, but was fine the one before, so that’s less worrisome. Garrett Richards is up! He was always up. So is Dylan Bundy though. He probably doesn’t have a starting role, though. Cody Anderson is up and now he looks like Matt Harvey. Adam Conley is up and I still like him, now a little more.

There are injuries of course! The Dodgers have most of them, but even the guys coming up behind are injured, and the group at the back isn’t very exciting to begin with. Matt Cain’s injury might push him back enough to give Chris Heston a shot to start the season at least. Or maybe not. Surely there will be a few more before spring ends.

And then there are depth chart movements that have already been made. Trevor May is a reliever. Erik Johnson was sent down. Brandon Maurer is a reliever, meaning Colin Rea and Drew Pomeranz and Brandon Morrow are fighting for two spots.

Throw them all in the blender and update your ranks. Eno’s Ranks, 2.0.

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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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Making bold predictions is one of my favorite activities in advance of an upcoming baseball season. It allows me — and the other writers partaking in the bold predictions series — to identify the bandwagons we’re on (or perhaps even driving). While now is the time of fluffy stories about players being in the best shape of their lives and poised for career years, not all is rainbows and butterflies. Below, you’ll find a few not so friendly bold predictions, too.

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I present to you my ten bold predictions for this upcoming season. I’ve placed these items in order of increasing boldness to give you some sense of how likely I think these things are to occur, in hopes that they’re more actionable. The items toward the top of the list are more likely to happen but perhaps not as bold… But I get pretty far out there by the end.

10. Gerardo Parra finishes the year as a top 25 OF. I feel as though this is cheating. Not bold enough. After all, he finished as the 3oth best OF last year (by my calculations). And yet, he’s being drafted as the 53rd OF this season. The issue here may be the projected platoon role he’s in. But is Ryan Raburn really going to take a lot of playing time from him? And with the possibility of Carlos Gonzalez being traded, there are other paths to a full-time role.

In the days of declining batting averages and diminishing stolen bases, a simple 12 HR, 12 SB, and .290 season (his Steamer projection) really adds up in value. Not to mention the move to Colorado offers hope for even more offense. It seems like Parra is being drafted as the former utility outfielder he was with Arizona. He wasn’t sexy. Nobody wanted him. Hopefully putting him in the top 25 crosses the bold threshold.

9. Jose Altuve finishes the year as a top five hitter. Is that bold? I’m not sure. He finished last year as the 13th highest earning hitter and is being drafted as the tenth hitter heading into 2016. Projecting him to outproduce all of Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton, Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado, and Carlos Correa to reach the top five does feel bold-ish. One of my favorite facts about Altuve is that he’s still just 25 years old. I suspect that many believe him to be older than he is because he’s been around for nearly four and a half MLB seasons. Why can’t he have a little more growth in him? 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.

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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I am a huge San Francisco Giants fan. However, if you have followed my work prior to joining Rotographs, you know I hate Gregor Blanco. I will explain further. Read the rest of this entry »