Happy holidays and especially a New Year! I just wanted to swing by quickly and drop some thoughts on a back-end arm I’ve been keeping an eye on for fantasy drafts next season.

I did write this player up for numberFire recently, though circumstances around him have changed a little bit. That is, his rotation spot has become a bit murkier. That pitcher is Diamondbacks left-hander Robbie Ray. On the surface, Ray’s numbers aren’t overwhelmingly impressive for 2015: 5-12, 3.52 ERA, 8.4 K/9 and a 1.33 WHIP. There are a couple stats individually that provide a bit of hope, but still maybe nothing more than a possible pop-up guy with little evidence he’ll actually get that chance. Read the rest of this entry »

Felix Hernandez’s days as an elite starting pitcher are over. That’s not a knock on him, nor does that make him any less of the ace that he is for his ballclub. It’s just that King Felix posted a season that pretty much replicated his production in 2010 and 2011 — production that, in between those two seasons, earned him the #2 spot on Razzball’s 2011 preseason top-20 starting pitchers — and he finished 16th.

The King dominated in 2015 the same way he has dominated for the better part of the last decade. But everything is relative, and his performance was relatively underwhelming given the glut of young talent that has emerged at the Major League level. To attest:

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I wrote last week about Max Scherzer, who, in 2015, reached new heights. It was, is, painfully cliché, but it’s true. The same could be said for Chris Sale, who also (1) reached new heights and (2) suffered the misfortune of languishing in the rotation of a ballclub that ultimately would not contend.

Except Sale didn’t throw two no-hitters, nor did he almost throw three no-hitters, nor did he almost throw back-to-back no-hitters. Because those are all things Scherzer did. What Sale did do, yes, is give up 13 runs in fewer than nine innings across two starts in late April and early May.

People kind of freaked, and understandably so — the sabermetrically inclined readership at FanGraphs is not necessarily representative of the greater population of baseball fans. And the greater population of baseball fans saw a 5.93 ERA through 27.1 innings — the epitome of a small sample size, but nonetheless a sample to which a fan is entitled to react.

If you stayed tuned, you know the narrative: in the 26 starts after his two-game disaster, Sale struck out more than a third of the batters he faced. More than a third. In four of those games, he struck out more than half of them. That’s insane. Even in an era of baseball when we yawn at a strikeout rate lower than 8.0 per nine innings, that’s still insane.

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Hey AL-only players, you didn’t think Santa Paul forgot about you, did you? I offered two NL arms on the rise on Tuesday, one for all-formats and another geared toward to deeper leagues (at least until he proves himself some more), and I’ve got the same for the American League today.

Carlos Rodon, CWS – pick 238 in early November, pick 158 in a draft last week

I think you can ignore that early November price because you won’t get him that late in other drafts. He jumped 80 picks in less than a month based on nothing and then I did a 12-teamer just this week (the roster setup is different than these other two drafts so I didn’t include the ADPs on purpose) and he was up at pick 140. He’s likely to live in the 130-175 range.

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It’s easier to identify pitchers you’re excited about, pitchers that you like better than the rankings say you should, than it is to do the opposite. At least for me. It’s easier to believe in a pitcher than to hate on them. At least for me. Lists of sleepers seemingly go on forever, while lists of busts are shorter. At least for me.

The fact remains that only half of the top 20 from 2014’s end-of-season rankings repeated on this year’s end-of-season rankings. We should have reason to hate on at least half of this year’s best pitchers. So, despite the season, let’s hand out some coal to last year’s aces. All of them.

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I’ve got two guys in the Senior Circuit – one for all formats and one for deep-leaguers particularly – who I think could have big seasons in 2016 while costing you relatively little on draft day (especially the second guy). I’ve done two drafts already (I know, right?) and the earliest either of these two went was the 10th round of a 15-teamer so even some winter helium isn’t going to send them into the cost-prohibitive territory where they have to perform to return value.

Raisel Iglesias, CIN – pick 165 (to me) in early November, pick 147 from a draft last week

Iglesias was one of those guys who probably landed on three or four teams throughout the course of the season in your league with the best work coming for whoever had him last.

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Steamer, a reputed projection system, offers predictions of the reliability for each player’s projected stat line. (These can’t be found in FanGraphs’ database, but they are available in the raw download from Steamer’s website.) James Shields‘ Streamer projection scored the highest reliability probability for the 2015 season. Shields was basically a 4-WAR starting pitcher for the eight years following his 2006 debut; when the San Diego Padres acquired him, they expected to acquire consistency. Alas, Shields’ MLB-highest 80.8% reliability was, and still is, understandable.

Except Shields cashed in a most unusual age-33 performance, and that’s why more, not fewer, numbers make the sport more special: you can marvel at and appreciate the game through any of an infinite number of lenses, and it never gets old. Neil Weinberg astutely detailed this anomaly, so I will politely not rip open San Diego’s wound as it heals.

I will, instead, turn my focus to Max Scherzer who, similarly to Shields, disrupted an 11th-best 79.3% reliability score on his projection. Unlike Shields, however, Scherzer made even better on his promise.

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It’s time for another Pod Projection review and today it’s new top 10 starter Jacob deGrom. After a dominating performance during his 2014 rookie campaign that essentially came out of nowhere, we all wondered how much regression he would experience in 2015. Instead, he laughed at the notion of regression and took his performance to further heights, earning more than $24 and finishing as the ninth most valuable starter. Refresh your memory by reviewing my initial Pod Projection post.

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In March, Jeff Sullivan wrote a fantastic article about Garrett Richards. Jeff praised his increased strikeout rate from 2014, but more importantly, he pointed out the biggest key to Richards’ improvement: Hitters could no longer pull the ball in the air against him. In 2014, “Richards started to make sense. He’s become one of the easiest pitchers in baseball to explain.”

Unfortunately, that progression vanished completely in 2015, and Richards reverted back into a mystery. He’s back to being one of those frustrating pitchers who possesses great stuff, but can’t seem to put it all together. He’s the kind of guy who passes the eye test, but doesn’t produce the numbers to match it. He just seems like he should be better than he is. So, why isn’t he?

The home-run ball isn’t a huge problem in general for Richards in his professional career. Throughout his six pro seasons, he’s been a little better than league-average in that department, from A-ball to the majors. However, in 2014, he posted a truly elite 0.27 HR/9 rate, and opposing hitters slugged a league-worst (or best, if you’re Richards) .261 against him.

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Today I continue reviewing my preseason posts and this time I will bravely recap how my Pod Projection fared against the Steamer projection for Zack Greinke. As we are all well aware, Greinke just so happened to lead all Major League starters in ERA, en route to a second place finish in the Cy Young voting. Sadly, Greinke wiggled his way into a Steamer and I post because Steamer was significantly more optimistic about his performance than Pod was. I guess we know how this is going to go…

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