Review season continues and today I’ll recap the starting pitchers whose spring training strikeout rates were significantly above their Steamer projected K% marks. As a reminder, with the help of Matt Swartz, I found that spring strikeout rates do provide meaning with regards to regular season performance, something that Dan Rosenheck validated as true more recently.
I will continue to implement player grading on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will use Kiley McDaniels scale he discussed in this article.
| Grade | Hitter | Starting Pitcher | Relief Pitcher | WAR |
| 80 | Top 1-2 | #1 Starter | —- | 7 |
| 75 | Top 2-3 | #1 | —- | 6 |
| 70 | Top 5 | #1/2 | —- | 5 |
| 65 | All-Star | #2/3 | —- | 4 |
| 60 | Plus | #3 | High Closer | 3 |
| 55 | Above Avg | #3/4 | Mid Closer | 2.5 |
| 50 | Avg Regular | #4 | Low CL/High SU | 2 |
| 45 | Platoon/Util | #5 | Low Setup | 1.5 |
| 40 | Bench | Swing/Spot SP | Middle RP | 1 |
| 35 | Emergency Call-Up | Emergency Call-Up | Emergency Call-Up | 0 |
| 30 | *Organizational | *Organizational | *Organizational | -1 |
I will give a value for where I think the pitcher could currently fit in on the average team (CV=current value) and where they could end up (FV=future value). I am sure I will disagree with some grades from others, but I am only looking at one game.
Note: If I say a pitch moves 11-5, it is from the pitcher’s perspective.
Tyler Duffey (CV: 50/FV: 60+)
9/20/15 vs Angels
Game Thoughts
• On the surface, the 24-year-old righty looked to have just two pitches, fastball and curveball, but his manipulation of these two make him tougher to figure out.
Read the rest of this entry »
It’s best of and worst of week at RotoGraphs. I’m here with 2015’s worst starting pitchers.
There’s a lot of ways to approach this. A lot of pitchers’ values are conditional upon their circumstances, so I’ve tried to keep this in mind when creating this list. When it comes down to it, though, this is all just one man’s opinion.
Fantasy Pros calculated the aggregate average draft position (ADP) using several premier fantasy baseball websites, so that’s the value upon which I’ve based my decisions.
But first, let us acknowledge 2015’s All-Injury Sigh Young Squad:
To separate the deep league fantasy Cy Young from the regular fantasy one, and also from the real-life Cy Young, we’ll need to define the award. Fantasy Baseball is maybe all about value, and value is at least 50/50 cost, so we have to factor in cost to hand out this hardware.
And, in fact, for the deep league version, cost is even more important. Because the cost for a deep league draftee vs a mixed league draftee has to be much lower. Even if the output is lower, the Deep League Cy Young should not have been drafted in mixed leagues, optimally.
So even if Dallas Keuchel was ranked 257th overall going into the season and ended up ninth overall, making him a great contender if not the lock for the overall Roto Cy Young, Dallas Keuchel was a decently expensive deep league starter. We’re looking for that $1 wonder that led your AL-only staff to victory. We’re looking for 2014 Dallas Keuchel, not 2015’s version.
Dividends from the Cole Hamels trade weren’t supposed to start paying off for either team until 2016. But then the Rangers stormed the West to clinch a playoff berth with a 3-game lead on the Astros for the division, though the Phillies haven’t really missed a beat production-wise as Jerad Eickhoff has essentially matched Hamels (yes, I realize that Alec Asher has been a negative for Philly while Jake Diekman has also been a boon for the Rangers tilting the balance back in their favor rather sharply, but this is about Eickhoff).
The read on Eickhoff both before the season and at the time of the trade was a #4 or #5 starter who could find success in a bullpen role if he didn’t quite pan out as a starter. Through eight starts in his big league career, he looks more like a solid mid-rotation option by the numbers, but has he shown enough to be considered such for 2016? Of course, all of the necessary small sample size caveats are in effect at the 51-inning mark, but he is showing improvements on his early season scouting report.
Sadly, this is my last post of the week, which means it’s my last set of starting pitcher recommendations. Perhaps if you’re nice, you could convince another RotoGrapher to take the mantle for the last two games of the season.
Thanks to you commenters, it’s clear that getting the scheduled starter right for even just two days after I type this is a difficult task for my source. How did it tell me that Adam Conley would start today when he actually started the previous day?! I am using my fantasy site on CBS since the format of the probable starters was easiest to copy to Excel and eventually get into this post. Hopefully there aren’t any more mistakes!
Yesterday, Mike Podhorzer gave you 10 pitchers to start for yesterday (and yesterday only). Indeed, the well of relevant advice has run dry save a few drops here and there, yet it’s too early to look forward to offseason chatter.
You all liked Pod’s idea, though; you just needed the advice in advance. Still, continuing this pattern leaves us without any names for today. Perhaps you’re in a league where you can make moves prior to the day’s first game. If that’s the case, then I hope this helps! You have about 45 minutes until day games start.
Games are ordered by start time per ESPN. And, for your convenience, here’s some color-coded goodness: No-Brainer, Maybe, Sit (or a desperate deep-league play)
So as I figured, you guys benefit significantly more from start/sit advice for starting pitchers scheduled the following day. For the rest of my posts this week, that’s what I’ll do. Unfortunately, that means that tonight’s starters won’t get a write-up. However, if you have any questions about who to start or bench today, let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to monitor and respond while at the office.
It’s the last week of the season! And that hopefully means that all our wonderful advice will result in a first place finish after the final pitch is thrown this Sunday. But this also means that I was expecting to spend hours tonight trying to figure out what to write about. How does one dole out advice with just one week left in the season?! So I’ll go with an unoriginal daily starting pitcher start/bench theme. Naturally, with everyone in different league formats and sizes, it’s hard to offer a one size fits all recommendation. So I’ll do my best. Also, you’ll notice these are tonight’s matchups. I believe for some of you, you cannot actually pick up and start a pitcher on the same day, so advice on the following day’s pitchers would be more beneficial. If this is indeed your situation, speak up in the comments!