The Detroit rotation trailed only the Washington staff in WAR last year, and the Nationals went out and signed Detroit’s best starter. Along with Max Scherzer, Rick Porcello and Drew Smyly will be pitching elsewhere this year, so the Tigers are without three of the six starters that made at least 10 starts for them last year. The pitchers filling those voids are….underwhelming. It’s an understatement to say the gap between the Washington and Detroit rotations is going to grow this year. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of changes for Spring Training. I am going to be doing more players, but with less information. Some pitchers I watch will only throw an inning or two. Also, some broadcasts don’t have radar readings. Finally, the camera angles are horrible.

Another change I will be implementing is grading the players on the scouting scales of 20-80. I will Kiley McDaniels scale he discussed in this article.

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.

3/16/15 Orioles vs Phillies

Dylan Bundy (30 CV/55 FV)
• He was horrible. No control and or any decent pitches. He is not close at all to the majors. I based the 55 FV on just this start and I think that I may have been generous. He may have a ton of upside, but he needs to find the strikezone first.
• His fastball was 88-94 mph was generally straight with some possible sink. At 93-94 mph, he had no control of the pitch. He was finally able to throw strikes in the 88-91 mph range.
• He had a loopy 72-73 mph 12-6 curveball.
• He has walked quite a few batters during spring training (13 BB vs 9 K in 15 IP). If you are wondering if it is time to buy in with him, check his MiLB walk rate and see if it has improved.

Hunter Harvey (50 CV/60 FV)
• His fastball is 93-95 mph with some release side run. The pitch movement makes it a plus pitch.
• His 12-6 curve was 78-81 mph
• He may have a 2-seamer with a bit of sink.
• He just seemed afraid/cautious of LHH and issued two walks to them.
• He didn’t show a second breaking ball and the lack of it is why I am not higher on him. Too bad he got hurt, or I think he could have made an impact early this season. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things I’ve repeatedly mentioned this draft season is the flat nature of starting pitcher values. For most league types, I keep arriving at the same general strategy. Since most pitchers project to provide comparable value, I need a plan to escape the herd.

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Episode 209

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris dive deep into the mid and late tier of starting pitching in this two-hour extravaganza!!!

I broke the guys up into a series of four- and five-pitcher groupings and then we talked about a couple or all in each group. These are the tiers from which a lot of breakouts and surprises will emerge.

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Yesterday, I took our bold predictions one step further by unveiling my bold hitter league leaders. It’s not easy picking a league leader that could both be considered bold, and yet still not outrageous. Today I turn to pitchers, who with two ratio categories, are perhaps a bit easier.

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My piece yesterday got me thinking a bit. Seeing the high-impact finishes of Jake Arrieta and Jacob deGrom of 16th and 37th among starters despite not even qualifying for the ERA title (162+ IP) had me marinating on Masahiro Tanaka. Are we being too cautious with him because of the partially torn UCL? On Tuesday’s episode of The Sleeper & The Bust, Eno mentioned hearing “a talent evaluator” (which is the latest version of “they say” or “sources say”) suggest that upwards of 40 percent of pitchers are working with a partially torn UCL.

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Whether it’s daily fantasy or dynasty, being able to evaluate a pitcher in a small sample can separate the top from the bottom of your league table. Results — particularly balls in play, but really any results that depend on the outcome of a plate appearance — can only go so far. Per-pitch metrics help, since there are four pitches per plate appearance on average, but if you’re talking results, you’re still cutting your sample into those moments when a player swung or put the ball in play.

And then there’s movement and velocity. We know, for example, that it takes only three starts to reliably predict fastball velocity the rest of the way, and that one start actually gives us a good idea. So maybe movements and velocities can help us evaluate young starters quickly.

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I think something the fantasy universe forgets too often at this time of the season is the sheer length of the season. Six months. Twenty-six weeks. And of course, 162 games. In today’s game, very few players are able to play ‘em all. Just four players were able to do so in 2014. The pitching equivalent is 34 starts and just 10 pitchers managed to reach that height last year. So there are countless guys populating the top 50 or 100 who didn’t play anywhere near the full season.

Trust me I understand why we as a fantasy community have such a sharp focus on the here and now, prioritizing players who have roles secured at this moment. After all, you absolutely can’t play 162 games or log 34 starts if you aren’t even slated to start the season with the major league club. We know many starting roles will turnover as the season goes on and we will churn our fantasy rosters week-in and week-out. With that in mind, you need to make sure you aren’t being too dogmatic about avoiding injured guys or those on the outside looking in of a starting role.

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A few weeks back, I dropped some ice-cold water on some of the spring’s favorites just to give us a reality check about their downside. Interestingly enough, the guy I was struggling most to wet blanket is the one who is now dealing with an ailment: Anthony Rendon with his MCL. For me, his checkered health record was the only thing really holding him back as it could cut into his base-stealing production if it was something nagging and obviously something more severe could really take a chunk out of his numbers. Today, I’ll do the same from fast-rising pitchers and ideally, I’ll go beyond health concerns for all three picks as those loom overhead for every single pitcher every single time they throw the ball.

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In our ceaseless pursuit of Fantasy bargains, we now consider the Cincinnati Reds—or, as one of us will go to his grave calling them, the Cincinnati Redlegs. (This was actually the team’s name from 1954 through 1959, presumably in order to avoid confusion with the crosstown Cincinnati Communists of the Internationale League.)

But we divagate. The Reds in 2014 lost 38 one-run games, the most in a single season by any team in this century. Their record in such games was 22-38, which is likewise abysmal. You’d figure that such a team would have a weak bullpen, and the Reds sure did. They had the fourth worst bullpen ERA in the majors, and no other team was even close to the bullpen’s 11-31 won-lost record. You might also expect that such a team would have a weak closer, but the Reds didn’t. In fact, as you no doubt know, Aroldis Chapman is perhaps the best closer in baseball, and finished second last season in percentage of saves converted. Moreover, Jonathan Broxton, his replacement for the first month or so of the season, converted five out of his six save opportunities.

No, it was the rest of the bullpen—including Broxton, once he became the set-up guy after Chapman returned—that sank the Reds. Chapman, you see, was used almost exclusively (1) in the 9th inning with (2) either the score tied or the Reds holding a narrow lead. If the Reds, courtesy of the bullpen, couldn’t get to the 9th, Chapman wasn’t a factor. Likewise Broxton, in his capacity as closer. Read the rest of this entry »