It’s time for our Depth Chart Discussions to begin. In an effort to suss out every team, we’ve divided them into four parts (infield, outfield, bullpen, and rotation) and will begin breaking them down for you over the next few weeks. You can find them gathered here.

The New York Yankees head into 2015 praying that their rotation will hold up. As nearly anyone can reasonably surmise, it won’t. Injury concerns abound in the Yanks’ top five, and there’s not much help waiting in the wings. If everyone stays healthy, this rotation will be very formidable. Unfortunately, there aren’t many bigger ‘ifs’ than that one.

CC Sabathia
Masahiro Tanaka
Michael Pineda
Nathan Eovaldi
Ivan Nova
Chris Capuano

Those six names are the only ones that we have projected to pitch more than 19 innings as a starter for the Yanks this season. Considering the team used a whopping 13 starters last year, that’s red flag number one. Let’s start with Sabathia and work our way down.

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Homer Bailey was really coming into his own as we began 2014. He had gotten incrementally better in each of his first seven seasons, bettering his K:BB ratio each season and stringing together five years of ERA improvements from 2008-2013. But then he came out and dropped an ERA north of 5.00 for the first two months of the season. He rebounded in the summer, but then a strained flexor tendon ended his season in early-August. He had surgery a month later (September 5th) and is slated to be ready for Spring Training. In fact, a December 5th report suggested he was actually ahead of schedule.

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Yesterday, I shared with you the names of a group of starting pitchers whose xK% was much higher than his actual K%. So today I’m going to check in on the opposite end of the spectrum, those starters whose xK% was well below their actual K% marks. You might call this group your bust candidates. Well, that is if people are paying for a repeat of their 2014 strikeout rates of course.

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While the Rays lack a clear number one a la David Price, the team has plenty of depth with SP2/3/4 types, all fantasy worthy for at the very least stream starts. There is value to be had in Tampa, but much of it will come in the later rounds/cheaper cost than previous seasons.

Episode IV, A New Hope
Alex Cobb
Chris Archer
Jake Odorizzi
Drew Smyly

Episode V, The Minors Strike Back
Alex Colome
Nate Karns

Episode VI, Return of the Injured
Matt Moore
Burch Smith
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The Astros rotation was surprisingly decent last year. As a staff they totaled 12.4 WAR which made them the 12th best rotation in the league by that metric. But I’m about 99.9% sure no Astros starter had an ADP that made him a regular selection in 12-team mixed leagues. Yet they ended up producing the 20th and 33rd most valuable fantasy starters. Insane. But drafters aren’t totally buying it as those same two pitchers currently have ADPs of 53 and 65. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this staff is that the five starters who threw the most innings for Houston last year may be the same five starters to begin the year with only one real threat to steal a rotation spot. For a rotation that no one thought was any good just a year ago on a team that is still rebuilding, it’s surprising not to see much, if any, turnover. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, I shared my updated xK% equation, which blends a pitcher’s overall strike percentage with his called, swinging and foul strike rates to produce an expected strikeout rate. While its wonderfully high adjusted R-squared tells us how well it works, it’s even better used when dealing with a small number of innings since the metric uses pitches thrown, greatly alleviating sample size issues. It’s therefore a huge help when projecting young starting pitchers for my Pod Projections who were up in the Majors for just a grande sized cup of coffee.

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To start off, Jeff Sullivan wrote an awesome piece on Carlos Carrasco on the main site. If I could make a request, it is that you read the above link prior to reading this piece on Carrasco’s fantasy value.
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A future ace is often tough to identify. Sometimes it’s a #1 overall pick who makes his MLB debut a year after being drafted and turns in his first gem of a season in year three like David Price. But it is often a more circuitous route that maybe only involved a hint of potential ace-dom at the beginning, as with Max Scherzer.

The 11^th overall pick from 2006 blitzed his way through the minors and debuted in 2008 with time split in between the rotation and bullpen. Most saw him eventually landing in the bullpen, but as a high impact closer-type. He ranked in the 2008 top 100 lists for Baseball America (#66) and Baseball Prospectus (#90), but he wasn’t even the top prospect on his team. That distinction belonged to Jarrod Parker.

Scherzer hasn’t seen the bullpen since that 2008 season – save a couple of postseason appearances, including an amazing one for the Tigers in 2013 – and has evolved from a promising, but flawed mid-rotation arm to dominant frontline stud. Now, armed with the contract to back his ace status, Scherzer moves from one loaded pitching staff to another, but this time he will be the focal point. Many believe the move back to the National League will increase his value substantially, but how much can he improve upon his last seasons: one a Cy Young effort and the other a near-match when you look at his FIP and component numbers?

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Last week I ran the 2015 Steamer projections for starting pitchers through Zach Sanders’ Fantasy Value Above Replacement system and compared them to early NFBC ADP data to identify some possible bust candidates. Today we’ll look at some sleeper candidates.

Tony Cingrani, Cincinnati Reds

After an impressive 100-ish inning debut in 2013, Cingrani struggled mightily last year. His season ended in mid-June after he was sent to the minors to work on his command, and he then revealed he had been dealing with a shoulder issue. Apparently he’s expected to come to Spring Training healthy and is a likely candidate for a rotation spot, but drafters aren’t buying a bounce back as his ADP among starters is 97. But Steamer does see a bounce back as he comes in 46th in the projection rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

Drew Hutchison

Why I watched: Whirling Darvish asked and I couldn’t come up with a reason not to.

Game(s) Watched: 9/26/14 vs Baltimore

Game Thoughts:

• He struck out the side in the first, but allowed one run on two hits and a walk. He struck out seven of the first nine batters.

• The 24-year-old righty worked in the vertical direction with all his pitches. His motion seems a little jerky and mechanical. He is slow to the plate with David Lough getting a stolen base in the first off him. In 2014, base stealers were 24 of 27 (88%) when he was pitching.

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