Some fantasy baseball players here and there, sort of, in a way, kind of think that already. But they may not be eager to draft Alex Cobb like one, and they shouldn’t need to do so. In terms of performance, there haven’t been too many hurlers better in the last couple of years. He finished 34^th in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for the position. The right-hander has yet to pitch even 170 innings in a single campaign at any level, however. He likely doesn’t strike the populace as dependable.

There really isn’t a need to make the case that Cobb is good. Fantasy owners know that he’s good. But would they call him an ace? Probably not. For now, then, I’ll call him a pseudo ace.

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There were few expectations placed on Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura last season. While he was considered the favorite to open the year as the team’s fifth starter, Ventura had only made three starts in the majors. The potential was there, but Ventura came with a lot of uncertainty. Once he got the job, Ventura proved he was a fifth starter in name only. Over 183 innings, the 23-year-old posted a 3.20 ERA, with a 3.60 FIP. By the playoffs, Ventura had emerged as the Royals second most dependable starter behind James Shields. With Shields expected to leave town during the offseason, Ventura will enter 2015 with enormous expectations. Will he provide an encore?

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Yesterday, the Athletics continued their wheeling and dealing this offseason by trading the pitcher they just traded for over the summer. Jeff Samardzija will now be calling the South side of Chicago home and given the perception of each home park, this is seemingly a bad move for his fantasy value. Let’s check out the park factors.

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This past spring, Jake Odorizzi had an opportunity, but not much in the way of expectations from fantasy baseball players. He hadn’t yet been exceptional at anything. There had existed a decent chance that he would eventually lose his rotation spot. For the first couple of months of the season, he struggled in each outing after his first time through the opposition’s lineup. Rotisserie owners might even consider his 76^th-place finish in Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings for starting pitchers a bit of a coup. According to the list, he earned a buck – on the nose. How exciting.

But Odorizzi also did something interesting: strike people out more frequently. He finished with a 4.13 ERA and 1.29 WHIP, but the 174 K’s (24.2 K%) in 168 innings were quite nice. They lowered the right-hander’s FIP, xFIP, and SIERA, naturally, to more eye-catching figures and raised the level of interest of the fantasy population. How great should that interest be in 2015?

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By the time James Paxton left in the sixth inning of his second start of 2014, he had done little in his young career to dampen expectations of him becoming a solid major league starter. After all, between the four starts he made in September 2013 and his first two in April, Paxton had gone 5-0 with a 1.75 ERA, an 8.5 K/9 and flashed an especially encouraging ability to generate ground balls, displaying some of the ingredients that comprise the finest fantasy starters.

Unfortunately, a strain of the left latissimus dorsi muscle curtailed his outing on April 8, causing him to miss nearly four months and finish 102nd among starting pitchers, according to Zach Sanders’ end of the season rankings. But upon returning, Paxton was able to redeem what was left of his season, enough so to make 2014 a step forward for the southpaw and perhaps, at the age of 26, setting him up as a breakout candidate for 2015.

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It may be an understatement to claim that fantasy owners were excited about Danny Salazar heading into the season. And who could blame us? After undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2010, he returned with a new arm and rose swiftly through the Indians farm system. He then hinted at his vast potential during his 2013 MLB debut, as he struck out nearly 31% of batters faced, while displaying strong control. And that performance was backed by a sizzling 96 mph fastball, lethal changeup and good slider. It was enough to get us RotoGraphs rankers to place him 24th among starters, despite having just 52.0 Major League innings under his belt.

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Well, I will take one for the Rotographs team and publish our first rankings to get torn part. I am going with the simplest of all pitcher rankings …. strikeouts minus walks. Basically, how much easily measurable talent does a pitcher have. Can the pitcher strikeout hitters? Does he not walk many? Can he keep pitching for an entire season? Just by running this simple formula and creating a graph of the rankings, some initial thoughts can be formulated for the 2015 draft/auction season.

For the rankings, I used our Steamer projections. These numbers can be re-run at a later date with other projections for more clarity. The entire list is available here. In addition to the list, I have the top 100 pitchers ranked. What I look for now is tiers are any pitchers group together. I like to get one of these pitchers before the talent level drops off.
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Ever since 2012, I’ve been waiting for Johnny Cueto to put up a monster season. At the time, I had identified some markers that compared favorably with Roy Halladay. That’s not to say I expected Cueto to become a true beast like Halladay. However, having traits in common with such an elite pitcher probably improves the likelihood of a fantasy breakout.

We were finally treated to glory with a 20 win, 242 strikeout, 2.25 ERA, and 0.96 WHIP season worth $34. He was the second most valuable pitcher per Zach Sanders, and he was arguably the most profitable (Corey Kluber is the alternative). According to FantasyPros, owners paid just $7 to acquire Cueto this season.
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When a rookie starting pitcher posts a 2.69 ERA and earns Rookie of the Year honors, despite owning an unexciting 3.62 career ERA in the minor leagues, the natural knee-jerk reaction is to raise both eyebrows. When that pitcher also struck out 25.5% of the batters he faced in the Majors, after posted an underwhelming 19.5% strikeout rate in the minors, you would raise a third eyebrow if you had one. But despite his mediocre minor league track record that fails to foreshadow the type of success he enjoyed during his Mets debut, Jacob deGrom is for real. Here’s why:

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Carlos Rodon

Why I watched: One of the 2014 draft picks who is nearly ready to join the big league level club.

Game(s) Watched: 8/30/14 vs Gwinnett Braves

Game Thoughts

• Tough camera angles and this was from one of the better MiLB cameras.

• The lefty is a big boy (6’3 234)

• Used the angles coming from 1B side with a straight fastball. He should be able to own lefties with this pitch.

• Slider just has the same action as his fastball, but moves down with some glove side run. It is a swing and miss pitch with no ability to throw for it for strikes.

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