It’s officially April, and with the dawn of a new fantasy season comes the return of a beloved fantasy pastime: dumpster diving.

These are the players you didn’t read about in the magazines, who didn’t make the final cut in your draft, who would otherwise be nonentities on the fantasy radar were it not for the deepness of our leagues – and the regular necessity of patching up spots when players go down with injuries, lose playing time, and deal with the usual topsy-turviness of fantasy life.

But you didn’t come here to read an intro, you came here to dive. Let’s do this.
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You know, I can advocate for different types of leagues. I can talk about the pros and cons of head-to-head, and how redraft leagues are great for the refresh, and about deep leagues and shallow leagues. It’s my job!

But when it comes to playing, to the leagues I actually join, the rubber hits the road. In other words, I vote with my wallet when I join these leagues, because I’m spending actual time and energy in this way. So I thought I’d look through my leagues and see what kinds of leagues I like. And while I’m there, I might as well count up my pitchers so you can see what sorts of arms I’m investing in. My arms and my leagues, and now you know what I *really* like.

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Sonny Gray is littered across the RotoGraphs bold prediction posts, so I felt obligated to break Gray down and elaborate on why I and most of the team feel so confident in Gray this season.
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Though my love for Carlos Carrasco is no longer a secret, I feel like I haven’t shared my optimism as much as I did for my favorite sleeper from last season, Andrew Cashner. However, I did first recommend him in deep leagues last summer (he failed to deliver, oops), discussed a bit of his intrigue when delving into the Indians rotation depth chart this year and then boldly predicted that he would outearn names like Danny Salazar, Justin Masterson and Corey Kluber to finish as the most valuable Indians starter. Now that he has officially won the fifth starter job in Cleveland, there is cause for celebration.

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So your league drafted a month ago and you wound up with Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy, Jarrod Parker, and Patrick Corbin. You’re all set!

Dr. James Andrews has been busy this Spring, and the starting pitching corps have been noticeably thinned as we stagger towards opening day. Not only has there been a rash of ligaments exploding, we’re also hearing about a bad back from Clayton Kershaw, a stiff neck from Yu Darvish, balky groins for Francisco Liriano and Homer Bailey, a bum toe from Hyun-Jin Ryu, and a bad everything for Mat Latos . Zack Greinke’s calf hurts. Matt Moore got hit in the face. Doug Fister strained his latissimus dorsi. Cole Hamels is thrilled to even be able to throw a baseball right now. And then there’s whatever is going on with Mike Minor.

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Bruce Rondon is just the latest hard throwing pitcher to need Tommy John surgery (TJS). Besides Rondon, it seems like just about every pitcher who throws over 100 mph ends up needing repairs on their ulnar collateral ligament. Neftali Feliz. Brian Wilson. Stephen Strasburg. Matt Harvey. I decided to look at the injury rates of pitchers who can throw the magical 100 mph.

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We have been told ad nauseam that spring training stats mean nothing. For the most part, this is true. As soon as you begin reading an article quoting a pitcher’s spring ERA or a hitter’s batting average, you could safely skip any analysis the author provides. But two years ago, with the help of Matt Swartz, I discovered that a pitcher’s strikeout percentage actually does carry some significance with regards to his regular season performance. Knowing this, we could look to the spring stats to identify which starters are punching out batters at a significantly higher rate than they have in the past. These make for an interesting group of breakout candidates.

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There’s an intriguing battle taking place on the Nationals between two rather similar pitchers. Both Taylor Jordan and Tanner Roark debuted in Washington last year and impressed. Though Roark did post a sparkling ERA, neither one of them is getting a whole lot of preseason fanfare, perhaps because their strikeout rates don’t wow us. But the winner of this battle is likely to be a strong source of profit in NL-Only leagues, while offering the potential for mixed league value.

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The Mets tweeted something that at first seems really boring. But it *might* mean something very exciting for a young hurler in the organization. One that isn’t quite yet a national name.

We agreed to pay Daisuke Matsuzaka $100,000 in order to retain his rights under his existing Minor League Uniform Player’s Contract.

— New York Mets (@Mets) March 25, 2014

At first glance, it’s a yawner. Except that Daisuke Matsuzaka is in a competition right now for the fifth starter spot in New York. In competition with Jenrry Mejia, who has so-so numbers in the minor leagues, can’t stay healthy and hasn’t been a top prospect for a while. That said, if Mejia wins the job with a good start this weekend in Montreal — that’s the final hurdle now that it’s easier for the Mets to retain Dice-K — he’s absolutely mixed-league relevant and a great final pitcher pickup.

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He throws all four pitches, has solid velocity, a big solid frame, will begin the season in the White Sox rotation, and is a top 100 prospect. With all of that said, will Erik Johnson be worth a flier in fantasy formats this season?
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