I have a H2H league with my old college teammates that’s a little bit…funky. It’s a 6×6 league that includes K/BB with the usual five pitcher categories. We also roster about 1.5 times more pitchers than position players. In most leagues, it’s typical for owners to spend about 70 percent of their budget on position players. But for my league, the optimal split favors pitchers.

I ran my own models, used the tools available at Last Player Picked (currently defunct) and Baseball Prospectus and kept coming away with the same result – Cliff Lee was the most valuable player in the league with a suggested auction price in the upper $50’s. While I had my doubts about the valuation, I happily selected him for $34. According to Zach Sanders, he returned over $25 in normal leagues last season and I have every confidence that he blew away the $34 I paid for him in my league.

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Zack Greinke had another excellent season in 2013, placing 14th in the end-of-season starting pitcher rankings and sporting the league’s fifth-best ERA at 2.63.

But how did Greinke rank outside the top-ten despite a top-five mark in ERA, a top-10 mark in wins (15) and a top-15 mark in WHIP (1.11)? It’s because for the second straight year, Greinke’s strikeout rate saw a dramatic drop, even though his swinging strike rate rebounded to double-digit levels.

Should we be concerned that Greinke struck out just 20.6 percent of batters he faced, and is there anything else concerning in his profile?
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While he’s thrown over 1,000 innings in Japan and almost 350 in a two-year span here in the United States, Hisashi Iwakuma still seems to be one of the best kept secrets in both real and fantasy baseball. You could blame it on the lack of attention given to the small market that is the Pacific Northwest, but King Felix sure commands everyone’s attention and I’ve heard many a conversation about young, talented pitching that always seems to garner a Taijuan Walker reference. He’s done nothing but dominate hitters since joining the Mariners rotation midway through the 2012 season and despite finishing third in the American League in ERA amongst qualified starters, he seems to get passed over faster than your Aunt Susie’s Jell-O mold she brings to Christmas dinner every year. Is it a lack of knowledge by the masses? A lack of trust? Whatever the case may be, don’t fall in line with the lemmings. Sleeping on Iwakuma this year means that you’re going to blow a golden opportunity in your draft to steal high-end talent a a seriously discounted rate. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I reminded you all about my preseason lovefest for Andrew Cashner. What I neglected to mention because it wasn’t all that important, is that Cashner opened the year in the bullpen for the first couple of weeks of the season. Who took the rotation spot I expected Cashner to fill? Tyson Ross. Meet your early Pod’s Favorite Sleeper Pitcher.

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Last season, John Lackey was selected as the 244th overall player in Yahoo! leagues according to Fantasy Pros. He wasn’t auctioned frequently enough to show up on their auction values report, so we can safely say that he cost $1 or wasn’t drafted in nearly all leagues. Lackey rewarded the few owners who took a flier with a $8 performance according to Zach Sanders. Owners were slow to buy into Lackey as a viable option. As late as September 6th, his ownership rate was at just 61 percent in Yahoo! leagues and that may have been his season high.

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Strikeouts, man. Alone, they predict next year’s ERA better than FIP! They’re an important category by themselves, and then they predict good work in the other categories, so they’re a double threat. At some point though, you have to worry about the other categories too. Edinson Volquez cough cough.

Matt Moore is no Edinson Volquez. But his followup season had enough flaws that you might be worried that — despite the strikeouts — Moore’s not going to age very well.

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Yu Darvish may have compiled the least-heralded sub-3.00 ERA season in recent memory. Unfortunately, most of that stems from a lackluster 13-9 record, as his run support was putrid through certain stretches. To illustrate that point, in 17 of his starts, the Rangers scored three or fewer runs, which will certainly make it difficult to become a 20-game winner. Only logging 13 wins caused most of America to forget about Darvish’s stellar season, and it even got to the point that area sportswriters questioned his ability to hold leads late in games.

Regardless of the lack of attention lavished on the right-hander, fantasy owners certainly took notice. Zach Sanders had him ranked as the fourth-best starter in the league, while ESPN tabbed him as the five-best starter. In short, he anchored fantasy rotations and was a bona fide stud in every style of league.

Darvish took a significant step forward in 2013 due to BABIP and his strand rate. They combined to see his ERA drop from 3.90 in 2012 to 2.83 this past season, but the core components of his performance suggest his overall effectiveness was similar. His FIP remained almost identical, while he traded a few more home runs for fewer walks and more strikeouts.

His home run rate jumped from 0.66 HR/9 in 2012 to 1.12 HR/9 this past season. His HR/FB certainly changed for the worse, but it appears the larger discussion point should surround his decreased ground-ball rate. It decreased roughly five percent, and while that’s not a significant downturn, it seems at least interesting to note his home run rate increased in tandem with more fly balls.

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It was no secret that I was a huge Andrew Cashner fan heading into the season. You could say that he was my sleeper/undervalued pitcher of the year. I drafted him for my LABR team and Tout Wars squad, shared how upset at myself I would be if he didn’t make it onto every single one of my teams, boldly predicted that he would outearn every starting pitcher on both the Braves and Mets pitching staffs and lead the National League in ERA, and was most bullish on his fantasy value compared to the rest of the RotoGraphs rankers. And yet, despite posting a fantastic 3.09 ERA and ranking 41st among starting pitchers in fantasy value, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.

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I’ve seen Andrew Heaney pitch several times, but the most memorable occasion was at the 2012 Big XII Baseball Tournament. Oklahoma State and Oklahoma were facing off at 9:00 am on a Wednesday. Bleary-eyed and still trying to wake up, I snagged a coffee and a breakfast burrito (not my usual ballpark fare) from the concession stands and headed down to take my seat behind home plate. Clearly, my expectations for this game were pretty low; after all, this was possibly the earliest start time many of the players had ever experienced.

I may have been a bit low on energy, but Heaney was ready to roll. The lanky lefty took the hill like it was 7:00 pm on a Friday and proceeded to systematically dismantle a very good Oklahoma team that would go on to the super-regionals. Through the first eight innings, Heaney allowed only two soft singles, with one walk and eight strikeouts, on just 86 pitches. His fastball was a tick below his usual velocity, as he was maxing out at 92 mph instead of 94, but his three-pitch mix still had opponents flailing wildly. His mid-80s slider was maybe even better that morning than I’d previously seen, and he was consistently hitting the strike zone with his low-80s change-up as well.

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Ivan Nova has seen his performance fluctuate quite a bit over his short career. 2011 was his first full season and he returned good results, with a 16-4 record and 3.70 ERA. But his peripherals were mediocre, including a 5.33 K/9 that made him hard to roster in fantasy leagues. Then came 2012 when he took big steps forward. He struck out over eight batters per nine (8.08 K/9) and kept his walk rate under control (2.96 BB/9). Which was good, except that he also allowed a ton of hits on balls in play (.331 BABIP) and an unusual number of home runs (16.6% HR/FB). That led to an unsightly 5.02 ERA.

He finally put it all together last season. He maintained the strong strikeout and walk rates, bowled plenty of ground balls (53.5%), and turned in an ERA of 3.10 with a 3.68 xFIP. Nova got out to a slow start on the season (more on that in a moment), so he only returned a little less than $3 of value over 139 innings. Aside from Yankees fans, fantasy owners are likely to undersell the soon to be 27-year-old, but he’s a solid option capable of supporting a fantasy rotation.

First and foremost, Nova is not somebody to confuse with more elite pitchers, nor does he possess much upside. He’s somebody who can produce average stats across all four starting pitcher categories, which is quite useful. Most pitchers who are used to fill out a fantasy rotation have specific strengths and weaknesses. Maybe they strikeout a lot of hitters but also issue too many walks. That would lead to a high WHIP and inconsistent ERA. Or maybe they’re just as solid as Nova, but they pitch for a terrible team and therefore have little chance of winning games (ahem, Jose Quintana). Assuming neutral luck, using someone like Nova can make it a lot easier to manage categories.

Nova sputtered out to a rough start in 2013. Three of his first four outings went poorly, at which point he landed on the disabled list with a strained triceps. He then suffered an oblique injury while rehabbing his arm. He made a pair of relief appearances in late May and then was demoted to Triple-A. He returned to more regular action in late June, which is when he began to pitch well. He did falter a bit in late August through mid-September, which coincides with a drop in velocity. It’s possible he was suffering from a minor injury or fatigue.

Monthly Pitch Usage

According to Brooks Baseball, Nova began phasing out his four-seam fastball in favor of a sinker. He split usage of both pitches over the season, but increasingly favored the sinker as the season progressed. That may be a good move as his primary fastball allowed a .357 BABIP in both 2012 and 2013. The pitch was the main culprit behind his rough 2012 season, and it’s quite possible that it’s a bit too hittable.

From the table above, not only does his sinker generate more ground balls than his fastball, but it also generates more whiffs. It would seem that the primary fastball is best used as a setup pitch to help his sinker and curve ball. Nova also mixes in the occasional change-up against left-handed hitters, but it does not appear that he is confident in the pitch.

After reviewing his pitch usage, Nova feels a bit incomplete as a pitcher. His four seam fastball has been poor over a fairly large sample, yet he has a good sinker and curve ball. A useful third pitch would be a weapon that improved all of his offerings and kept hitters guessing.

As for expectations, Nova has a rotation job all but guaranteed in New York. With health, he’ll get a shot at 200 innings next season. If he pitches to similar peripherals as last season, he should turn in around $8 of value. He will probably be available in many leagues for only a couple dollars, although I’m sure you can find plenty of Yankees fans with unreasonable expectations. Given his expected value and cost, it seems pretty obvious that Nova should be an early target for the back of your rotation. However, it’s still early in the offseason, we may find that savvy owners aren’t letting him slip as far as I expect.