Like Patrick Corbin, who I profiled yesterday, Zach McAllister impressed me in 2012 while filling in as a stream starter for my fantasy teams. He profiled as slightly worse than Corbin heading into 2013, so I tabbed him for more stream starts. That seems to be the right role for him, since he returned negative $2 of value last season. McAllister should enter the season with a rotation job, but owners in shallow leagues will be able to ignore him on draft day.

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Jordan Zimmermann has become an extremely reliable starter. In the last three years his ERA has been between 2.94 and 3.25, his WHIP has been between 1.09 and 1.17, and his strikeout rate has been between 18.6% and 19%. Those rate stats along with 12 wins in 2012 resulted in an ADP of 20-25 among starters for Zimmermann prior to the 2013 season. Despite posting similar rate stats, Zimmermann outperformed his 2013 ADP and finished as the 11th most valuable starter according to our valuations thanks to a jump up to 19 wins.

Zimmermann helped himself in the win category by pitching a little deeper into games. He made the same amount of starts in 2012 and 2013, but he threw 17.2 more innings in 2013. That works out to Zimm leaving the game with an average of 1.65 more outs per game. He also got a bit more help with run support as his run support per innings pitched was five runs compared to 4.7 in 2012. So he was leaving later in games and probably leaving with a lead more often. But those improvements aren’t huge and weren’t worth seven extra wins. When you also consider that we’ve only had 42 19+ win seasons in the last decade and that only six pitchers have had back to back 19+ win seasons in that time frame, it’s highly probable that Zimm’s win total will decline in 2014.

Because of the increased win total, Zimmermann is likely to be drafted as more of a top 15 starter as opposed to a top 25 starter like he was last year. But if his win total does indeed decrease, he’s going to have improve in other areas in order to produce a similar value next year and to be worthy of his draft day price. And given the consistency in the rate stats that was detailed above, an improvement in any of those areas may seem unlikely. But I think Zimmermann may have a proverbial ace up his sleeve. Read the rest of this entry »

Gerrit Cole finished 60th in our end of season starting pitcher rankings. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that he finishes quite a bit higher than that in 2014, because the only reason he finished that low this year is simply because the Pirates didn’t call him up to make his major league debut until June 11, giving him time to pitch only 117.1 innings on the season.

While we look back and remember Cole as blossoming into an ace, it’s probably fair to remember that his time in the bigs didn’t exactly start out with total dominance. For his first few weeks, there were some questions about how few bats Cole was managing to miss despite owning one of only two fastballs to average more than 96 miles per hour (minimum 100 innings). In his first start, Cole struck out only two Giants; in his next, just a single Dodger. He didn’t strike out more than five hitters until his ninth big league start. Read the rest of this entry »

Entering the 2013 season, Patrick Corbin was one of my top sleeper targets. I had enjoyed the left-hander’s debut in 2012, when he was an above average stream-starter for my fantasy teams. Last season, I drafted him in all of my leagues, although I sold him before his best – and worst – work in all but one league. According to Zach Sanders, Corbin was worth $12.57 last season.  As we’ll soon discover together, it was a very front-heavy performance. A disappointing finish to the season makes him an uncertain target for the 2014 season.

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One of the best parts about the winter is obviously tracking all the latest player movement, but sometimes when that rumor mill starts churning, the fantasy nerd in me can’t help but start thinking about making some oddball offseason moves with the hope that the whispers pan out to be truths and I’ve somehow stolen what could blossom into a killer fantasy commodity. Some of the rumors are bigger than others, but a sneaky one that recently popped up sort of intrigues me as a fantasy player who likes drafting closers with upside and hates chasing saves throughout the year. That rumor has the Orioles turning last year’s trade deadline acquisition, Bud Norris, into their full-time closer. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when the Mets traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano? Predictably, the trade looked as horrible as we all thought it would through 2008, when Kazmir enjoyed four straight seasons of a sub-4.00 ERA fueled by his electric fastball-slider-change-up combination. But eventually, it seemed like the Mets may have known what they were doing after all, although there was still no excuse for such a poor return. In 2009 and 2010, Kazmir’s ERA approached 5.00 and 6.00, respectively, as he lost his fastball and his strikeout rate plunged. Fast forward to 2013 and if you had been asleep from 2009 to 2012, you would have thought you had missed nothing. Just another solid performance from the southpaw.

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The 2013 season was a mixed bag for Tim Lincecum. Nothing epitomized his season more than his starts on July 13th and 22nd. The first was a no hitter against the Padres while the second was a 3.2 inning, eight run shelling against the Reds. All season long, he mixed great and poor outings with no rhyme or reason. The Giants were nice enough to reward him handsomely with a two-year, $35 million contract before he could reach free agency, but should fantasy owners be similarly generous?

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The kid with the creepy mustache turned in his finest season in 2013. Although it wasn’t backed up by the win column, Derek Holland was one of the finest starters in the American League, besting the likes of David Price, Doug Fister, Jon Lester, and Hisashi Iwakuma by way of wins above replacement. Perhaps because he only managed to eek out 10 wins, his 3.42 ERA (3.44 FIP) and 189 strikeouts seemed to be often overlooked in fantasy circles. In formats which don’t value wins, however, Holland was ace-like.

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No, Alex Cobb was never involved in a chemical spill, doused in a secret formula and thus given special powers, however that doesn’t stop him from being just as entertaining to watch as an old school Nickelodeon show.

As per Zach Sanders’ end of season rankings, Cobb finished just outside the top 30 for starting pitchers, coming in at number 32. If rate stats alone awarded position, Cobb certainly would have finished higher. A come-back line drive and subsequent concussion forced him to miss two months of the season and limited him to a mere 143.1 innings. Even in a shortened season, Cobb showed tremendous talent and fantasy value.

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Jose Fernandez made the Miami Marlins watchable last season. Given that the team won just 62 games, and was without Giancarlo Stanton for some time, that’s quite a task. At age-20, Fernandez somewhat quietly turned in one of the most impressive pitching performances we’ve seen in years. On a team full of questionable talent, Fernandez emerged as a symbol of hope for the franchise. Now comes the hard part. Fernandez will have to prove that he’s capable of doing it again. While there’s always a significant risk involved in putting too much stock in young pitchers, Fernandez has already put himself on an excellent path.

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