When teams determine whether a pitcher is going to be a future reliever or a starter, one of the primary factors driving the decision is how many Major League quality pitches the hurler throws. Typically, a starting pitcher will have a larger repertoire of pitches at his disposal, primarily to neutralize opposite-handed hitters. We think of relief pitchers possessing two pitches, while starters generally throw at least three. But Tony Cingrani is built from a different mold. It seems that Mr. Cingrani hearts the fastball.

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It looks like it’s done. Mark Trumbo to the Diamondbacks, Tyler Skaggs and Hector Santiago to the Angels, and Adam Eaton to the White Sox. Who wins? Who loses? Let’s shake the tree and see what falls out.

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Like Stephen Strasburg, who we profiled yesterday, Cole Hamels possesses borderline elite talent but posted a disappointing return of about $8 in 2013. Hamels was the sixth overall pitcher selected in snake drafts last year with an average auction bid of $24.

Hamels was unfortunate enough to deliver a strong season for a poor team, which led to a 8-14 record. Most of his value came from the 220 innings and 202 strikeouts he recorded. His 3.60 ERA and 1.15 WHIP were fairly pedestrian for 12 team leagues. Despite a tepid return last season, Hamels has been one of the most predictably reliable pitchers in baseball and shows no signs of slowing down.

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Kris Medlen followed up his unsustainable 2012 breakout with a very solid 2013 campaign for the Atlanta Braves.

On the surface, his rate stats got worse, but that’s almost entirely a case of a 1.57 ERA and 2.42 FIP being largely unsustainable. The strikeouts took a slight dip, the walks inched up, and the BABIP and strand rate regressed closer to league-average levels.

Even still, Medlen was great, rating out as the 27th most valuable starter in fantasy and adding just shy of 200 innings of above-average pitching for the Braves.
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Thanks to Barry Zito, you would think that Brian Sabean and anyone one else within the San Francisco Giants’ upper management inner-circle would be scarred for life from fishing in the pond that houses the beloved Oakland Big Three from the early 2000’s. But lo and behold, they go back to the well and this time come away with right-hander Tim Hudson on a two-year deal worth $23M. While I would love to sit here and debate the merits of the deal with both the lovers and the haters of this signing, that ship has sailed already when Dave Cameron reported on the move back in mid-November. Feel free to skim through the comments section as there are certainly a few doozies in there. But since this is RotoGraphs, we’re going to talk about the fantasy aspect. You know, things like where Hudson will go in drafts and what kind of  return value should you expect. Read the rest of this entry »

The man formerly known as Jamie who arrived in the bigs with a meh fastball has made himself into quite the workhorse. Well, workhorse has somewhat of a negative connotation as it’s typically used to describe pitchers who throw a lot of innings, but not necessarily of high quality. James Shields‘ innings, at least over the past three seasons, have certainly been of high quality. He has given his two teams at least 227 innings a year, with an ERA ranging between 2.82 and 3.52. His 2013 performance was good enough to rank him as the 25th most valuable starting pitcher.

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Last season, Stephen Strasburg was selected for an average price of $28 and was taken 13th overall in Yahoo! snake drafts. An 8-9 record over 183 innings prevented him from living up to his pre-draft hype. Despite a 3.00 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and 191 strikeouts, Strasburg delivered just $14 of value to his owners. Strasburg is entering his age 25 season with concerns about his durability, so the question on everyone’s mind is “should I target him in my draft?”

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Besides the 2014 starting pitcher disabled list (DL) predictions, have a few notes on some players.

• A few weeks ago I re-examined my 2013 starting pitcher DL predictions. The results were dead on as usual. For the 2014 predictions, I have put them in a spreadsheet for everyone to complain about. The main DL percentage chance is based off of age, MLB experience and past injuries.  Additionally, I have added an indication if the player has any other injury inducing traits like heavy breaking ball usage and the inability to throw strikes. While the entire list is available on the spreadsheet, here are the 10 least likely pitchers to go on the DL who also have no other injury indicators.

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He’s 27, so maybe it’s not surprising. But over 1800 innings into his career, Felix Hernandez isn’t really showing any signs of decline yet. Well, if you ignore one stat.

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In many ways, this article is going to be a rehashing of the Marco Estrada article I wrote prior to the 2013 season. The core aspects haven’t changed. Estrada continues to offer an above-average strikeout rate, a stellar WHIP due to a low walk rate and encouraging fielding independent numbers.

I stated in August:

If the home run rate doesn’t become too unworkable, there’s so much to like about Marco Estrada.

Those words epitomized his injury-shortened performance last year. The right-hander saw his home run rate skyrocket in the first half to an untenable 1.82 HR/9. Expectedly, his overall numbers suffered as he compiled a nasty 5.32 ERA and 4.75 FIP, but the above-average strikeout-to-walk ratio remained. It was unreasonable to project his home run rate to stabilize at such a high level, which is why Estrada was a prime buy-low candidate late in the season for owners who were searching for improved pitching for the playoff stretch.

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