We’re in the midst of the preseason in which the vast majority of fantasy leagues will be hosting their fantasy drafts, and fantasy owners everywhere are looking for tips and tricks to give them a strategic edge over the competition. Luckily, not everyone in your league is smart enough to read RotoGraphs on a regular basis. While I’m not certain it’s the equivalent of fantasy baseball PEDs, it seems damn close.

Since we’ve now established the apparent correlation between RotoGraphs and fantasy steroids, here are a few thoughts to stuff in your back pocket on a pair of pitchers, one concerning a guy who should be drafted in every league and one who will be lucky to have a 5% ownership rate on Opening Day:

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One of the most pleasant surprises of the spring, and a very welcome sight for the Yankees, is the impressive performance of Michael Pineda. Acquired before the 2012 season in exchange for Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi in a trade that has (so far) been incredibly disappointing for both teams, Pineda has yet to pitch an inning for the Yankees after tearing his shoulder labrum in spring training shortly after being traded.

Now, a full two-and-a-half years since he last pitched a major-league inning, the 25-year-old is opening plenty of eyes with his stellar spring performance. In his nine innings, he has allowed zero runs on eight hits, with a 14/1 strikeout-to-walk ratio that jumps off the page. It’s obviously a tiny sample, but his production so far has been very encouraging for a guy who hasn’t taken the mound in a major-league game since 2011.

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There’s a commonly accepted rule in fantasy baseball circles – “don’t read too much into spring training stats.” I sure do love to break that rule. Every year, something special happens in spring training and with the right approach you can identify and build it into your fantasy draft plan. This year, Drew Hutchison looks like one of those special gems.

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Yesterday, I went beyond the obligatory 10 bold predictions and shared my bold hitter league leaders in each of the five standard fantasy categories. So today, I take on the pitchers. Although still difficult to hit on any, the pitchers are a bit easier to get right than the hitters for two reasons. One, there are two ratio categories, rather than one, so playing time expectations are less important. And two, there’s a larger luck component involved in pitching which makes the elite guys less of a lock to lead the league in any specific category.

In 2012, I hit on one of my 10 picks. Last year, I was demoted back to the minors after putting up an 0-fer. Let’s hope that lit a fire under my butt and results in a breakout predictions year.

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Yesterday, we looked at the elite pitches when it came to whiff rates. Today, we’ll look at things a bit differently. The following pitchers rated highly by swinging strike rate across multiple offspeed pitches. You might notice a certain deficiency in the group. Not a lot of great fastballs! As always, here are the benchmarks for each pitch type.

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If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know I’m very interested in looking at peripherals by pitch type. Looking at the swinging strike and ground-ball rates against benchmarks for each pitch type can give us an idea of which arsenals are the most well-rounded, and which pitches are elite when set against the league benchmarks. Let’s use last year’s per-pitch numbers to see if we can identify some undervalued pitchers. Today, we’ll go with the elite single pitches by whiff rates. Tomorrow, we’ll look at balanced arsenals.

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I’ve been working through a series of posts on how to prepare for leagues that use non-traditional categories. My concern is that people are going into drafts with materials that are geared toward 5×5 categories because almost any set of rankings or values from a major industry source services the traditional categories. Unless you’ve created your own rankings with projections for non-traditional categories or found rankings geared toward them, your draft materials are hurting you to some degree.

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Today marks the end of the 2014 Pod’s Pick series and we finish off with my favorite position, starting pitcher. This is where we find the most divergent opinions as an extra projected win or two or a slightly higher expected strikeout rate is enough to push a player up a whole bunch of spots in the rankings.

The starting pitcher edition of Pod’s Picks may help you find value or learn who to avoid at their current going rates. The bullish section will only include players from my top 78 (which assumes 6 1/2 starting pitchers active per team with 2 1/2 closers), while the bearish group will only include those whose RotoGraphs consensus is in the top 78.

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After five respectable outings in 2013, Erik Johnson will begin his rookie campaign as a relative unknown in the fantasy world. This season is just his third as a professional and his quick ascension through the minors bodes well. The White Sox are hoping that Johnson can fill a mid-rotation role behind Chris Sale, and he could offer possible value to 12-team mixed league owners too.

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The way I am drafting this year, which isn’t much different than most years, is to wait a long while on pitching and stack my roster with mid rotation types along with some young guys with high upside. There is always debate on whether or not that strategy is appropriate, and this post is certainly not expected to start that debate. But one guy I have had on my mind was Ervin Santana. As someone who has added a sinker and regularly shows great command, Santana is a guy I was looking at pretty aggressively entering my drafts.
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