Recently, I posted my 2012 starting pitcher DL projections. In the projections, I used games started, age, and injury history to predict the percentage chance a pitcher will end up on the DL. Today, I am going to give an initial stab at how throwing a large number of curveballs and sliders affects a pitcher’s DL chances.

I started by looking at the season after the season in which a pitcher threw over 120 innings. Normally, 39% of these pitchers will end up on the DL. The percentage increases even more if the pitcher threw a large number of sliders or curveballs.

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Matt Garza’s first four seasons in the Major Leagues were all very comparable. His ERA fluctuated between 3.69 and 3.81 while his FIP was between 4.18 and 4.42 in each season. Garza’s performance was becoming easily predictable, until he altered his pitching style last season.

Last year, Garza got away from the fastball and sinker heavy approach that he utilized in Tampa Bay. It seems as though Tampa instills a primary pitch philosophy, in which they utilize their four seam fastball, two seam fastball, or sinker more frequently than most teams. During Garza’s time in Tampa Bay, from 2008-2010, the Rays finished eighth in combined four seam, two seam, and sinker rate at 60.7%.
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Last week, I determine who the most overvalued pitchers were based on my projections and dollar values in comparison to their average draft positions on Mock Draft Central. Today I check in on the other side of the coin. Pitcher projections and rankings always have the most disagreement, so it is always interesting to see where my opinion diverges from the mock drafters and the various projection systems. I decided to include the 5 most undervalued pitchers that are still worth drafting (expected to generate a positive value) in a standard 12-team mixed league and projected to be worth more than just a couple of bucks. I also excluded the reliever turned starter group since I’ve talked enough about them and they aren’t 100% locks for a spot anyway.

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Back in November I discussed bargain shopping in Houston and how there are still a few hidden gems that would make for strong selections at the tail end of your draft.  Well, today, we’re going to look at another perennial cellar-dwelling team and see what kind of fantasy gold can be found.  Funny thing, though, is that these Royals — these, more often than not, punching bags of the AL — are looking pretty darn good lately and there’s going to be quite the battle to obtain a number of their players’ services in fantasy drafts this year.

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A pitcher’s fantasy value is more than ERA, WHIP or K/9. Even if they have great values in rate stats, they are useless if they aren’t pitching. Today I am going to give the chances for certain starting pitchers to end up on the disabled list in 2012.

Last year, I determined a formula to get the percentage chance a pitcher will end up on the DL. Historically, any starter that pitched 120 innings in the previous season has a 41% chance of ending up on the DL. So of a team’s 5 starters, 2 will spend time on the DL on average.

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He is not going to strikeout many batters, he relies heavily on a sinkerball while the Tigers have assembled one of the worst infield defenses in recent memory, and Steamer projections have him at a 4.42 ERA this year. Even so, I still see reasons to believe that Doug Fister may duplicate last year’s performance.

The main reason for my support of Fister is how different his repertoire was last year compared to the previous year and a half of his Major League career.
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The results are in. After crowdsourcing Yu Darvish’s expected 5×5 stats and ottoneu points production, last week we asked you about his draft round and auction value in three formats…

1. 12-team mixed league, 5×5 scoring
2. $260 budget, 5×5 scoring
3. $400 budget, ottoneu points

We received 248 total responses, with the results as follows…

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Mike Minor is a forgotten man. The lefty is overshadowed by young studs like Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado and Arodys Vizcaino within the Braves’ organization, and a career ERA closer to five than four in the majors over the past two seasons seemingly supplies ammo to those who panned Atlanta for playing it safe with the seventh pick in the 2009 draft. Fantasy folks certainly aren’t impressed, as MockDraftCentral’s latest ADP numbers have Minor going 308th overall, behind damaged goods like Carlos Zambrano and Francisco Liriano and just ahead of the Aaron Harangs of the world.

While it’s easy to recall the “low upside” label slapped on Minor when he came out of Vanderbilt and point to his unimpressive big league ERA as confirmation, that assessment ignores his superb minor league track record and promising peripheral stats in the majors. Minor, locked in to a back-of-the-rotation spot with the Braves, looks like one of the biggest sleepers in the game entering spring training.

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Over the last few weeks we’ve spent some time crowdscourcing Yu Darvish’s expected 5×5 stats and ottoneu points production, and now I want to use that data to crowdsource his expected draft round and various auction values. But first, a quick recap of our previous crowdsourcing escapades…

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We all know the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, I’m never drafting that player again. It’s one thing to be disappointed with a player’s performance in a single year, but if a player doesn’t pan out in multiple seasons after having been a previously valuable player, well, it’s hard not to take personally sometimes.

It’s been a few years since A.J. Burnett was a sought after fantasy property — his last truly strong season was 2007, which means the 2008 draft was his last time as a potential top tier pitcher — but was still getting drafted in the 200-215 range on most servers last year. Prior to his move to Pittsburgh, Burnett was getting drafted…sometimes. His ADP isn’t that different from 2011, about 222 according to Mock Draft Central, but he’s being drafted in fewer than 10 percent of mixed 5X5 drafts.

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