So Michael Pineda has parlayed his All-Star performance in Seattle into a gig in the Big Apple due to the overwhelming needs of Seattle’s offense. Many are thinking Pineda slots in right behind C.C. Sabathia as the team’s #2 starter, but as far as fantasy baseball is concerned, I think a degree of caution is prudent.

Pineda demonstrated a pretty tremendous amount of talent in 2011, no question. He was among league leaders in strikeouts per 9 innings pitched at 9.11 K/9 — just shy of Tim Lincecum and a touch ahead of Justin Verlander. That’s pretty good company.

But we have only one season to gauge and frankly, Pineda entered 2011 as a fringe possibility in Seattle’s rotation to begin with. Before you go drafting him as your savior in fantasy baseball, take a step back and look objectively at the situation.

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Back in July, the man behind the scoring system for ottoneu FanGraphs Points leagues made a modest proposal for an update on pitcher scoring. Justin Merry was generally happy with the scoring system but found that the scores for a few random games made no sense.

To fix those, he recommended adding hits as a category, penalizing pitchers for each hit they allow, and reassessing the value of each of the other stats in accordance with that change. As we head towards 2012, the decision was made to accept his proposal and update scoring for pitchers. By looking back at 2011 stats, we can see the impact this scoring change will have.

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A couple of weeks ago, and probably way too early, I couldn’t help myself from taking a peek over at the average draft position values at Mock Draft Central. I then identified a bunch of pitchers I thought were overvalued. This time I will look at the opposite side of the ledger and take a gander at who appears to be undervalued. I used the AL-Only league ADP values so I could look deeper into the pitcher pool.

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Going into this offseason, there was some expectation that the Cubs would make a big splash. Starting back in May, when then-Cardinal Albert Pujols hugged then-GM Jim Hendry, there was a sizable group of fans who well and truly believed that the Cubs were going to sign either Pujols or Prince Fielder to push them into a bright and glorious future on the corner of Clark and Addison. Read the rest of this entry »

The Baltimore Orioles’ rotation was a disaster in 2011, ranking dead last in the major leagues in innings pitched, ERA and FIP as highly-touted young arms like Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman crashed and burned. The O’s and new GM Dan Duquette signed Japanese starter Tsuyoshi Wada last month, and now they’re looking to the Far East for another lefty in hopes of improving those dismal numbers in 2012, signing Wei- Yin Chen of Nippon Professional Baseball to a three-year contract.

Born in Taiwan, Chen pitched the past four years for the Japanese Central League’s Chunichi Dragons but had an opt-out clause in his contract that allowed him to become a free agent at age 26. Now that he’s coming stateside, what can we expect from Chen? Let’s take a closer look at his stuff and stats.

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Every fantasy owner looks for an edge over the competition. Using a hitter’s platoon splits versus right- and left-handed pitchers is one such method. When looking at these platoon splits, however, a fantasy owner needs to look a little further than just the basic splits to see if the difference is seen is with all pitchers or just relievers.

Historically, left-handed batters hit right-handed pitchers better and right-handed batters hit left-handed pitchers better (called the platoon advantage). With some players, the extent of the difference can be more or less than the league average. For hitters with extreme splits, it may be best to sit them and play someone else if they are up against a certain handed starting pitcher.

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A pitcher in Petco Park should always be on your fantasy radar. With the trade of Anthony Rizzo, Andrew Cashner became the most recent pitcher to be acquired by the Padres. While Cashner will pitch out of the bullpen next season, he still could have some fantasy value. Things could get more interesting in 2013, when Cashner could move into the rotation. Knowing that Cashner might be far more valuable a season down the road, is it worth it to take a chance on him in a keeper or dynasty league next season?
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The Cubs shipped off a pitcher yesterday, but it wasn’t Matt Garza. Instead, the sent Carlos Zambrano to Miami in exchange for Chris Volstad. Neither player provided much fantasy value in 2011, but could a change of scenery provide a boost to one of the two right-handers?

Zambrano was a fantasy asset as recently as 2010, when he posted a 3.33 ERA and 11 wins while striking out 117 in just 129.2 IP. Of course the season wasn’t perfect, by any means. The sparkling ERA was well below Zambrano’s 3.71 FIP and his 1.45 WHIP was pretty weak. Not to mention the fact that you aren’t typically happy with less than 130 IP out of a starting pitcher. And 2011 was much worse – the ERA blew up to a rotund 4.82, the strike outs and wins dropped, and that was before Zambrano had a clubhouse explosion and threatened to retire.

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Admit it, my post titles are cleverly brilliant, every time. A couple of weeks ago in my look at overvalued AL starters based on the average draft position values at Mock Draft Central, I realized that Ervin Santana has gotten little fanfare for his 2011 performance. He posted a career best 3.38 ERA for a solid 84 ERA- and struck out 178 batters. Should you be starvin’ for Ervin in your 2012 drafts?

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Today, let’s make some useful data available for reference on a couple of a subjects — park factors and pitcher batted ball data.

Extreme Park Factors

With Carlos Quentin getting traded to the Padres and the resulting discussion on how his power translates to San Diego, I decided to make available the most extreme park factors in the league. I used the handedness data available at Statcorner.com. I only looked at values that are 10% higher or lower than the league average. Also, I made available the factors that are the most relevant to fantasy baseball, Line Drives (major component of BABIP and AVG) and Home Runs. The park factors are for hitters with a value over 100 helping a hitter and a value below 100 hurting a hitter.

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