We have completed the keeper tiers, but that does not mean the keeper analysis ends. Today I will take a look at another two putcher who did not quite make the tiers, but might still have value in AL-Only leagues.
Save for San Diego, it’s hard to envision a more heavenly landing spot for a pitcher like Brad Mills than the Angels. An extreme fly ball lefty prone to whiplash, Mills bombed in three brief big league trials with Toronto, could be out of minor league options if he doesn’t qualify for a fourth option year and only stood a chance of making the Jays’ roster as the human equivalent of a white flag, a long reliever. But, after being swapped to L.A. for out-maker extraordinaire Jeff Mathis, Mills has the perfect blend of pitcher’s park, weak competition, strong outfield D and opportunity to succeed in the majors.
On Friday, Chris Capuano signed a two-year deal with the Dodgers. After missing all of 2008 and 2009 with Tommy John surgery, he pitched decently in 2010 and 2011. If he can stay off the DL, he will be a nice buy-low option in deep leagues for 2012.
Chris started out his career with the Diamondbacks and the Brewers. He was able to put up decent K/9 numbers that ranged from 6.3 to 8.2. His walk rate was around 3.5 BB/9 and even dipped to 1.9 in 2006.
You can’t feel too bad when a free agent pitcher signs in Colorado. They know what they’re getting into, and they’ve made the decision in spite of the altitude. But you’ve got to feel a little bit sorry for Tyler Chatwood, the newest member of the Rockies, who will now be shopping for real estate in the Mile High City without having gotten much say in the matter. Denver is a lovely city, but it has something of a history of giving pitchers fits.
The Angels moved the 21-year-old Chatwood for Chris Iannetta, trying to correct one of the biggest mistakes of the 2010 offseason: Trading Mike Napoli. The Rockies add another young arm to the pair they received in the Ubaldo Jimenez trade, as well as their own, homegrown stash. Chatwood isn’t likely to be a fixture at the top of their rotation, but he does give them depth if Alex White or Drew Pomeranz doesn’t look ready coming out of spring training or if Juan Nicasio has a setback as he comes back from the fractured vertebra.
On the surface, Chatwood doesn’t appear to be much of prize for the Rockies or for fantasy players. A K/BB ratio of 1.04 isn’t going to inspire much confidence no matter how it breaks down, but at least it could be somewhat mitigated by either a high strikeout rate or a low walk rate. Instead, Chatwood both walked and struck out about 11 percent of the hitters he faced, which is quite possibly the worst way to have a 1-1 walk-to-strikeout ratio, as it’s both too many walks and too few strikeouts. The minuscule strikeout rate may yet rise into something nominally useful, as he never posted a K/9 under 6.2 in the minors, but the walks have always been with him and don’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. Moving out of the AL West will help his ERA some, but if he keeps his WHIP in the 1.50-1.60 range, it’s going to lead to some disaster starts where most of those runners score.
While much of Chatwood’s upside comes from his age and the time he has to reach his potential — he was ranked in Baseball America’s top 100 prospects prior to the 2011 season — I see two things that will help him survive the thin air. First, he doesn’t rely on offspeed pitches. The humidor certainly suppresses ball flight some, but pitchers who rely on breaking pitches must also fight the fact that less downward force means less break. Chatwood threw the third highest percentage of fastballs of all pitchers who threw at least 140 innings last year, so he’ll be less affected by the high altitude than someone like Wandy Rodriguez or Ervin Santana might be.
The second reason Chatwood won’t be ruined by Coors Field is his groundball rate. His 47 percent isn’t pushing the league leaders, but it is above average and every groundball helps when you’re trying to avoid home runs. The balls in play he generates will put some pressure on the Rockies’ defense, which did not grade out to be as good as the Angels’ was last year. That doesn’t bode particularly well for Chatwood’s hit rate, but I’m willing to wait until the offseason is over before making a final judgment on the Rockies’ defense.
So, the good news is that I don’t think the move to Coors will sunder Chatwood. The bad news is that with a high WHIP, low strikeout rate, and reasonably high ERA, he’s not exactly a fantasy goldmine even in a neutral park. If he starts missing bats or at least inducing weak contact, maybe he’ll become a bottom-tier — but playable — option. As of right now, stay away in all formats, NL-only included.
No, not Thanksgiving dinner leftovers. Two weeks ago for my last keeper rankings post, I wasn’t sure if tier five would be the final tier. Well, I have decided, it was. So now it is time to take a look at those that just made the cut, or the leftovers, if you will. To refresh your memory…
Justin Verlander had himself a fine season, you may have heard. The first pitcher to win both the MVP and the Cy in about a quarter-century, he combined superlative peripherals with just a little bit of luck and the backing of a strong team to produce a season for the ages. He probably won his owners many a fantasy league. From personal experience, each team of mine that featured the Tigers’ ace won its’ league this year.
That’s all fine and good, but you shouldn’t draft Verlander next year. Focus instead on finding the next Verlander.
It looks like moving relievers into the rotation has been the trend of the off-season. Last week, I tried to forecast White Sox pitcher Chris Sale‘s performance as a starter next season. With the news that the Rangers have signed Joe Nathan to be their closer, incumbent closer Neftali Feliz becomes the flavor of the day in reliever-turned-starter land. Will his transition go as smoothly as rotation-mate C.J. Wilson’s did, who made the switch in 2010, or will he wilt under the Texas sun with the heavier workload?
In 2011, Jonathan Papelbon was entering the last year of his contract with the Boston Red Sox without the two sides managing to work out an extension to keep him as closer for the future. It wasn’t cemented that Papelbon was gone, but there was a good deal of speculation that Daniel Bard was the heir apparent to the fireman’s role as he was coming off a dominant 2010 campaign.
When Papelbon recently signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, many assumed that the Boston brass would summarily anoint Bard as closer and move on to more pressing issues in the starting rotation and trying to find a right fielder, but there was no such announcement. In fact, when Daniel Bard’s name was brought up, it was mentioned that while he may be a candidate for the closer role, he might also stay in his familiar set-up job, or they just might try him out as a starter.
The starting role possibility was news to me, and and in looking at his minor league starts, it turns out there’s a pretty good reason why. Daniel Bard was a terrible minor league starting pitcher.
For the first three seasons of his career, Wandy Rodriguez was nothing more than your average, run-of-the-mill starting pitcher. He had an ERA that ranged from 4.58 to 5.64, a HR/FB rate perpetually above 10%, his walk rate was too high and his strikeout rate was too low. There was very little worthwhile contribution from him to the fantasy baseball community. But then Wandy turned a corner in his fourth full season and from there, began to blossom into a pitcher of value. Sure, he had his explosive moments on the hill, but overall, he settled in nicely as one of the Astros more consistent and reliable starters. His ERA stayed below 4.00, the home runs came down, and he started posting a K/9 that was steadily just above 8.00 each season. However, last season there was regression across the board save for the ERA and suddenly the numbers were starting to look horribly similar to his early years, including a horrific 13.0% HR/FB rate. Now, with the Astros moving to the American League West soon, the question is whether or not Wandy can right the ship or have we seen the best that he has to offer?
It was not so very long ago that Chien-Ming Wang was a Cy Young candidate and even received a handful of MVP votes. It’s even less time ago that his ankle injury — sustained while running the bases in Houston — created an outcry, or at least a tempest in a teapot, about AL pitchers having to hit in interleague play. Between that point, June 15, 2008, and July 29, 2011, Wang threw just 42 innings and looked pretty rotten doing it. He lost all of 2010 and the first few months of 2011 to shoulder surgery, and while he didn’t look like much of a world-beater when he returned, his reemergence from long absence has piqued my interest. Read the rest of this entry »