It is finally time to unveil the third tier of the American League starting pitcher keeper rankings and this one promises to be the most controversial yet. I have removed the dollar values since judging by the comments, you were all confused by it and felt it offered little value. You speak up, I listen and take action! As a reminder, this is how the rankings have shaken out so far:
After looking at simplifying the evaluation of fantasy hitters, I have now moved onto pitchers. The key for me with pitchers is that they have very little personal control over some of their stats. Wins require their team to score runs or the bullpen to hold a lead. Bad fielders can lead to more hits (higher WHIP). More hits lead to more runs scored (higher ERA). More runs scored leads to less Wins.
If the Cardinals have any hope for Adam Wainwright to return next year to the form that made him a top-of-the-line pitcher, they need only to look at another pitcher already in their rotation. Jaime Garcia missed most of the 2009 season after undergoing the procedure following the 2008 season. In his first full season back, Garcia not only pitched quite well, he did so in the majors, having broken camp with the Cards in something of a surprise move.
In a weaker field, he might have been able to earn Rookie of the Year honors, but 2010’s class was stocked — Buster Posey was the winner over Jason Heyward, Garcia, Gaby Sanchez, and Starlin Castro — so stealing the prize was somewhat out of the realm of possibility.
If you want to follow the action when Cleveland’s starters are on the bump in 2012, keep your eyes glued on the infield. The Indians exercised Fausto Carmona’s $7 million option for next season and then swung a trade with Atlanta for sinkerballer Derek Lowe. With Lowe joining Carmona, Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez, Cleveland’s starting rotation will wage one serious ground war. Lowe, Masterson and Carmona ranked in the top 10 among qualified starters in ground ball percentage, and all four have a career ground ball rate north of 50 percent:
We are getting into pitchers that may or may not be National League eligible next year, particularly Hiroki Kuroda and Javier Vazquez. Until we know for sure what’s happening with retirees, I’m going to leave them out, though it’s worth mentioning that I don’t think I’d keep anyone who has talked about retiring or generally leaving MLB, unless someone has declared their intent to retire and I missed it. Unlikely.
A lot of these pitchers are guys I’d like to have on my staff, but it’s a value question. Anibal Sanchez could be a really nice strikeout option, but there’s no way I want him at or near the cost of Zack Greinke. If you can keep Vance Worley at one round earlier than you drafted him last year — likely the last round, since he wasn’t often drafted — I’d do it. If you have to use a 5-6th round pick to keep him, I’m much less interested. Read the rest of this entry »
You can definitely call it a comeback. After three extremely injury-riddled seasons, Erik Bedard finally stayed relatively healthy in 2011. While he only threw 129.1 innings, Bedard managed to start 24 games — his highest total since 2007. In those starts, Bedard flashed signs of the pitcher that posted back-to-back 5 win seasons from 2006-2007. Even though Bedard eventually fell to the injury bug again, he proved that he’s still a solid fantasy option when healthy. After a relatively healthy season — for him — is Bedard a strong pick in the late rounds again, or should you let another owner deal with the headache?
Read the rest of this entry »
As a reminder of something I said in the last column, these are guys who very easily could be part of tier three, in fact, if it makes you feel better, consider this less “Tier Four” and more “Tier Three (b)”. Because of the depth of pitching, I find it somewhat unlikely that I’ll be targeting many of the guys in the first two tiers, not because I don’t like them, but because I expect their costs to be high. You can build a staff out of this extended third tier for a much more reasonable cost and you aren’t likely to see a pronounced drop in quality. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to the second tier edition of the 2012 American League starting pitcher keeper rankings. To avoid any confusion in the comments (and boy has this series caused massive bewilderment):
-These are American League pitchers only. No, I did not forgot to rank Roy Halladay in the first or second tier.
-The dollar values listed are what the pitcher earned in 2011, not my projected 2012 value.
-Rankings are solely based on my projection for next season (this is not a ranking of what already happened in 2011), with some small extra weight given to future seasons beyond next to factor in the keeper aspect.
-Rankings are unscientific with no math behind them. Once I project every player and calculate resulting dollar values, these rankings will change, and some players may rise or fall significantly.
Now that we are on the same boat, here is a look back at tier one, which includes:
A few weeks ago, I looked at the luckiest and unluckiest pitchers that pitched over 180 innings in 2011. Today, I am looking at the pitchers between 120 and 180 IP. These pitchers are starters, but missed some starts in 2011 because of time in the minors, injuries or being shut down at season’s end.
A week ago I analyzed David Freese’s big postseason and speculated that it would inflate his cost in 2012 drafts. C.J. Wilson, on the other hand, has likely seen his 2012 draft cost move in the opposite direction. Yesterday, Chris Cwik analyzed Wilson’s playoff struggles from a free-agent market standpoint, and today I will examine the impact it may have in fantasy leagues.
