So a buddy of mine calls me the other day in need of a 10th team for his home league.  Apparently someone dropped out at the last minute due to work obligations and he needed to find someone competitive to fill the slot.  Shallow league, very basic.  10 teams, mixed, 5×5 roto, standard snake draft.  Happily, I obliged and decided that this would be a great opportunity to see just how long I could wait on drafting a starting pitcher while still maintaining a competitive staff in the league.

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On Monday with the help of Matt Swartz, I determined that spring training statistics are not completely meaningless after all. Strikeout percentage (K%) and walk percentage (BB%) should indeed be taken into consideration when projecting the upcoming season.

With that in mind, it may be possible to get a foreshadowing of who the breakout and bust pitchers are for the year. Today I decided to look at the 10 pitchers whose spring K% is the most different from their Steamer projection, as in, their spring K% is much higher than the projection. I used Steamer because it has become my favorite pitching projection system and performed the best in the latest round of tests between systems.

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It’s been a pretty tough few months for Ryan Madson. First the 31-year-old right-hander reportedly had a four-year, $44 million offer pulled off the table by his former team before they went all in on Jonathan Papelbon. After weeks of sitting on the offseason sidelines, he took a one-year, $8.5 million pillow contract from the Reds with an eye on a big multi-year payday next offseason. That won’t happen now. A nagging elbow injury this spring turned out to be a torn elbow ligament, and now the former Phillie will miss the season with Tommy John surgery.

An injury of this caliber has some far-reaching fantasy implications beyond the obvious — Madson being non-rosterable — so let’s break it down…

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I have to confess, the Cubs’ decision to move Jeff Samardzija into the rotation puzzles me a little bit. I certainly understand that if a pitcher is equally effective in the rotation and in the bullpen, they have more value and a greater impact in the rotation, but the number of pitchers who can actually pitch equally well in both situations is relatively small and may or may not include the Shark.

It isn’t as though the Cubs are dying for a starter, quite the opposite in fact. Matt Garza and Ryan Dempster are locked in at the top and returning from an injury-shortened 2011 is Randy Wells. The departure of both Carlos Zambrano and Sean Marshall netted the team Chris Volstad and Travis Wood respectively, and Paul Maholm arrived after being thrown overboard by the Pirates. That gives the team six players with starting experience even before Samardzija is added to the mix. Read the rest of this entry »

We have a segment on the Fantasy Baseball Roundtable show called “Are You Crazy?”. The idea is to throw out a bold prediction and then the rest of the panelists debate whether the forecaster is crazy or not. We assume 20% as the baseline, meaning if there is a 20% chance of the prediction coming true, it is not crazy. On last night’s show, I stepped up to the plate and boldly predicted that Francisco Liriano would be a top 8 pitcher. However, for this post, I will be slightly less ballsy and go top 10. Now let me explain why there is at least a 20% chance of such insanity happening.

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You’ve read the consensus rankings, complained about them and have been no doubt counting down the minutes until the tiered rankings are released. Well, it’s your lucky day, as your final 2012 rankings sit below. Yes, my crystal ball is that good, it already knows how the season will play out.

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Andy Pettitte

Andy Pettitte will be joining the Yankees tomorrow to see if he can be a useful starter. Don’t get caught up in the recent hype. The 39-year-old will have a lower than expected fantasy value for a few reasons.

First, a production level needs to guesstimated. To get an idea of his possible production level, here are his K/9 and BB/9 levels over the last three years he pitched:

Year, K/9, BB/9
2008, 7.0, 2.4
2009, 6.8, 3.5
2010, 7.1, 2.9

We should expect a K/9 value near 7.0 and BB/9 near 3.0. For reference, here are 3 pitchers from 2011 with similar K/9 and BB/9 rates:

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Our contribution to FantasyPros’ consensus rankings was filed today, and while my own tiers are still forthcoming, now is as good a time as any to take a look at my colleagues’ rankings. Having pitching as deep as it is this year is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it affords players the luxury of waiting until the middle or late rounds to build their staffs and means that an error in the first couple rounds — losing someone like Clayton Kershaw to injury for example, not that I think Kershaw is terribly risky — isn’t likely to be a fatal blow.

On the other hand, it makes doing these rankings virtually impossible. Who is the fifth best pitcher in the NL? Matt Cain? Zack Greinke? Cole Hamels? Solid candidates all, but picking The One is a tough ask. Generally speaking, I’m in line right with Eno, Jeff, Mike, and Zach, but here are a few things I wanted to highlight ahead of my own contribution. Read the rest of this entry »

Consensus Ranks: OF, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, and RP and SP.

Tiered Ranks: C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, NL OF, AL SP, NL SP, Holds.

Matt Moore. Yes, he’s not in here. We’ve been over it. He’s not a starter yet, even though he’ll be a starter later, and so he’s not in there right now. But you know what, we ranked him in our mind pieces, and we got around a 28 all together. So that puts him ahead of Shaun Marcum and Brandon Morrow on the rankings, and given some uncertainty about his innings (and performance, as much as is the case with any young player) this year, that might be around right. That said, I have no such reservations about his innings, since he managed over 180 last year and could do a full slate this year without bumping up 20%.

The rest of the list? Maybe you like Felix Hernandez more, or Zack Greinke. Or Dan Hudson gets your panties in or out of a bundle. Brandon McCarthy spoke today at the SABR analytics conference and some of you were giving him the stank eye, maybe. I loved Derek Holland last year, but now I’m the one that hates him. I hate Johan Santana more than most non-Mets fans, and I like Tim Stauffer more than most Padres fans perhaps. But maybe no-one caused more consternation than Josh Collmenter — do you believe in deception or not?

And, before you get too upset about the rankings at the bottom, know this: by the time you get down there, it’s all approximation. Treat that as a list of pitchers we like in deep leagues. It’s better than assuming that we really think that Jerome Williams is demonstrably better that Jorge De La Rosa.

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Yesterday, I made some bold predictions for the league leaders in the five fantasy hitting categories. Today, I check in on the pitching side of the ledger with some equally crazy forecasts.

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