As we hit the beginning of draft season, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can read all the Market Reports here.
Last week I detailed how I am preparing for an upcoming Ottoneu re-draft and how I set my hitter targets. In this post, I finish the job and detail my approach to targeting pitchers. I should note that this is an iterative process. It is necessary to go back and forth to figure out a good balance between hitting and pitching and so much of that is dictated by who you have on the free-agent list. Regardless, I’m a planner and need to set my targets ahead of time. I need to see what happens if Plan A fails and what Plan B really looks like. Sadly, I was never the kid in school who could just roll out of bed, head to the exam in their pajamas, and get an A without studying.
2/13/22
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Last week I detailed my late-round starting pitcher recipe, “Thinning the Herd”. I wrote about the first six pitchers on this list and this week I’ll continue with the bottom six. As a reminder, here’s my ingredients list:
Yesterday, I listed and discussed six pitchers with at least 150 innings pitched that most underperformed their Statcast xERA marks. Let’s now flip over to the overperformers. As you could guess, there are far more overperformers than underperformers. That’s because a pitcher is less likely to be allowed to record 150 innings if he significantly underperforms his xERA. At some point, results matter and teams don’t have the luxury of patience to wait for their results to match their underlying Statcast metrics. So pitchers that overperform are allowed to throw that many innings, even if their underlying metrics suggest impending doom. Until that impending doom actually occurs, they will keep getting the ball.
The SP list is always the hardest to make. I am less confident in the projections for pitchers than for hitters, which means there is a lot more judgment required to make decisions. I also tend to be pretty adverse to paying market price for pitching. I tend to believe there will be pitching available via free-agent pickups. Plus, if you fall behind the innings-pitched pace because you aren’t comfortable with what you have, it is relatively easy to make up ground later in the year. So if I am not likely to pay market price for an ace, what should I recommend you do? In the end, I always decide to set tiers based on what I think is a fair price, even if I know that I will be value-shopping at the position. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, I discussed the hitters who underperformed their Statcast xwOBA marks most. Given that projection system typically weigh historical results in some fashion to compute an upcoming season forecast, it’s possible that list includes some hitters who may be underprojected. So let’s now turn to the pitching side. We’ll start by reviewing the starting pitchers who recorded at least 150 innings that most underperformed their Statcast xERA mark. Note that based on my calculations, the league xERA was 4.03, versus a 3.97 actual ERA. So on average, pitchers slightly overperformed their xERA marks.
Sticky metrics refer to statistics that are highly correlated from year to year. Here’s an example. Among all qualified pitchers in 2022, Jordan Montgomery ranked 11th with a 12.9% swinging strike rate (SwStr%). Bringing the innings-pitched threshold down to 150 in 2021, he ranked ninth with a career-high 13.7%:
In every season except 2018, he’s had an above-average SwStr%. Projections don’t predict SwStr%, but if they did you could imagine that Montgomery would easily be projected above 12%.
Last Friday, the Twins acquired starting pitcher Pablo López from the Marlins. After spending his entire career in Miami, how might his new park affect his performance? Let’s consult the park factors to find out.
I am examining starters going later than pick 300 in the latest NFBC ADP.
Here are the previous editions: