While it might be better to focus on FAAB usage right before the season starts, I wanted to have an idea on how to focus my draft resources. Also, FAAB management was one of my major faults after I picked over my 2019 teams. It was an issue and I need to address it. Now is the time. I took the 50 players with the highest average FAAB bids in the 2019 NFBC Main Event ($1000 in FAAB) and found which players were the best and worse deals and did the best deals have similar actionable traits.

Note: One unintended side effect was that the minimum average value was $51, so all players with a bid of over $50.

To rank the player’s usefulness, I pair them up against each other and let my Twitter followers which of the two players were a better deal last year. While not ideal or the only method I could have used (I could create from value to EOS), it was the quickest and the rankings pass the idiot check (me, myself, and I).

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I’m putting a little star next to these 8 arms who went 300 or later in the Too Early Mocks.

Anthony DeSclafani, CIN | Pick 301

Amped his velo to 94.7 mph and generated a career-best 24% K rate that helped him outrun a hideous 1.6 HR/9 and still post a respectable 3.89 ERA. Home runs have always been part of his profile even with a juiced ball so it’s unlikely that he magically posts a league average or better rate but imagine if he can just cut it to 1.2-1.3 in 2020. A mid-3.00s ERA could be in play.

Aaron Civale, CLE | Pick 309

I don’t want to get too annoying mentioning him as I did discuss him in this piece back in September, but I’ll give him another plug here. Not only do I think Civale himself is solid with a useful 5-pitch arsenal, but I’m also putting faith in Cleveland’s ability to develop arms. Not as good as Shane Bieber, better than Adam Plutko/Josh Tomlin.

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There is no need to beat around the bush with an intro full of cliches and examples. Simply does playing in the postseason wear down a player enough to effect their next season’s production?

Simple answer: Not really.

Less simple answer: Some with hitters, not at all with pitchers.

Complex answer: Danger math.

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Today, let’s review how 10 slow-starting pitchers I first discussed in mid-April performed the rest of the way. Was it a profitable move to acquire any of these pitchers from a panicked owner? Let’s find out.

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Some of the best draft day values can be injured arms who missed all or most of the previous season, taking them off the radar of many fantasy mangers. Some of these guys will fly up draft boards with a strong spring, but others will remain afterthoughts throughout draft season. Here are 10 injured arms to keep in mind for 2020:

Lance McCullers Jr. | Tommy John surgery (Nov ’18)

By having his TJ in November of 2018, McCullers will get the extended 16-month recovery time before returning. This will give him a chance at a full season in 2020, though it’s worth noting that his MLB-high is 128.3 innings so he has to show that he can make it through a full 30 starts in the first place. His #TooEarlyMock (TEM) price was 253 on average (71st among SPs), but it will rise quite a bit with a healthy spring. McCullers is a great target for early drafters on price alone.

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While I have finished reviewing my preseason lists, I wanted to continue the recap theme, but this time looking back at early season results and trends. Did any of the surprises we saw occur early on continue for the rest of the season? We’ll start with my starting pitcher Z-Contact% improvers, a metric that indicates the percentage of pitches inside the zone batters made contact with. The ultimate sign of dominance is when a hitter can’t hit your strikes. Below is the original table with stats through Apr 10. I included 2018 and 2019 strikeout rate to see if the Z-Contact% changes if any, also resulted in strikeout rate changes in the same direction.

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Having watched Gerrit Cole breeze through yet another postseason start in Sunday’s Game 5 of the World Series, I wanted to refresh my memory on how dominant he had been in the regular season. My go-to destination for such things is the Plate Discipline leaderboard right here on FanGraphs. This leaderboard tells me a large portion of what I need to know about how pitchers have performed — how well they’re missing bats by swinging strikes (SwStr%) or avoiding swings in the strike zone (Z-Swing%) and how they are limiting walks by throwing first-pitch strikes (F-Strike%) or getting out-of-zone chases (O-Swing%).

I sorted by SwStr%, and Cole was at the top. Unlike many pitchers who get a lot of swings and misses, he had a slightly lower-than-average Z-Swing%, and he was comfortably above-average at throwing first-pitch strikes and getting chases. He had a lot in common with the pitchers who ranked just behind him, but one of the names near the top of the leaderboard caught me off guard. It surprised me enough that I felt the need to tweet it out.
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Backed by this study supporting the idea that pitcher strikeout rate over spring training does hold some predictive value, I identified and discussed 12 starting pitchers that had posted significantly higher strikeout rates during the spring than my Pod Projection. Let’s see how many, if any, of these pitchers actually outperformed my forecast.

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After looking at the pitchers and hitters who exceeded expectations, it was time to examine the players who didn’t live up to their ADP. I had a good idea this list would be loaded with pitchers who missed a ton of time and I was correct. Of the 48 pitchers featured, 39 spent time on the IL at some point last season.

To determine who disappointed, I collected the information on any pitcher who saw more than a $10 decline in value from their draft-day price. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. I just analyzed the pitchers who had a positive draft day value.

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Today, I finish my comparison of Pod ERA projections vs Steamer with the downside guys. Given that league ERA was at its highest since 2006, this should be an easy win for Pod. But, I only listed and discussed four pitchers, probably because on the whole, Pod was more bullish on ERA than Steamer was (oops), so there were fewer pitchers I was projecting for a significantly worse ERA. Let’s see how the for performed.

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