Archive for Starting Pitchers

Two-Start Rankings: What’s the Cutoff?

In last week’s “Who is Being Dropped & Why”, I noted the following on Jeremy Hellickson

At home, he faced the Mets and Cubs and they lit him up. I went back over the previous two weeks in the NFBC Main Event to see if owners targeted him for this two-step. In the Main Event, owners typically look two weeks ahead on the two-start pitchers to get a jump on the crowd.

Week: Add Count, Avg Bid
8: 7, $14
9: 5, $5

First, I found it a little funny that the owners hoped to get a jump on the bidding paid more. Second, almost all of the Hellickson shares added were then dropped (12 of 13).

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 700 – Starting Pitchers Moved Into Top 50

6/4/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS, INJURIES, RUMORS (2:00)

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June Starting Pitcher Rankings

Another month is in the books and pitching landscape remains a mess. We lost 10 pitchers off last month’s rankings from underperformance, injuries, and demotions (to the pen or minors) and frankly, I could’ve maybe cut it to 105, but a lot of us play in deep leagues so we have to know the dregs. There are some major moves within even the top 50, let alone the rest of the rankings so I’ll have either an article or solo pod diving into reasoning behind the largest changes and how I feel about them going forward.

I look at my in-season rankings in 4-6 week blocks so the potential innings limits facing some of the younger arms rated highly aren’t really that important right now. Given that so much is going to change in the next month let alone the next four, I don’t see the point in pretending that these updates are viable for the rest of the season.

Pay attention to the tier! If I didn’t rank someone as high as you thought I should, but they are still a must or usually start, then it’s probably not worth freaking out too much. Those tiers mean they are in the rotation pretty much all the time. I’m open to debating slotting, too, but worrying about a 4-spot difference between two guys in the same tier is probably a waste of time.

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 698 – Fireside Chat: Biggest Movers from 2CLs

5/31/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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NEW TOP 100 PITCHERS:

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Assessing Some SP Stragglers

As we wind down the second month of the season, stat lines are beginning to take shape and we certainly feel like we know more about how the season will unfold. There are definitely some things happening early on that you can put some weight into, but we still have four months left in the season, too, meaning a lot will still change.

Through May last year, Zack Wheeler had a 5.40 ERA, Luis Castillo was at 5.49, Jameson Taillon was at 4.53, and Masahiro Tanaka was at 4.62. German Marquez was at 4.21, but that would balloon to 5.53 five starts later and of course we know that from there, he absolutely went off. Afterthoughts like Mike Minor, Danny Duffy, Mike Fiers, Derek Holland, Lance Lynn and even Alex Cobb all had ERAs north of 5.00 and were left for dead through May before finding extended periods of fantasy relevance throughout the summer. Minor was downright all-formats viable from June on.

Let’s look at some of the biggest strugglers through two months and discuss what the future might have in store for them.

(in descending order by ERA)

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 693 – Rotation Check-Ins: Next 10 Teams (HOU-OAK)

5/21/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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**JOIN THE NFBC MEMORIAL DAY 2ND CHANCE LEAGUES**

  • Houston (2:05)
  • Kansas City (22:20)
  • LA Angels (26:53)
  • LA Dodgers (40:22)
  • Miami (59:33)

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Starting Pitcher wOBA Regressors — Mid-May 2019

Last Thursday, I identified nine starting pitchers whose Statcast xwOBA marks were significantly better than their actual wOBA marks, suggesting improved results over the rest of the season. Today, let’s discuss the guys who have been the most fortunate according to xwOBA.

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Starting Pitcher wOBA Improvers — Mid-May 2019

While I use the Statcast hitting leaderboards and metrics often, I rarely do for pitchers. I think it’s because there has been much less research performed and shared on the explanatory and predictive powers of the metrics. So I’ve just stuck with underlying skills, SIERA, and my xK% and xBB% metrics. I’m not here to run a study, but figured it was still worth diving into the xwOBA to try uncovering some pitchers likely to improve over the rest of the season.

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The Sleeper and the Bust Episode: 687 – Rotation Check-Ins: First 10 Teams

5/15/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

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**JOIN THE NFBC MEMORIAL DAY 2ND CHANCE LEAGUES**

ROTATION CHECK-INS BY TEAM

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Is Chris Archer Rosterable?

Introduction

I made the following controversial proclamation earlier this year – that Chris Archer is highly overvalued by fantasy owners. I go even further to say that in all but deep mixed leagues and mono leagues – continually rostering the right hander would be a poor use of fantasy resources.

My contention with Archer’s value stems from his ratio stats:

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