The conventional wisdom says that your starting pitcher needs three pitches. Fastball, breaking ball, change-up is best, but three pitches by hook or crook. If they don’t, they’ll have platoon splits and a tough time getting through the lineup. That’s largely true, of course, but there are always exceptions.

Let’s see what we can learn from the exceptions.

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I’ve written about Scott Kazmir a little in my daily columns before. Mike Podhorzer wrote about him – selling him high, specifically – this week. I’m a little bit more of a believer than Mike, I believe, but I can definitely see his side of it. If someone is willing to give you an ace/# 2 like package, I might have a hard time turning it down. I’m less worried about his ability to get whiffs than Mike is, though. Nearly all of my concerns are based on his ability to last 180 or more innings.

Kazmir has currently thrown 68.2 innings – tied for the 29th most among starters (at this moment). He made it through 158 last year. In 2010, his last season in the bigs before his epic comeback, he threw 150 innings. Kazmir’s body hasn’t allowed him to throw more than 160 innings since 2007. In other words, Scott Kazmir hasn’t thrown more than 160 innings since Kanye West released Graduation – which is a great album. There is a song called Barry Bonds on it, after all.

It may seem like I’m being harsh on Kazmir, but I’m not trying to be. It’s just…2007, man! I want and need Kazmir to throw 200 innings this year. It doesn’t feel like his comeback has gotten enough attention despite the fact that it is an absolutely remarkable feat. I understand selling high on him, but as for me – someone who only owns him in one league, at a good price,  with a team with no glaring holes, and receiving light offers – I’m just going to ride him until he throws me off and leaves me in a ditch somewhere.

P.S. on The Show, my created pitcher has Kazmir’s mechanics, so I’m very dedicated in my devotion.

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We’ve reached the points of the season where we have a pretty good idea of where our teams stand. Things can still change, but for the most part you should have a pretty good idea of how good your current roster is.

With that in mind, join me in the comments below and let’s talk about our favorite players to own so far. Try to stay away from the usual suspects: Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen, etc. I’ll kick this thing off.

I’m doing my first Ottoneu league this year – currently sitting in third place. Without a doubt my best value has been Brandon Moss. During our draft we took a fifteen minute break. When we returned it was my turn to nominate a player for bidding. I nominated Moss hoping to catch some people sleeping and because most of us had blown through a ton of our money. I’m guessing the entire league was still zoned out, because no one bid. Perhaps everyone was waiting on someone else to bid, or taking roster construction into play. Nonetheless, I ended up with a $1 Brandon Moss. Dividends.

In my other auction draft – 12 teams; 5×5 with OBP, QS, and S+HLD in replace of AVG, W, and SV – I have a $2 Christian Yelich. He was only that cheap because he was the 234th player nominated. So by that point, many of the owners had their lineups set or were running low on funds. Yelich has cooled off a little of late, but he’s already earned his keep. Oh, and it’s a keeper league. So if I decide to keep him he’ll only cost $6 next season; not bad what looks to be a player with a shot at a 20/20 season perhaps as early as this year.

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Usually I riff a little on pitching. There are two reasons behind that: I love pitching and I find it easier to analyze because the pitcher, for the most part, controls most of their fate. Sure defense plays a role, but I usually look at stats that take that into account in the first place.

If there was ever a pitcher that embodies “peripherals are more important at this stage of the season,” it’s Shelby Miller. If you focus on traditional stats, Miller hasn’t been that bad. He’s racked up six wins (!) and has a 3.18 ERA. As we know, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Miller’s been very, very lucky; not just with babip, either. Miller’s wiggled out of trouble a ton, evidenced by his 87.7% LOB%. His strikeout rate has plummeted ~5% while his walk rate has increased ~5%. All in all, Miller’s k-bb% (perhaps my favorite metric) has decreased nearly 10 percentage points. Not good.

Surely you, the astute Fangraphs reader, have known for a little while that Miller’s pitching on borrowed time. If you haven’t shopped him yet, do it quickly.

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Memorial Day is behind us. Hopefully your long weekend treated you well. Fortunately there was a full schedule yesterday; today, the same. Brandon Moss kept on raking yesterday. As did Derek Norris, who has been the best hitting back stop by quite a margin. The Athletics are fantastic, in case you were wondering what my point was. I will continue to keep gushing about them.

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I was going to riff a little on Corey Kluber today, but Fangraphs’ newest addition August Fagerstrom took care of that yesterday. I moved onto to Dallas Keuchel, only to remember that Mike Petrellio wrote about him wonderfully. Finally, I said: “I guess I’ll write about Phil Hughes.” Too late, Jeff Sullivan already beat me to it and I can’t compete with him.

I found someone to talk about, though. Jimmy Rollins. Rollins’ obituary was written by most fantasy players late last season. His power had vanished, and his speed was just waning with age. Not so fast. Using wRC+, Jimmy Rollins is having the best offensive season of his career, by a rather large margin. Rollins has only posted a wRC+ better than 105 once, when he posted a 119 mark during his 2007 MVP season. He’s currently (Friday afternoon) sitting at 132. His power has bounced back, and so has his walk rate.

His batted ball profile hasn’t changed much, but his approach at the plate has. Rollins is swinging at fewer pitches than he ever has. His 38.5% swing percentage gives him the 16th lowest swing% in the major leagues. You may be wondering, why does that matter so much? Well Rollins has always had pretty good contact skills, so dropping the percentage of pitches he’s swings matters a ton. His overall swing% has dropped; likewise his o-swing%. He’s chasing less, and even when he’s chasing he’s making less contact, therefore putting fewer bad balls (which usually don’t amount to much) in play. Rollins is swinging less, but it appears when he swings he’s swinging at pitches he knows he can do damage with. It’s an approach that has helped countless people over the years including: Brian Dozier, Adam Lind, Edwin Encarnacion, and Jose Bautista (go Blue Jays, I guess?).

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Another Friday is upon us. On Wednesday, we talked a little about Sean Doolittle. Today, let’s focus on C.J. Wilson, who happens to be pitching tonight.

Wilson has often been labeled: inconsistent. Maybe he’s been a little inconsistent at times, but that happens to everyone.  Since 2010, though, Wilson has been the 15th best pitcher in the major leagues according to WAR. If you prefer RA9-WAR, he’s been the 13th best pitcher. Granted, WAR isn’t of much use in fantasy leagues, but humor me. Without looking, would you have guessed Wilson was essentially James Shields’ equal during that timeframe? I wouldn’t have. I also wouldn’t have placed him above Gio Gonzalez, Mat Latos, or Matt Cain, but there he is.

The past few years, the only qualm anyone has been able to have with Wilson has been the amount of free passes he’s given out. Well, he’s remedied that somewhat in 2014. His walks are down a little; the lowest they’ve been since 2011. His strikeout rate is also the highest it’s ever been as a starter. And so his his ground-ball percentage. Keep it rolling, sir.

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Trade strategy is a favorite topic of mine. We’ve discussed many of my beliefs and practices here on these very pages. I think one of the things I’m known for is patiently waiting for a trade to become rather favorable to me before pulling the trigger. Thus is might come as a surprise when I tell you about two trades I executed today.

The first trade was in the Fox Experts League. It’s a 12 team, 5×5 format with OBP and standard thin rosters. Shallow is one word I would use to describe the league. Ridiculously shallow are two words I would use to describe it.

A few days ago, I lost Ben Zobrist for however long it takes him to come back. I was shocked and dismayed to learn Jonathan Villar was the best shortstop on the waiver wire. So I’ve suffered through Villar the last few days. A trade was the best option to patch this hole, but since Zobrist isn’t expected to be out long, I didn’t want to look for a top guy.

My team has two strengths. In a league with three outfielders and one utility spot, my group of Ryan Braun, Shin-Soo Choo, Brandon Moss, Matt Holliday, Melky Cabrera, and Michael Brantley was becoming hard to manage. My other overflow is at closer. I have six current closers plus another top reliever. There are only five reliever slots in this league, but my Jenrry Mejia and Wade Davis can be used as starters.

The trade I eventually made was Brantley for Dee Gordon. The Dodgers second baseman was far from my top choice to replace Zobrist. Regression is oh so likely and in an OBP league, he’s a three category killer. If somebody were to ask me on Twitter if they should trade Brantley for Gordon, I would respond with my usual “It depends, but probably not.” In this case, my particular strengths and weaknesses allowed me to deal a backup for what amounts to a four category upgrade. Even though Gordon really only offers runs and steals, he’ll probably outperform Villar in RBI and OBP.

Smelling blood, my trade partner initially asked for Greg Holland and Brantley. Then he reduced his offer to Mark Melancon and Brantley. Finally, he acceded to my demand for a straight up trade. It’s not that I couldn’t deal an outfielder and a closer – I clearly could. But when I know Gordon isn’t nearly as good as Brantley, then I feel it’s necessary to draw a line. It’s also worth pointing out that the club I traded with is currently in third place and just 3.5 points behind me for second. Had he been further down the standings, I might have made a more radical offer in an attempt to acquire his Hanley Ramirez.

I think there are two lessons here. No matter how picky you are about finding an advantage in your trades, sometimes you have to do something quickly for a player you don’t like. However, even when you have to act quickly, it pays to take the time to work out a truly fair trade. Paying more than Brantley for Gordon would have been ridiculous. I was desperate, but negotiating over several days sold my rival that I wasn’t desperate, so I got a more reasonable price.

The other trade I made was in the Ottoneu linear weights league aptly named FanGraphs Staff Two. This particular league was the topic of a lot of words over the offseason between Chad Young and me. I took over the worst roster in the league and performed some radical surgery in an effort to turn it around. One of the players I acquired for my rebuilding effort was Danny Salazar. Whoops.

Despite blanking on one of my rebuilding blocks, my team has performed well. I’m currently in fourth place – 650 points behind first and 250 behind second. I have a reserve of innings, so I could yet gain a little ground.

We’re getting to the point in the season where the trailing teams are getting itchy. They want to acquire top prospects before their rivals. This year, the market is badly skewed by Brandon Warne and Marc Hulet. Together, they probably own about 40 prospects including almost all of the best ones. The contending teams have very few “win later” players to put on the table.

Thus when Mr. Warne approached me this morning with an offer of Hisashi Iwakuma for Salazar, I jumped on it. Both players cost $8, so it was an apples-to-apples swap. Due to his low walk rate and friendly home park, Iwakuma is a good play in our format. He’s undeniably injury prone, but there’s reason to fear injury with Salazar too. Iwakuma has proven he can succeed with minimal velocity, whereas Salazar has been mashed since he lost three mph off his heater.

Salazar certainly has higher upside long term. Iwakuma is in his age 33 season. Between age and injury, he may not be keepable for very long. However, my roster is well balanced with both keepers and win-now talent. Iwakuma gives me a pitcher who can help eat some of those reserve innings with a high points per inning ratio.

Enough good starts could help me climb back into the race for first. Ottoneu teams get a total of 1,500 innings. I’m on pace for 1,388.2 IP. The three teams ahead of me are on pace for at least 1,637 innings. Therefore, I’ll gain ground by default later. We need to watch out for Chad Young, who is nearly 500 innings behind pace.

The lessons here are simple. In a keeper league, the win now team can give up a little upside in exchange for current talent. Duh. It’s also important to be aware of pace when inning caps are in play. My team is doing better than my fourth place showing because I have over 200 innings in hand against the three teams ahead of me. Chad’s team has probably done the best even though he’s in seventh place. Yet at some point, you have to acquire quality pitchers to fill those innings. Iwakuma is the first domino for me.

Sean Doolittle gets a lot of love. He’s similar to former Athletic Brandon McCarthy in some respects: He’s accessible on Twitter. He has a good sense of humor. And he’s more than okay with advanced statistics. But since he hasn’t been a full time “closer” until this season he’s somewhat overlooked, or at least he feels overlooked. Perhaps I’m just looking in the wrong places for Doolittle praise.

In this space, I had written: Sean Doolittle hasn’t walked a batter yet. Not one in 81 plate appearances. He then went out and walked one last night. So, his total now sits at one, after facing 85 batters. Damn it, Sean.

Thanks, in part, to an increase of his slider usage Doolittle’s strikeout rate has soared to a career high 34% (12 k/9). He’s been a little unlucky, with respect to his career norm, on home runs, but he’s still posting the best FIP of his career. If more context and adjustments are your thing, his xFIP- of 54 ranks him tenth among relievers, ahead of Kohi Uehara and Glen Perkins. (Dellin Betances is first, with a 33(!), but that’s for another day.) In short, Sean Doolittle is really, really good. And best of all, in today’s age of specialists, Doolittle destroys lefties and righties almost equally. You’ll find no discrimination in Doolittle’s game. For his career, right handed batters have a wOBA of .252; lefties, .260. Not too shabby.

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Eric Stults‘ wasn’t hit hard after all. In fact, he was barely hit at all. Baseball, man. It’s a weird game. And speaking of weird, despite the fact that Brian Dozier is completely legit, it’s weird to see his name at the top of leaderboards. He went deep again last night – bringing his total to ten. Weird game, indeed.

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