Chad Young’s Ottoneu Tiered SP Rankings Follow Up

After a series of these follow-up articles on hitters, we turn our attention to pitchers and all that stuff I said about how the various formats differ from each other gets thrown out the window. Kind of. The formats are still different but they are different in different ways. And so if you have been reading along this month, forget what you think you know, because we are basically starting over.

As always, I will leave the FanGraphs Points rankings table for the end, so feel free to scroll down there if that is all you are looking for.

FanGraphs Points

We have already broken form! Usually this first section is “FanGraphs and SABR Points” because the two points formats use the same scoring for offense. But pitching is where they split from each other, so we have to take them separately. We’ll get into what they do differently soon, but for now, let’s look at what I was considering as I moved from 4×4 to FanGraphs Points.

Volume matters more in points than 4×4. For hitters, the opposite was true. On offense, a replacement level bat hurts you in two categories, by dragging down your rate stats. This is also true for pitchers, so why do I say volume matters more in points for pitchers? Because in points leagues, you need to fill out every inning you can. Getting to that 1500 IP soft cap matters a ton and every extra inning you can get – even from a bad pitcher – is better than not throwing that innings. In 4×4, with three of four pitching stats being rates, it is perfectly acceptable to come up short of 1500 IP. In fact, last year, the average first place 4×4 team threw 1429 innings. Many other teams threw far fewer. Three first place teams failed to crack 1300 innings.

As a result of this, a pitcher like Lucas Giolito might have no value in 4×4 – he can’t do enough to help your rates and he doesn’t get a ton of strikeouts – but can be useful in a points league where his innings have value, even if they aren’t particularly exciting innings. When you see my rankings below, you’ll notice that, compared to my 4×4 rankings, there are more pitchers at the $0-$1 and $1-$2 tiers, resulting in more pitchers above replacement level. This is why. Filling 1500+ innings requires more arms than filling 1250+.

You might also notice that there are fewer pitchers in the most expensive tiers. I have 14 pitchers in the top three tiers in 4×4 and only nine in those tiers in FanGraphs Points. That’s entirely concentrated in the third tier, as the top two tiers are the same size. This comes from two competing issues. First, like with the bats, roto leagues provide more ways for players to provide value, so it’s a little harder to draw clear lines between players in roto. That means in points league there is less debate between players – more points is more points, and you aren’t questioning whether you need help in ERA or WHIP or K or HR/9 – which allows the top players to stand out more.

On the other hand, the need to fill 1500 innings instead of 1250 means you need to spread your funds more evenly and reduces the impact of the top arms. A 200 IP ace accounting for 200 out of 1500 innings is just worth less than the same ace accounting for 200 out of 1250 innings.

These two factors combined bring down the prices of top-end starters in points leagues while allowing my top five to more clearly stand apart. That’s how I end up with the same five names in the top two tiers, and fewer names in the next tier down.

As for specific stats, just for fun, here is a table that outlines how much Cam Schlittler’s value per OOPSY changes in 4×4 and FanGraphs points from adding specific stats to his final line:

That tells us some obvious stuff . Earned runs don’t matter in a FanGraphs Points league, so a bump in ERA with no other changes (extra runs score on his existing hits, walks, etc.) hurts his 4×4 value with no change in points. Hit batsmen are -3 points in FanGraphs Points leagues, but don’t impact WHIP, so a few extra HBP won’t hurt in 4×4 but does in points.

But there are some interesting things here. Home runs allowed are bad in points leagues, but they hurt worse (almost 20% worse in this case) in 4×4, in part because HR/9 is a category and in part because two other categories (ERA and WHIP) are hurt by additional HR. In this case, I added a HR with no other changes – basically imagine Schlittler threw one extra pitch with no one on base, and gave up a homer. An extra HR can actually hurt even more in 4×4 than is shown here, because it could drive in more than one run.

The other interesting note, for me, was that K/BB ratio matters more in FanGraphs Points leagues. Strikeouts are worth more and walks hurt less. In both cases here, I assumed those strikeouts and walks happened with no other impact – no additional runs scored, no outs were lost, etc. Five existing outs turned into strikeouts and five additional baserunners were walked.

This gives you an idea of where the rankings will differ – homer prone pitchers can move up a bit in Points leagues relative to 4×4; pitchers who struggle to strand runners or give up a high BABIP are hurt less in Points, because ERA doesn’t matter and hits hurt less.

• Among starting pitchers projected to be at least replacement level, and looking purely at THE BAT X projections (no adjustments made by me, simply converting projected production into dollars), the biggest movers coming to FanGraphs Points from 4×4 are:
  • Max Fried (-$12), Paul Skenes (-$10), Logan Webb (-$8), Framber Valdez (-$8), Bryan Woo (-$8), Spencer Strider (+$2), Shane McClanahan (+$1), Tyler Glasnow (+$1), Gerrit Cole (+$1), and Blake Snell (+$1)
  • Note that because of the increased need for innings pitched, pitchers lose value on average in this transition, so it is not a surprise that the drops here are larger than the gains.

SABR Points

SABR Points is somewhat like FanGraphs Points to the extreme for pitchers. FanGraphs Points leagues are more “fielding-independent” than 5×5 or 4×4, but there’s still that penalty for giving up hits. SABR takes fielding-independent to the extreme.

You can see very clearly how different things are, but it is less obvious how that changes pitcher values. Let’s do the same thing we did with Cam Schlittler above to compare the formats. But this time we will use Hunter Brown:

Everything matters more in SABR points largely because the total number of points in SABR is smaller. Brown is projected to put up  almost 50 more points in FanGraphs Points than SABR Points. That is true for every pitcher, but you can see that some things (walks and hit batsmen, for example) have a relatively larger impact on SABR than on FanGraphs points. If you have a pitcher in FanGraphs points, you are basically indifferent between 5 BB (-15 points, $1.88 lost for Brown) and a single home run (-14.9 points, $1.87 lost for Brown). But in SABR points, you would much rather give up the homer – that’s only a 13 point hit. And then, of course, there are hits.

As a result, all else being equal, when you move from FanGraphs Points to SABR Points, you should care a little less about how homer-prone a pitcher is and a little more about their walk rate. Strikeouts matter a little bit more, but a pitcher who gives up a high BABIP due to quality of contact or poor defense will gain value.

Looking at OOPSY, Hunter Greene, Emmet Sheehan, Freddy Peralta, and Brandon Woodruff are all projected for BABIPs in the mid-.260’s; the four lowest BABIP projections for starters. They are all worth less in SABR Points than FanGraphs Points – which isn’t atypical, but you will see below that some of these guys are worth a lot less. They limit hits and that no longer has value in SABR Points.

In general, in both formats, you want high K%, low BB%, and low HR/9. But in FanGraphs Points you also want low BABIP and in SABR Points you care more about K/BB and less about HR/9.

The other thing to note is that because starters score fewer total points in SABR Points, it makes more sense to spend less money on them relative to hitters and relievers than in FanGraphs Points. As a result, almost every starting pitcher loses value when switch to SABR Points. So when we look at the “biggest movers,” we really to look at who loses the most value and who loses the least value.

• Among starting pitchers projected to be at least replacement level, and looking purely at THE BAT X projections (no adjustments made by me, simply converting projected production into dollars), the biggest movers coming to FanGraphs Points from SABR Points are:
  • Only two starting pitchers actually gain value – Pablo López gains less than a dollar and Logan Webb gains more than $2.50.
  • The next three pitchers in terms of least value lost are Cristopher Sánchez, Sandy Alcantara, and Spencer Schwellenbach, who all lose no value.
  • The five pitchers who lose the most value are Freddy Peralta (-$12), Jacob deGrom (-$10), Tarik Skubal (-$10), Hunter Greene (-$10), and Brandon Woodruff (-$10).

Head-to-Head

I spent some time on this topic earlier in the off-season, so I am going to recommend you check that out rather than recap it all here.

• Among starting pitchers projected to be at least replacement level, and looking purely at THE BAT X projections (no adjustments made by me, simply converting projected production into dollars), the biggest movers coming to Season-Long FanGraphs Points to Head-to-Head FanGraphs Points are:
  • Bubba Chandler (-$10), Emmet Sheehan (-$7), Jacob Misiorowski (-$5), Trey Yesavage (-$5), Kyle Bradish (-$5), Logan Webb (+$12), Sandy Alcantara (+$12), Gavin Williams (+$12), Max Fried (+$11), and Carlos Rodón (+$11).

5×5

Last but not least, we come to 5×5. And luckily, this should be quick. Comparing 5×5 to FanGraphs Points is much like comparing 4×4 to FanGraphs points, except for three things:

• Home runs matter less. Yes, they hurt your ERA and WHIP and make it harder to win. But they just don’t hurt as bad.
• Wins are a thing. This makes pitching deep into games more valuable, too, but mostly it allows guys to gain value by playing on good teams.
• There are five pitching categories and starters can only accrue value in four. That both makes them less valuable relative to relievers and relative to hitters. There are five category bats. There are no five category arms.
• However, there is a balance in roto that doesn’t exist in points. In Points leagues, pitchers are not half your scoring. In roto leagues, they are. In points leagues, pitchers make up about 43% of scoring, rather than 50%, so across the board starting pitching is more valuable in 5×5.
• That said, the biggest gainers in value, looking purely at THE BAT X projections (no adjustments made by me, simply converting projected production into dollars), coming to 5×5 from  FanGraphs Points are:
  • Bryan Woo, Nick Pivetta, Freddy Peralta, Joe Ryan and Max Fried.
• The smallest gainers in value are:
  • Blake Snell, Shane McClanahan, Edward Cabrera, Chris Sale, and Cole Ragans.

Chad Young’s Tiered SP Rankings for FanGraphs Points

Note:Other than moving pitchers out of the $0 tier who needed to be moved out, I did not re-order that tier relative to my 4×4 rankings.