Five Starting Pitchers to Buy Cheap
I think we all know that this is going to be a truly wacky real and fantasy baseball season. New MLB rules and only 60 games instead of 162 means a chance to adjust our strategies to try to gain an edge. Ratio categories are always volatile, even over a 162 game season, so in just 60 games, there gap between the league leaders and laggards is going to be even wider than usual. And the names of those leaders and laggards could be more surprising than ever before just because randomness and pure luck are going to play a larger role.
Two of the five standard pitching categories are ratios and it sounds like starting pitcher wins are going to be a bit more difficult to earn than is typical. So, I feel like unless you’re buying a top five starter you feel ultra confident is going to pitch as many innings per start as he normally does from the beginning of the season, you might as well just go cheap and buy strikeouts. Maybe I won’t completely ignore ERA and WHIP when drafting, but I’ll heavily discount it and focus on strikeouts. But instead of overall strikeouts, I think strikeouts per start is more important since streaming is going to be super popular.
Here are five starting pitchers getting drafted after the top 100 pitchers that would fit in with this strategy. According to Steamer projections, all of them are projected to record at least 5.6 strikeouts per start.
| Player | Pitcher Rank | ADP | K/GS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Gray | 108 | 276 | 6.0 |
| Dylan Cease | 109 | 279 | 6.0 |
| Griffin Canning | 122 | 323 | 6.0 |
| Reynaldo Lopez | 125 | 343 | 5.6 |
| Josh Lindblom 린드블럼 | 127 | 366 | 5.7 |
Jon Gray bounced back last season after posting an ERA over 5.00 in 2018, though his SIERA suggests his skills were the worst of his career, so it was simply a matter of bad luck turning into good luck. Colorado pitchers are always risky, of course, but oddly, Gray actually owns a career ERA that is slightly lower at home than away. With ratio categories expected to bounce up and down, he’s the perfect guy to include on your staff as strikeouts should be most consistent. It’s rather surprising that he’s going 108th among pitchers (which includes relievers) after rebounding to a sub-4.00 ERA.
A former top prospect, Dylan Cease’s 2019 debut didn’t exactly go as planned, as he posted an inflated 5.79 ERA, though his 4.60 SIERA wasn’t as brutal. The most promising sign was the 24.9% K%, and that’s what you want to be buying. At the moment, his SwStk% doesn’t justify his strikeout rate, as it sat right at the league average. But armed with a mid-to-high 90s fastball, you would think that there’s lots of room to improve that SwStk% and either support the strikeout rate, or boost that strikeout rate even higher. While all the projections are for a mid-4.00 ERA and you don’t need much better at pick 279, there’s always the chance a ratio breakout comes as well.
If the season started on time, Griffin Canning wouldn’t have been ready. But his elbow injury has supposedly healed and he figures to be ready for opening day. Canning enjoyed a solid debut 2019, as he struck out 25% of batters, almost identical to Cease, but it came with much better control. In addition, his strikeout rate was fully supported by a 13.8% SwStk%, thanks to a whifferific slider, and a curveball and changeup that both generated double digit SwStk% marks. This is a true quality four-pitch mix.
Was there any more of a Jekyll and Hyde pitchers than Reynaldo Lopez last season? I could only imagine how many times he was picked up and dropped in fantasy leagues. The good news is if you’re not too concerned about ratios over a small sample, Lopez is a perfect fit on your roster! While his ERA jumped to his highest career mark, his strikeout rate jumped back over 20%, while his SwStk% spiked to double digits for the first time. For a guy that averages nearly 96 MPH with his fastball and maxes out at 100, you would think he would strike out more hitters. Both his slider and changeup generated SwStk% marks just above 15%, and his curveball wasn’t terrible at a 10% mark. It’s not obvious what the problem is, but it’s clear he has the stuff to eventually break out. If not break out, at least boost his strikeout rate even further, which is what we care about for this article. He has posted a sub-4.00 ERA before, back in 2018, but that was entirely due to good fortune, rather than good skills.
After a short career as mostly a reliever, Josh Lindblom joined the KBO in 2015, and aside from a short stint back in the US, played there until last year. His strikeout and walk rates were excellent there since 2017, so perhaps he could carry over that improved performance in his return to MLB. At 127 among pitchers and 377 overall, it’s clear that many fantasy owners don’t even realize he exists or is aware he has returned, but don’t expect much from him.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Great article. If the premise is that we have less ability to forecast how many innings starters will go, wouldn’t K/IP be better than K/GS? I think these same pitchers would still rank high, but also Junis, Happ, J Montgomery, Smyly all could be targets too
No, unless you’re playing in a league with daily transactions and an innings cap. I guess lots of people are, but I only play in weekly leagues, so my articles assume that. League rules and format play a big role on player valuation, but it would be impossible to talk about value for every possible type of league in one article. I stick with the standard rules.
I always find it helpful when authors drop in a note on the scoring settings their article uses.
Lopez is a guy I’m probably targeting. As you noted, he was so, so, so Jekyll and Hyde last year. He had 18 starts where he gave up 3 or fewer runs, all of them at least 5 IP with 14 of them 6+ IP. He only 1 single start where he gave up 4 runs which means he had 14 starts where he gave up 5 or more runs with 9 of them being 6+. He had 15 QS which is only 1 less than Kyle Hendricks and 2 less than Walker Buehler and more than dozens of guys being drafted ahead of him (Keuchel, Matz and Hamels to name just 3).
“It’s rather surprising that he’s going 108th among pitchers (which includes relievers) after rebounding to a sub-4.00 ERA.”
Yes indeed. If Gray repeats his performance from last year maybe he’ll barely crack the top 100 in 2021. :/ Who knows if and when a majority of people will ever take Gray seriously, as Colorado seems to hover over everyone’s perception no matter what Gray does.
In the entire history of the Rockies franchise, there have been 11 qualified seasons (out of 58 total) where a pitcher posted a sub-4.00 ERA. That’s less than 1 every other year and includes only 2 pitchers who’ve done it more than once: Ubaldo JImenez’s insane run from 2008-2010 and Jhoulys Chacin in 2011 and 2013. In fact, there have only been 2 seasons with an ERA under 3.47.
On the flip side there are 35 seasons with an ERA over 4.50 and 23 seasons with an ERA over 5.00.
Drop it to 100 IP and it’s 19 guys in 27 seasons under 4.00 (out of 113 total). Even in partial years guys have a tough time posting good ERAs.
As for K’s, only 3 pitchers have managed 200 K – 2018 Marquez, 2010 Ubaldo and 1999 Pedro Astacio. Only 16 guys managed 150+
WHIP? In qualified seasons, only 1 guy under 1.20 and 10 guys under 1.30 against 20 guys at 1.50+
Pitching in Colorado is hard. Betting against that fact is probably a losing strategy.
True, but if someone has shown that he can pitch relatively well in Colorado, wouldn’t it be an easier bet to make? Also, using your stat breakdown categories Jon Gray has thrown for 150+ K’s (three times) and posted a sub-4 ERA (two times) from the four seasons he’s had 20+ starts. He’s not German Marquez, but he does seem a bit undervalued.
Could be, maybe this time it’s different and Gray is the guy that will solve pitching in Coors. . . .
Another stat – since 1993 there are 2,229 qualified pitcher seasons. Of those, there are 281 player-sesaons where the pitcher struck out 200. As noted previously, the Rockies have 3 of those 281. Three. III. Tres.
Since I can no longer edit the prior comment – of those 2,229 player seasons since 1993, there are 1,013 where a pitcher struck out 150. The Rockies have 16. Six. Teen.
(the 19 figure from my initial comment includes all seasons, not just qualified).
So for 200K it’s 1.1% of the league total and for 150K it’s 1.6% of the league total even though the Rockies make up 3.33% of the league total. Basically, it’s less than half as likely that a Rockies pitcher will strike out 150 or 200 than the rest of the league.
Good stats, no doubt, wouldn’t want to bank on a Colorado pitcher to be a strikeouts or ERA anchor. It’s like banking on an Oriole or Marlin (outside of Jose Fernandez) to do something similar. Gray has proven he is capable of being a sub-3.50 ERA and/or 150+ strikeout guy, so he’s worth a shot before #108 despite the team’s history.