How to Judge Pitcher Conversion Projects for Fantasy Purposes

What was Wade Davis like as a starting pitcher? Boring, hittable, and barely a major leaguer. As a reliever? Possibly the top player at the position. Davis has an interesting history – he was a mediocre starter, then a good reliever, then a bad starter, and then an elite reliever. Some thought that second stint as a starter would go a lot better.

Compare that to Carlos Carrasco. He scuffled as a starter, pitched well out of the pen, then pitched just as well back in the rotation. Why did it turn out differently for Carrasco? Today we’ll examine that question and talk about the types of players who benefit from stints in the bullpen. But mostly, we’ll look at the more common trend of pitchers getting stuck in relief.

The story behind Carrasco the Prospect reads thusly: excellent stuff, suspect command, confusingly bad results. Plenty of pitchers with good stuff get by with command problems. Tim Lincecum was a Cy Young. Twice. Granted, those were two of his best years for command, but he was never super sharp with his locations. The point is, Carrasco should have been better as a starter.

Eventually, he moved to the bullpen. For most pitchers, that would have been the end of the story. He was suddenly good as a reliever as a 27-year-old. Most teams would take it and never return him to the rotation. Luckily, the Indians needed more starters. In the bullpen, Carrasco learned how to aggressively use his fastball before burying his breaking balls. Once he took the reliever mentality to the starting role, he never looked back.

Carrasco was an unusual conversion story in that he had a full repertoire of functioning pitches. Really, they were all above average pitches. In a way, Carrasco was fortunate. Most pitchers who move to relief do so because parts of their repertoire are unpolished. Maybe they have a shaky changeup or they can’t use their slider 40 percent of the time when starting. Once in the bullpen, they’ll never develop the necessary skills to start.

Take your typical once starter, now reliever. Let’s name him Aaron Sanchez. He was a very promising starting pitcher prospect. In 2014, the Blue Jays decided they want a look at him in Toronto. His repertoire wasn’t ready – he was mostly a sinker-curve guy (and even the curve still needs work). He also throws a slider, change, and cutter, but all three pitches are underdeveloped.

As you might expect, Sanchez’s non-fastballs remain underdeveloped. He also got mysteriously worse in a number of ways last season. The single most glaringly problems are an over two mph drop in velocity and a decline in command. He’s no closer to starting than he was in mid-2014, but now precious development time has been lost.

To start, Sanchez probably needs more time in the minors. No self-respecting player wants to return to long bus rides, small crowds, and development games. Undoubtedly, Sanchez prefers to compete on a playoff contending major league team – even if that means working in relief. Some pitchers (me for instance) even prefer to relieve. The Blue Jays are probably a better team in 2016* with him in relief. They might be better long term if he can figure out how to start.

*I’m aware of Toronto’s plan to start him in Spring Training. I’m also fairly confident the plan is doomed. Unless a genie handed him better secondary stuff and command over the offseason.

Fantasy Implications

So we have a couple anecdotes – one about a guy who successfully converted from relief to starting and another about a former top starting pitcher prospect who will probably relieve for the rest of his career. Even if Sanchez does successful re-convert, the profile applies to dozens of young pitching prospects over the years.

Major league teams are aware of the developmental challenges imposed by shifting a pitcher’s role. They try to keep a guy like Blake Treinen in a minor league rotation, but sometimes major league need is too great. This is especially true for contenders.

Sometimes, rotation depth can force a team to convert a guy. The Mets had Jenrry Mejia (now permabanned) and Jeurys Familia as starter prospects. They both landed in the pen. There were other factors involved in their move to the pen such as health (Mejia) and command problems (Familia), but depth played a part too.

As fantasy owners, we want to correctly identify when a player is going to Carrasco. Or Davis. Basically, we want to know when a free or cheap player will become excellent. Duh.

Conversions from starter to reliever have been studied in detail. You’re looking for velocity spikes and pitchers with two plus pitches. Starter prospects who have a mid-90s fastball, plus breaking ball, and lousy changeup are the most common success stories. They’re also the guys who won’t be (successfully) converted back to starting. After tasting success as a stud reliever, they’re unlikely to have the patience to go back and develop their changeup.

The Carrasco route is much more difficult to predict because there just aren’t many examples to study. Here, you’re looking for complete three to five pitch repertoires with either command issues or sequencing problems. Maybe the issue is health.

James Paxton comes to mind as somebody who might fit this profile in 2016. He has the pitches, but health has sidetracked his career. Now he may be the Mariners sixth starter. If they opt to use him in the bullpen, he may gain some valuable insight about attacking hitters in a short burst. If he can translate that short burst mentality back to starting, he could go full Carrasco.