Kicking Rocks: Re-Visiting “Don’t Chase the Ace”
Back on April 21st, I wrote a Kicking Rocks piece entitled, “Don’t Chase the Ace” in which I lamented going pitching heavy in my draft. I was disgruntled with the fact that my offense was anemic while I continued to watch my ratios explode with each and every start from my supposed stable of high quality aces. While there were several of you that felt my pain, there were also many of you that criticized me for my concerns so early on in the season. I was then asked to re-visit this 3 months into the season, so as we get ready to head into the All Star Break, here we go…
So the idea here was to grab as dominant a staff as I could using four of my first 12 picks on the best starters available. That way, I could push towards the top of the standings (roto league) in the four main pitching categories (W, K, ERA, and WHIP), while using my waiver picks to tinker with an offense with which I may not be completely satisfied. Unfortunately though, by the end of April, my top four starters looked like this:
| W | K | ERA | WHIP | FIP | |
| Felix Hernandez | 3 | 35 | 3.32 | 1.20 | 2.76 |
| Justin Verlander | 2 | 35 | 3.50 | 1.02 | 3.69 |
| Yovani Gallardo | 2 | 23 | 5.70 | 1.57 | 4.28 |
| Francisco Liriano | 1 | 19 | 9.13 | 1.90 | 6.04 |
To add to it, neither Madison Bumgarner nor Ian Kennedy were performing well and my relievers offered little to be desired. Not a very auspicious beginning, was it? I was in the middle of the pack in wins and strikeouts, but my ratios were in the toilet. I wasn’t sweating King Felix or Verlander too much, but Liriano and Gallardo had me seriously concerned. Their FIP (included above to show just how lousy most were actually pitching) were not very encouraging to me at the time.
Now I know the whole “small sample size” argument, but let’s face it — recovering your ratios can be a daunting task, even so early on in the season. You don’t want to fall too far into a hole, right? So what’s the best way to fix those ratios? Rather than take risks on the starters left on the waiver wire, I went with a number of relievers. I picked up any productive closers available and even dipped into Tony LaRussa’s flavors of the week in St. Louis. Help was now on the way, I just had to give it some time.
Unfortunately, while I was busy worrying about which relievers I was going to grab, I was also forced to fight for many offensive needs as well. Among my top picks for hitters were Hanley Ramirez, Adam Dunn, David Wright, Andrew McCutchen, and Jay Bruce. Nothing but slow starts and injuries there. However, given the pedigrees of these supposed offensive warriors, no one was droppable which meant that I had to fill that bench quickly and not have the roster flexibility necessary for such a big overhaul. Add to it, the fact that others used so many early picks on offensive players, my middle to late round picks weren’t quite strong enough to help make up much of the differences.
So there I was…a pitiful offense, struggling pitching, and a second to last place spot in the standings. The only guy I was ahead of had an unavoidable commitment on draft day and let his 12 year old nephew with no fantasy experience take the reins. Now I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have grabbed certain offensive guys because of my pitching-first strategy. Both Hanley and Wright were selected before I grabbed King Felix with my third round pick. But I probably would have gone in a different direction from Dunn and Bruce because I would have used top five picks on better power guys.
And how are we looking as of today? Well, my offense is still an obvious work in progress and based on current first half numbers you’ll see that my only pitcher worthy of his draft spot was Verlander. Gallardo and Liriano have been far too inconsistent and King Felix isn’t coming close to giving me third round/top 5 SP totals. I could have easily obtained this level of production from lower tiered starters while having a juggernaut of an offensive with better quality picks in the top five or six rounds.
Sure, it’s easy to say that Liriano and Gallardo had a certain amount of risk to both of them, but given last season’s totals combined with expectations for this season and the fact that they were considered the best starters available at each time I picked, you couldn’t pass on either. From now on, I’ll pass on both. I’ll pass on them all if I have to next time. With so much quality starting pitching available each year, offense should always come first in your draft.
Howard Bender has been covering fantasy sports for over 10 years on a variety of websites. In addition to his work here, you can also find him at his site, RotobuzzGuy.com, Fantasy Alarm, RotoWire and Mock Draft Central. Follow him on Twitter at @rotobuzzguy or for more direct questions or comments, email him at rotobuzzguy@gmail.com
Gallardo and Liriano as a 3 and 4 should not have been part of a “pitching heavy” experiment. That’s just a normal pitching staff. 4 of your top 12 picks SHOULD ALWAYS be pitchers.
To further the point, you are only complaining because your top offensive picks (Hanley Ramirez, Adam Dunn, David Wright, Andrew McCutchen, and Jay Bruce) have all busted, along with your poor choice of top flight starters.
I’s like you didn’t learn anything from the comments on the last article.
Right on, although McCutchen and Bruce are having great and very good years respectively. But the bottom line is that this team is not really “ace heavy” at all. It’s a normal looking team. Bad article.
I know, right?
How an author could possibly claim that a “don’t chase the ace” strategy doesn’t work after drafting wild cards like Gallardo and Liriano is baffling to me.
If you’re going to pursue a pitching first strategy, you get proven aces with long histories of good health and good performance, like Halladay, Haren, Verlander, etc.
Not wild cards with health issues and short track records of elite performance.
He’s getting the absolute wrong conclusion from employing a faulty version of a strategy.
I’m beginning to think he employed a strategy he didn’t want to use in the first place as poorly as possible just so that he could claim he “tried it” and “gave it a fair shot” but that it sucked and he was never doing it again.
If you’re uninterested in a pitching first strategy, then don’t use it. But don’t tell everyone it doesn’t work without even employing it properly!
You always draft 4 pitchers in your top 12 picks? That’s insane….
This is not pitching heavy. “Pitching heavy” is the guy in my league who drafted Halladay, Lincecum and Lee with 3 of his first 4 picks. THAT is an experiment in pitching vs. hitting that I can get behind. You, sir, just had a bad draft and some bad luck.
How could you pick King-Felix, Gallardo, Verlander +Liriano and HanRam, McCutchen, ADuh, Wright and Bruce….? What players did your league-mates draft in that rounds? (Morneau?) ^^
10 team mixed league with those being 9 of my first 12 picks…
I paid heavily for Liriano too, Fangraphs Folk kept talking about his league leading FIP, etc. Don’t get high off your own supply.
I also passed on Pineda because Dave Cameron said he can’t get lefties out (without looking, I will bet you that lefties have less than 600 OPS againts him).
Steve,
Me too. I passed on Pineda because I kept reading Cameron saying Pineda wasn’t ready for the show, he didn’t have a good offspeed pitch to get lefties out, etc etc.
I know everyone makes mistakes, but I am still steaming about that one and the lost opportunity there.
Some sort of life lesson about thinking for oneself there…
The thing with Cameron’s article on Pineda was that in most “normal” leagues, Pineda was a round 20+ guy. So unlike Liriano, he didn’t cost anything to draft.
Fangraphs has had better days.
It’s disheartening when the posters know more than the writer about how winning a Roto league actually works.
It was a deviation in strategy from my normally offensive-minded drafts so that I may bring you this delicious alternative. Stand down, Tom. It’s all gonna be ok.
Yes, but you half-assed (and blew) the strategy and rendered both of these articles moot. You drafted a “proper” roto team, not a pitching heavy one. That’s the disconnect here.
You also seem to believe that “getting lucky” with pitching in roto is the best plan. Top flight hitting is just as volatile if not more than pitching, and hitting is easier to replace (there are more batters than pitchers, simple math).
As I said in the first article, normally, I won’t even look at a starter in the first 5 or 6 rounds of a draft and I’ve preached it for years, so to take 4 SP in my first 12 picks was somewhat pitching heavy. We disagree on what a “proper” roto draft looks like, obviously.
And while yes, there are more hitters than pitchers, simple math as you state, hitters are position specific. Most leagues that call for 9 pitchers either have the slots labeled as P or in more specific cases, 3 SP, 3 RP, and 3 P. Pitching is, by far and away, the deepest position out there. Getting lucky is drafting Melky Cabrera in the 22nd round and getting his current level of production, not drafting Hiroki Kuroda in the 21st and getting his.
I just find it disingenuous to claim the strategy a failure.
You only made drafting adjustments that were odd “for you”, but what you did is not far enough from the norm for Roto drafting to be of any significance to the point of the excessive. The concept of a pitching heavy draft is not new and is pretty well documented, and none of them only draft “4 pitchers in the top 12”. Regular people do that every day.
exercise, not excessive…
disingenuous? We’re talking about fantasy draft strategy and you call the Bendernator a liar?
(By the way, its OK to just say: “You lie when” instead of “I just find it disingenuous to claim…” Too clunky.)
In an NL league, I drafted only two pitchers in the first 10 rounds as part of a LIMA strategy: Wilson in the 5th and Marcum in the 8th. I also drafted Contreras in the 12th (traded him for Jurjens at the beginning when JJ was on the DL), Mike Adams in the 15th, Romo in the 17th, Hammel in the 18th, Nelson Figueroa in the 20th and Randy Wolf in the 22nd. Since then I’ve dropped Nelson, gotten Salas as a FAAB bid and played around with some other marginal guys (Izzy, E. Sanchez, Mike Minor, Lynn).
The point is this: with this decidedly pedestrian staff I’m third in ERA and WHIP and in striking distance of #1 ERA and #2 WHIP. I’m third in saves, striking distance of #2 when/if Bell is traded. I’m third in wins. Only in strikeouts am I in bad shape, flitting between #10 and #11.
I’m now completely convinced that hitting is more valuable and predicable than pitching, full stop.
You’re my boy, Blue!!!
On the other side of the equation, I won back-to-back championships in a 12-team mixed league by drafting diesel pitching (say, 7 of the first 8 picks) and filling in the gaps with 2- or 3- category studs, waver-wire pickups, and unsexy, balanced contributors. If your league is even remotely competitive, you can always swing a trade to gain some ground offensively. However, I will also say that it’s a much easier strategy to implement in H2H and daily transaction leagues; I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for roto and/or weekly leagues.
I think that it’s largely BECAUSE hitting is more stable and predictable that the pitching-heavy strategy can be successful. Injury risks aside, the top tier of pitchers are generally stable from year-to-year. You pretty much know what you’re getting when you draft CC Sabathia or Halladay, but you just don’t always know with Ted Lilly or Ian Kennedy – could be solid, could be garbage. On the other hand, you know what you’re getting when you draft Miguel Cabrera or Ryan Braun, but you still know what you’re getting when you draft Michael Bourne or Marco Scutaro.
Similarly, if a pitcher strings together two weeks of good starts, it’s tough to say if that is due to skill/change in approach or if it’s just luck/defense/sequencing. People were skeptical of Cliff Lee and JJ Putz making “the leap” for a reason. With a hitter, it’s easy enough to look at minor league track record, batted ball profiles, and plate disciple stats to determine if results are “real” or not. I feel pretty confident that Matt Joyce will continue to OPS >.850 on the year (barring a fluctuation in his usage pattern). I really, honestly have no idea about Alexi Ogando or Brandon Beachy.
It’s also worth mentioning that this was just a bad year to try for anything other than balance, though, due to all the known position players that have disappointed relative to their draft position (Hanley, Pujols, Dunn, Uggla, Beltre, A-Rod, Mauer, etc.)
I agree with everything said, but even when this sensible you still need lots of luck. Metrodorus said it best, “None of us knows anything, not even this, whether we know or we do not know; nor do we know what ‘to not know’ or ‘to know’ are, nor on the whole, whether anything is or is not.”
Good points, but SPs only contribute in 4 of the 5 scoring categories and one of those categories is the whimsical “wins” column. So although we know what we’re getting with Haren, CC, Lee, Verlander, etc., we only get points in 80% of the scoring categories with wins being a bit of a crapshoot. Throw in BABIP and the fact that there are much smaller margins for error with pitchers (e.g. a 1.20 WHIP = 1st place while a 1.30 WHIP = last place, but the difference between the two is one BB or hit per game) as well as the smaller sample size (180 IP vs. 700 plate appearances) and I feel that a lot can go wrong by drafting aces early.
Dude, just because you executed the strategy poorly doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. You could have drafted offense heavy and still ended up with stinkers like Hanley, Dunn, Choo, etc.
As others have noted, Gallardo and Liriano were risky pitchers with non-elite ratios, it wasn’t really a good application of your strategy. They are pretty typical 3/4 starters in a 10-team league. If you had added Weaver and Haren to go with Felix/Verlander, then you’d be singing a different turn.
I made this criticism in your first article on this. If you were going to make a run in pitching, this ain’t it. You draft Halladay, Hamels, Verlander, and Haren with four of your first six or seven picks.
You might have picked above average pitchers, or pitchers higher than what you usually do, but in no way shape or form is what you experimented with what I would call a “pitching first” strategy.
I hear what you’re all saying….
I’m picking up what you’re putting down….
Yes, using 4 of my first 5 picks would have constituted a much greater “pitching heavy” strategy.
Of course, we’d all be sitting here calling that strategy just as stupid, I’m sure
Every other criticism I have of these articles aside, how can you possibly write for Fangraphs, and believe a sample size of 1 has any relevance to whether a strategy is good or bad?
For the sake of being charitable, I’m going to go ahead and believe you’re just trying to rattle peoples’ chains.
All with a grain of salt Howard 🙂
I think that the main criticism that people seem to have is that you used a pitching-centric strategy that rewards dependable aces and yet you selected risk/reward aces. I for one would be very much interested in seeing you (or even a commenter, call someone out!) trying this strategy again next season, or in a mid season league. Heck, I’ll volunteer myself and just forward you the roster if you’d like. It’s definitely a strategy that gets overlooked some times and I hope that you haven’t been scared off due to your current experience.
I also drafted Scherzer as my SP1 in Round 9 this season and have a 3.07 ERA 1.18 WHIP, so it can work both ways. 🙂
I’ve been kicking around a slightly different plan for this “pitching heavy” method to work. I feel it would be most effective in a Roto league with an innings limit. The basic plan would be to “actually” draft pitcher heavy (and way more starter than you would normally need, think no bats on your bench… pitch as many innings as you possibly could in the first half of the season, then trade them all away for bats at the deadline.
If your pitching rates were good enough (wins and k’s per inning) along with the regular suspects of ERA/WHIP… you should be able to hold enough ground in all of the pitching categories that even 4 or 5 points in each batting category would put you comfortably in first place.
I used to like drafting hitters R1 to R7 and then taking three or four pitchers in the Hamels, Nolasco, Shields, Baker mold, but now that there is so much pitching, you really do need two, 200 IP+ studs. While I’m pretty good at finding a couple of aces in free agency early on (Pineda, Beachy, etc.), I think that going forward, with so much pitching, you really need to lock down a couple of big names early. It’s the same thing with speed. There’s so much speed today, that it’s hard to make noise in the SB category without at least one 50 steal guy. Essentially, I feel that the opposite of what ESPN preaches is true (i.e. there is so much pitching/speed that you can wait on it). I feel that since everyone is going to have a lot of pitching/speed, you better make darn sure you have two studs and one 50+ steal guy. Because you can only afford to be weak in one category if you’re going to win most leagues.
I love how pissy people get about this stuff. I half expect Tom B to slap Bender across the cheek with Homer Simpson’s dueling glove. “You sully the good name of Fangraphs, good sir. I’ll see you and your soon-to-be perforated spleen at dawn on FIP Hill!”
I never take my first starter before Round 7 (Max Scherzer this year at #98– see how brilliant I am? Actually, I think he’ll be OK, his skills are intact.), and I’m in a 14-team keeper league. Most of the stick-out Aces are kept, but not all. Apples to oranges in this discussion, maybe, but pitchers… feh, I don’t trust them. I bet most pitchers believe in Keynsian economics and think Stalin wasn’t so bad. I just put on my k/bb glasses, check their GB rates, take a shot of bourbon and take a Kuroda dragon with the 154th and a Chacin-Amy at 182.
I’m in 2nd, 4 points back. Waited ’til now to make my first trade and dealt my Round 6 pick next year for Hanson and Putz this year, and a Round 22 pick. ‘Cause, you know, I need the pitching.
Okay, so let’s suppose someone does this pitching heavy thing to the extreme (like the guy that mentioned that he used 3 of his first 4 picks on starters). Now, suppose, then that you’re rotation has 3 or 4 of these guys after the first 5 rounds. How, then, does that change the outcome?
Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander, Jared Weaver, etc.
I think you’d probably come to a different conclusion. The bottom line is that you can’t conclusively say that the situation does or doesn’t work based on this one draft. And, as others have pointed out, it’s not a-typical to have 4 or 5 starters after 12 rounds.
Tom B,
I did something like that in my first year in Yahoo! roto leagues — maybe 8 or 9 years ago now — with innings limits. It worked okay, the real problem was that I played with experienced owners that were onto my gameplan from the start and I didn’t get the kind of offers for stud bats that I had hoped for. They knew I was way aheaf of my projected innings and that those pitchers would be worthless to me come late August.
I did make some trades though, but I capped out on innings way ahead of everyone else and they did a fair job of playing catch up — particularly in the counting stats. Meanwhile, hitters being streaky as they are, made it way more difficult to catch up in the hitting stats.
It’s not a strategy I would advise. You’re basically relying on others to do what you expect them to, which is not always the case.
-Brent
Just found this article today, I know this is quite a late response and all of the discussion was drafts instead of auctions, but I did a HIMA test this season in an auction league. Picked up Halladay, Felix, and Price, at the top and then spent a good amount of the rest of my budget on middling guys (Hellickson, Lilly, Hudson). Despite a few misses in my hitting ($20 on Rios, $23 on Carlos Santana, $10 on Jose Tabata) I currently am sitting in first and have an opportunity to greatly improve my lead due to a few new pickups I’ve made.
I had never tried going pitching heavy before, but considering that has been my best team so far this season I may try it again next year
On a side note I love seeing that people didn’t think too highly of Pineda before the season, was really high on him and actually did a player profile on him over at faketeams on SB nation