Mock Battle: Zack Greinke vs Jake Arrieta (‘s ADP)

Mock. Yeah. Ing. Yeah. Draft. Yeah.

You can follow our 12 team, standard 5×5 roto mock draft. Else, here is a summary of the first two rounds and our first outfield battle.

My first battle is my self-battle on Zack Greinke. After 63 picks in, I tweeted an image of my rankings, which had Zack Greinke literally all alone at #23 overall. Everyone else in the top 40 were gone by pick 63 except for Greinke and Prince Fielder whom I wound up drafting once pick 6.72 came around.

I would have certainly drafted Greinke if he made it back to me at 6.72. I dwelled short and hard on him during my round 4-to-5 turn where I wound up going with Victor Martinez (4.48) and Aroldis Chapman (5.49). Most of the aces were gone already: Kershaw, Sale, Felix, Kluber, Scherzer, Bumgarner, Strasburg, Price.

For reference, I used 2015 Steamer Projections and Zach Sanders’ FAVRz (position-adjusted z-sums) approach to fantasy valuation. If we z-score W, ERA, WHIP, K and SV, Greinke winds up with a 6.39 z-sum, which gets a small pitcher position adjustment to a 6.68 z-sum. Here’s the rankings up to Hamels at #27:

Name	POS	GS	IP	W	ERA	WHIP	SO	SV	zSUM	PosAdj
Clayton Kershaw	SP	32	201	15	2.46	1.02	225	0	10.95	11.24
Max Scherzer	SP	32	195	14	3.02	1.1	226	0	7.95	8.24
Chris Sale	SP	30	192	14	3.02	1.09	220	0	7.91	8.20
Felix Hernandez	SP	30	192	14	2.94	1.08	197	0	7.77	8.06
Madison Bumgarner	SP	32	201	13	2.96	1.11	203	0	7.33	7.62
Stephen Strasburg	SP	29	182	13	3.02	1.1	198	0	6.86	7.15
Zack Greinke	SP	31	192	13	3.02	1.12	180	0	6.39	6.68
Yu Darvish	SP	30	192	14	3.26	1.17	224	0	6.27	6.56
David Price	SP	30	192	14	3.24	1.11	179	0	6.22	6.51
Corey Kluber	SP	30	192	13	3.21	1.13	197	0	6.13	6.42
Aroldis Chapman	RP	0	65	4	1.42	0.87	114	28	6.11	6.40
Matt Harvey	SP	27	173	11	3.13	1.13	185	0	5.26	5.55
Masahiro Tanaka	SP	31	192	13	3.42	1.12	171	0	5.21	5.50
Jon Lester	SP	30	192	13	3.28	1.17	185	0	5.14	5.43
Craig Kimbrel	RP	0	65	4	1.91	0.97	94	28	4.80	5.09
Kenley Jansen	RP	0	65	4	2.04	0.96	87	28	4.59	4.88
Adam Wainwright	SP	32	201	13	3.41	1.17	167	0	4.52	4.81
Johnny Cueto	SP	29	182	11	3.27	1.16	174	0	4.44	4.73
Hyun-Jin Ryu	SP	31	182	12	3.33	1.16	160	0	4.26	4.55
Jordan Zimmermann	SP	30	182	12	3.37	1.15	155	0	4.20	4.49
Greg Holland	RP	0	65	4	2.23	1.02	84	28	4.08	4.37
Sean Doolittle	RP	0	65	4	2.2	1	77	28	4.05	4.34
Jake McGee	RP	0	65	4	2.26	1.02	80	28	3.97	4.26
Hisashi Iwakuma	SP	31	192	13	3.52	1.17	155	0	3.92	4.21
Koji Uehara	RP	0	65	4	2.33	0.99	71	28	3.87	4.16
James Shields	SP	32	201	13	3.62	1.2	174	0	3.68	3.97
Cole Hamels	SP	29	182	10	3.49	1.17	177	0	3.59	3.88

By the rankings, Greinke was the best pitcher and player left for 43 picks. You can easily contend this, but he was ranked before Johnny Cueto, Jon Lester and Jordan Zimmermann who went just before him as well as Hamels and Wainwright who went back-to-back immediately after.

There in lies the problem. There were still a sundry of solid/arguably better options. I believe it was Chris Cwik who mentioned that he was surprised that a number of teams still didn’t have starting pitchers at some arbitrary point in the draft prior to Greinke. Mike Podhorzer didn’t have one until Greg Holland and Julio Teheran was auto-drafted to him; I only had Aroldis Chapman until Matt Harvey and Carlos Carrasco back-to-back in rounds 8 and 9; and the Blue Sox didn’t have a single pitcher until David Robertson at 7.83.

For me, the fact that there was so much quality left (and still is) prevented me from going with Greinke (or anyone else) at that time.

Still, I dwelled on Greinke. I almost went Greinke (over Chapman; not Victor Martinez), until I glanced quickly at our current version of pitch score arsenal scores.  It’s all Jake Arrieta’s fault.

Zack Greinke has a Change, Fourseam, Slider, Sinker and Curve (in this order of value). Jake Arrieta has a Curve, Fourseam, Change, Sinker and Slider (in this order of value) – pretty much the same repertoire by classification although his Slider might be a Cutter, in which case its value could actually go up since it’s being compared to other Sliders (which induce more whiffs).

Although the pitches differ in value for each pitcher, they sum up to a similar pitch arsenal score: a 2.30 for Arrieta and a 2.39 for Greinke, which ranked 27th and 24th respectively.

Verifying the similar arsenal value score, let’s look at their similar outcomes:

Would I prefer Greinke? Sure, but based on draft position? Probably not. Arrieta’s arsenal was as impressive, and he ranked two spots ahead of Greinke last year by K-BB% (20.5%, which ranked 10th among starters with more than 100 IP). Arrieta’s balls in play success is also great: groundball induction plus velocity that can force pop-ups, ensuring low BABIP’s.

When Jake Arrieta goes remains up in the air, but I will take him 4+ rounds later and Victor Martinez instead of Zack Greinke plus whichever first baseman are available, which is shaping up to be Brandon Belt or Mike Napoli.

Zack Greinke is a great option, and is remarkably consistent. Kelly from Fantasy Gameday compiles excellent mock draft data. He provided me with results back to 2010 when Greinke went 5th overall for starting pitchers after his 16 win – 2.16 ERA – 1.07 – 242 SO campaign. Since, he has been drafted as the 14th, 10th, 10th and 13th starting pitcher. In our 2015 Mock, he went 13th again.

Historically, it’s a good place to target him. I thought he went relatively late (63rd) based on the value that he can provide, but historically, it’s about right according to FGD’s ADP:

2010: 31.39

2011: 66.19

2012: 46.34

2013: 51.14

2014: 60.38

 

***Within-post update*** About 30 seconds ago, four picks before my round 10/11 turn, Paul Sporer robbed Arrieta from me! I guess I’ll end my content here.