Pitcher Rankings with Bill James Projections

On Monday, I looked at the top hitters according to the recently added Bill James Handbook Projections. Today, I will see how the projection system sees the pitchers performing this season.

A few items to keep in mind.

1. Again, the projections are provided to FanGraphs by Baseball Info Solutions. Our agreement with them states that the data is only to be on each player’s page and not in one location. If you want the complete data, it can be bought from BIS. Don’t ask for a full list, it can’t be given out.

2. For the rankings, I used Zack Sander’s ranking system to rate the pitchers against all pitchers. Then, I divided the pitchers into 2 lists, starters and relievers. If the pitcher was projected to make more starts then relief appearances, I put him as a starter. Otherwise, the pitcher was grouped in with the relievers.

3. I completed 3 rankings. The first ranking used the 5 values (Wins, K, ERA, WHIP and Saves) as the Bill James Projections reported them with no adjustments. For he second list, I adjusted all the numbers to 200 IP for starters and 60 IP for relievers. Also for the second list, I removed Wins and Saves from the calculations. This ranking represents more of the pitcher’s talent level instead of his role and the talent around him. For the third list, I used my work from last year where I found a pitcher’s fantasy value can be determined from their K% and BB%.

Here are the rankings

Non-adjusted rankings
Starters

Rank	Name	Wins	ERA	K	WHIP	Saves
1	Stephen Strasburg	17	2.68	255	1.04	0
2	Clayton Kershaw	18	2.65	227	1.04	0
3	Justin Verlander	18	3.00	220	1.10	0
4	Matt Cain	17	2.95	188	1.08	0
5	Jered Weaver	17	3.07	187	1.09	0
6	David Price	16	3.13	202	1.14	0
7	Chris Sale	14	3.09	214	1.11	0
8	CC Sabathia	16	3.28	211	1.17	0
9	Cliff Lee	15	3.17	193	1.11	0
10	Kris Medlen	14	2.94	173	1.08	0
11	Cole Hamels	14	3.23	211	1.12	0
12	Felix Hernandez	14	3.18	216	1.16	0
13	Jake Peavy	14	3.20	200	1.12	0
14	Mat Latos	15	3.16	194	1.16	0
15	Roy Halladay	15	3.21	189	1.14	0
16	Yu Darvish	14	3.45	247	1.23	0
17	Matt Moore	13	3.25	232	1.21	0
18	Dan Haren	15	3.47	186	1.16	0
19	Zack Greinke	15	3.45	209	1.22	0
20	Chris Carpenter	15	3.25	157	1.17	0

Relievers

Rank	Name	Wins	ERA	K	WHIP	Saves
1	Craig Kimbrel	5	1.38	109	0.86	39
2	Mariano Rivera	6	1.89	59	0.92	46
3	Kenley Jansen	4	1.55	95	0.93	35
4	Jason Motte	5	2.52	85	1.03	45
5	Joe Nathan	5	2.28	79	1.00	37
6	Aroldis Chapman	4	2.42	98	1.13	48
7	Jonathan Papelbon	5	2.51	81	1.06	41
8	Grant Balfour	5	2.22	83	1.05	35
9	Sergio Romo	6	1.83	75	0.89	16
10	Huston Street	4	2.53	59	1.04	44
11	Fernando Rodney	4	2.77	72	1.17	47
12	J.J. Putz	4	2.29	65	1.00	28
13	Chris Perez	4	2.79	59	1.10	41
14	Rafael Betancourt	4	2.55	65	1.03	29
15	Drew Storen	4	2.50	50	1.11	33
16	Addison Reed	4	2.67	65	1.11	32
17	Joakim Soria	4	2.70	53	1.12	33
18	Vinnie Pestano	5	2.72	89	1.14	25
19	Ernesto Frieri	5	3.04	79	1.21	36
20	Jose Valverde	5	3.04	73	1.22	37

200 and 60 IP, only WHIP, ERA and K
Starters (200 IP)

Rank	Name	ERA	K	WHIP
1	Stephen Strasburg	2.68	245	1.04
2	Clayton Kershaw	2.65	205	1.04
3	Chris Sale	3.09	216	1.11
4	Brandon Beachy	3.09	217	1.13
5	Kris Medlen	2.94	182	1.08
6	Justin Verlander	3.00	190	1.10
7	Matt Cain	2.95	166	1.08
8	Jered Weaver	3.07	170	1.09
9	Cory Luebke	3.02	181	1.13
10	Jake Peavy	3.20	190	1.12
11	Cole Hamels	3.23	189	1.12
12	Matt Moore	3.25	230	1.21
13	David Price	3.13	187	1.14
14	Cliff Lee	3.17	172	1.11
15	Mat Latos	3.16	187	1.16
16	Felix Hernandez	3.18	186	1.16
17	Michael Pineda	3.37	196	1.14
18	Yu Darvish	3.45	231	1.23
19	A.J. Griffin	3.24	162	1.12
20	Roy Halladay	3.21	164	1.14

Relievers (60 IP)

Rank	Name	ERA	K	WHIP
1	Craig Kimbrel	1.38	101	0.86
2	Kenley Jansen	1.55	98	0.93
3	Sergio Romo	1.83	70	0.89
4	Mariano Rivera	1.89	57	0.92
5	Joe Nathan	2.28	71	1.00
6	J.J. Putz	2.29	66	1.00
7	Koji Uehara	2.25	59	1.00
8	Grant Balfour	2.22	65	1.05
9	Jason Motte	2.52	68	1.03
10	Rafael Betancourt	2.55	65	1.03
11	Jonathan Papelbon	2.51	71	1.06
12	Huston Street	2.53	62	1.04
13	Aroldis Chapman	2.42	88	1.13
14	Mike Adams	2.45	60	1.09
15	Joel Peralta	2.66	57	1.06
16	Jake McGee	2.59	66	1.10
17	Darren O’Day	2.71	54	1.05
18	Addison Reed	2.67	72	1.11
19	Joaquin Benoit	2.75	66	1.08
20	Drew Storen	2.50	56	1.11

Core Talent (K% and BB%)
Starters

Rank	Name	K%	BB%
1	Stephen Strasburg	31.7%	7.1%
2	Chris Sale	27.5%	7.3%
3	Clayton Kershaw	26.5%	7.0%
4	Brandon Beachy	27.8%	8.4%
5	Kris Medlen	22.9%	4.8%
6	Jake Peavy	23.7%	5.6%
7	Yu Darvish	29.3%	10.4%
8	Matt Moore	29.5%	10.7%
9	Cliff Lee	21.3%	3.5%
10	Cole Hamels	23.8%	5.9%
11	Justin Verlander	24.1%	6.4%
12	Max Scherzer	25.6%	7.8%
13	Michael Pineda	24.8%	7.6%
14	Mike Fiers	24.7%	7.6%
15	Zack Greinke	23.2%	6.3%
16	Felix Hernandez	23.3%	6.5%
17	Yovani Gallardo	26.2%	9.2%
18	Dan Haren	21.0%	4.6%
19	CC Sabathia	22.5%	6.0%
20	Brandon Morrow	25.7%	8.9%

Relievers

Rank	Name	K%	BB%
1	Craig Kimbrel	46.2%	9.3%
2	Kenley Jansen	45.0%	10.9%
3	Sergio Romo	30.4%	4.5%
4	Mariano Rivera	24.4%	4.1%
5	Joe Nathan	30.5%	6.2%
6	J.J. Putz	28.3%	5.2%
7	Koji Uehara	24.8%	3.8%
8	Grant Balfour	28.6%	9.7%
9	Jason Motte	29.1%	6.2%
10	Rafael Betancourt	27.5%	4.2%
11	Jonathan Papelbon	30.3%	6.4%
12	Huston Street	26.6%	5.9%
13	Aroldis Chapman	38.9%	12.7%
14	Mike Adams	25.6%	7.0%
15	Joel Peralta	24.2%	6.5%
16	Jake McGee	28.1%	6.9%
17	Darren O’Day	22.8%	5.5%
18	Addison Reed	30.7%	7.5%
19	Joaquin Benoit	28.3%	7.5%
20	Drew Storen	23.6%	7.5%

Notes

1. Looking at the non-adjusted rankings, there is no real surprises. For the relievers, having some predicted Saves was key to getting ranked.

2. One the second set of lists, a few good non-save relievers make the jump into the rankings (Uehara, Peralta, McGee, Benoit, O’Day Adams). With the starters, Brandon Beachy and Michael Pineda make an appearance near the top even though both will have limited innings in 2013 because of injuries.

3. With the relievers on the final list, not much changed. With the starters, several names, Greinke, Morrow and Scherzer, make the list. The third ranking uses no batted ball data and those three pitchers have always had higher ERA than FIP because they give up a bunch of hitss. Also, Mike Fiers makes an appearance.

I did not find as many surprises on the pitcher rankings compared to the hitter rankings. As we get more rankings added here at FanGraphs, I will run this analysis on them and compare them to previous rankings.