(Really) Deep League Starting Pitcher Pickups

Last week we told you about some hitters who might be of interest to, and only to, people (like us) who play in leagues so deep that they (the leagues, not the people) are hadalpelagic. Your kind response has encouraged us to take on an even more daunting task: identifying, down there among the bristle worms and the viperfish, starting pitchers who aren’t widely owned (which we define as being owned in fewer than 50% of NFBC leagues) and might be worth having.

Our findings, in brief: there really aren’t any. This is largely a function of standard-issue Roto scoring. A guy like the 2016-model Edinson Volquez (5.37 ERA, 1.55 WHIP) is quite valuable to his Reality Baseball team (1.5 WAR, says Fangraphs). He takes the ball every fifth day without fail, and most of the time keeps his team in the game for five or six innings. Mike Pelfrey built an entire career out of doing this. But for Fantasy owners, someone like Volquez or Pelfrey is a disaster, because a bad ERA and WHIP over a lot of innings outweigh any possible advantage these guys give you in wins and strikeouts. This is especially true when the guy in question, like Pelfrey and Volquez, plays for a weak team and doesn’t get that many strikeouts anyway. You’re almost invariably better off with high-strikeout do-no-harm middle relievers, who are generally available in some abundance even in deep leagues.

With so many starting pitchers being stat-impaired rubber-armed junkballers with below-average teams, any starters who unexpectedly prove their mettle in the majors get snapped up right away. Antonio Senzatela and (especially) Jordan Montgomery look like the real deal. A couple of days ago, they were owned in fewer than half of NFBC leagues. Not now, because guys like you acquired them as free agents.

So you’ve got the Volquezes of the world at one end of the spectrum and the Montgomerys of the world at the other end, and you already know to shun the former and embrace the latter. You can’t (unless your league has very eccentric rules) reach into the minor leagues to grab a top prospect lke Brent Honeywell or Josh Hader. What can you do?

You can get a Starter In Waiting. We count three guys who are now languishing in major league bullpens, but who will, we predict, be in starting rotations within the next month and who may do well there. And while they and you are waiting, we think, or at least hope, that they won’t do you severe damage if you have to keep them on your active roster. In descending order of attractiveness, they are:

—Trevor Williams, Pittsburgh. Williams really should have gotten a slot in the Pirates’ starting rotation this spring—a fact that Tyler Glasnow, who got it instead, seems intent on proving. Williams has a four-seam fastball that he throws with good control and good spin, and now he’s developed a changeup that appears to be fooling a lot more hitters than it used to. It’s possible that he’s more suited to relieving than starting, but he was an effective starter throughout his four years in the minors and stretched out pretty nicely this spring. He even seems to be developing into something of a strikeout pitcher.

—Mike Hauschild, Texas. That’s right, he’s been terrible in long relief so far this season. Keep the faith. First of all, he’s a Rule 5 pick, so he’s probably not going anywhere. Second, A.J. Griffin, the Rangers’ fifth starter, has likewise been terrible (though he pitched very well last night), as he also was during the second half of 2016. Griffin’s leash, however long it is, must be fully extended by now. Most importantly, Hauschild is a good pitcher. He was probably the most effective starting pitcher for Houston’s triple-A Fresno team during 2015-2016. He’s an extreme groundball pitcher with superb control and excellent movement on everything he throws. His big problem so far this season has been home runs, but he’s been so good at preventing them heretofore that we have to think it’s a blip. He almost beat out Griffin for a rotation spot last month, and we think he’ll have one by next month.

—Jose Urena, Miami. We’ve written nice things about him before, and he’s been so disappointing that we finally gave up on him at the end of last season. But here he is and here we are again. Everyone says the same thing about Urena: how can a guy who throws this hard get so few strikeouts? Well, he’s throwing harder than ever, and now the strikeouts are starting to happen: 15 of them in 14 innings of spring training, and five in eight innings so far in the regular season. Plus, he seems finally to have developed the reliable changeup that he’s been working on for years. Meanwhile, the Marlins’ rotation is staggering, and not in a good way: they’ve got a collective FIP of 5.25. And it looks to us like Urena’s next in line.