Reviewing The Starting Pitchers that Baffle the Rankers: Outside the Top 100

Bored yet? Oh c’monnnnn, you love making us accountable for everything we say! This is my last review of our 2015 preseason rankings. We continue the look at those players we disagreed on most that we ranked outside the top 100, and we finish off with the starting pitchers. Once again, actual ranks are courtesy of Zach’s calculation wizardry.

Comparing the Rankers: Matt Cain

NAME	Jeff	Dan	Mike	Paul	Zach	Actual
Matt Cain	241	227	123	199	318	Outside top 300

Did we really have to start with a pitcher I was so wrong on?! To be fair, no one really had a clue about a) how many innings Cain would amass after returning from both elbow and ankle surgery and b) how he would perform after undergoing such procedures. Turns out, Cain endured more injuries and when he managed to take the mound, he was horrible. He’s a total crapshoot this year, but hey, he’s certainly worth a shot in the dark in NL-Only leagues.

Comparing the Rankers: Mike Fiers

NAME	Jeff	Dan	Mike	Paul	Zach	Actual
Mike Fiers	301	147	136	169	204	214

Those pesky, pesky wins. Despite throwing 180.1 innings and posting a respectable 3.69 ERA, he only managed to record seven victories! I’m truly curious where he would have ranked had he won five more games. His actual performance was essentially right in line with projections, so it seems to just come down to the wins that pushed him out of the top 200, making me look silly for being so optimistic. As a soft-tossing fly ball pitcher, I do worry about his future, however.

Comparing the Rankers: Brandon McCarthy

NAME	Jeff	Dan	Mike	Paul	Zach	Actual
Brandon McCarthy	271	214	139	280	207	Outside top 300

Oh gosh, these recaps never make things easy on me, huh? McCarthy’s severe strain of gopheritis in his first two starts when he yielded an unbelievable six long balls in just 12 innings inspired me to question HR/FB rates and the role of lady luck. Sadly, McCarthy only lasted two more starts before going under the knife to undergo TJ surgery, so we will never know how far that 37.5% HR/FB rate would have fallen. He was enjoying a rare late-career renaissance with an exciting skills surge, but now having to come back from the surgery, who knows what he’ll be.

Comparing the Rankers: Drew Hutchison

NAME	Jeff	Dan	Mike	Paul	Zach	Actual
Drew Hutchison	269	174	165	167	268	Outside top 300

A lot of us were excited about Hutchison heading into 2015, and I was one of them. Instead, he was a major disappointment, as his strikeout rate fell, he continued to serve up home runs galore, and he posted the highest BABIP among starters who recorded at least 150 innings. Yuck. He has now dramatically underperformed his SIERA over his first three seasons. The assumption would normally be that his home park plays a role, but he has actually allowed a higher away HR/FB rate than home mark. I’m still willing to take a gamble in AL-Only leagues, but in shallow mixed leagues, he’s just a speculative reserve pick.

Comparing the Rankers: Scott Kazmir

NAME	Jeff	Dan	Mike	Paul	Zach	Actual
Scott Kazmir	288	188	148	238	213	165

Finally, I was the closest ranker on someone! I couldn’t understand why everyone was so down on Kazmir heading into the season given his strong season numbers, which followed the skills resurgence of 2013. Actually, I could — it was likely the second half swoon. I think people put far too much stock in first half/second half splits. Interestingly, Kazmir did the exact same thing again, posting an unsustainable sub-3.00 ERA in the first half, and then declining in the second half. But he wasn’t near as bad in the 2015 second half as he was in 2014. His annual injury concerns and declining strikeout rate concern me, but he picked a great landing spot in Los Angeles which is going to mitigate some of that risk. Perhaps he’ll be even more undervalued now!

Comparing the Rankers: Ian Kennedy

NAME	Jeff	Dan	Mike	Paul	Zach	Actual
Ian Kennedy	212	149	162	226	275	276

I wouldn’t have guessed that I was a Kennedy optimist, but that’s why these exercises are fun. We learn so very much! I don’t know what was going on in San Diego, but several of their starters had significantly inflated HR/FB rates this year. Oddly, their HR park factor has been unchanged since 2013, so who knows. Kennedy posted the second highest HR/FB rate among qualified pitchers in baseball, which looks to be a complete fluke given that heading into the year, his career average mirrored the league average. He proved that his 2014 strikeout rate spike was legit and even shaved a point off his walk rate. It’s still hard for me to believe in that 24% strikeout rate, but he’s going to be undervalued this year.

Comparing the Rankers: Garrett Richards

NAME	Jeff	Dan	Mike	Paul	Zach	Actual
Garrett Richards	197	99	211	163	220	131

If you’ve read my starting pitcher tiers, you know that innings pitched plays a large role in my rankings. As it should. Obviously a pitcher is going to be worth more if he throws 200 innings than if he throws just 150, all else being equal. Since the above rankings were from early February, I was forecasting just 155 innings for Richards given his recovery from serious knee surgery. So naturally, he sets a new career high with 207.1 of them. His performance generally fell in line with expectations, or at least my expectations, as he couldn’t quite sustain that strikeout rate surge that led to his 2014 breakout. He still owns excellent skills as an extreme ground ball pitcher with strikeout ability and acceptable control.