In the coming weeks, we’ll be covering each team’s potential depth charts in an effort to shine a spotlight on the interesting playing time battles that will be waged this spring. Obviously none of these depth charts are set in stone — rather they should function to focus your attention in the right places to find cheap fantasy value.

Here’s all we can say that we know for certain about the Dodger rotation right now, as pitchers & catchers around baseball are reporting to camp: Clayton Kershaw is going to start on Opening Day against the Giants, and Zack Greinke is going to follow him. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone is happy when one of their pitchers is scheduled for two starts in a week. But that is not always a good thing. Here are five pitchers you may be on the fence about (or should be on the fence) putting into your lineup for Week 20.

Chad Billingsley – Consistency has been hard to come by for Billingsley in 2011. Yes, he’s had some stretches where he’s run off multiple wins in a row, but those times were not backed with strong pitching. And here recently it’s been hot and cold for the Dodger righty. The one constant seemingly for Billingsley has been poor results on the road. In his last seven road starts, he’s given up 4, 4, 6, 0, 3, 5 and 3 ER over 45 IP for a 5.00 ERA. For the season he has a 5.53 road ERA, so it’s not like these last seven are out of character for him. Billingsley has a 6.59 K/9 in road games and allows more HR on the road. This week he squares off at MIL and at COL, two really good HR parks. Give him the week off if you can.

A.J. Burnett – It has been over six weeks since Burnett notched his last win and he has not been particularly impressive in defeat, either, with a 6.00 ERA in his last seven starts. One of the big problems in that stretch is that he has allowed 8 HR in 42 IP. The good news for Burnett this week is that he squares off against KC and MIN, two of the worst teams in the league in hitting HR. He’s also struggled with his command recently and the Twins have the fewest walks of any AL team. Both of these starts are on the road, which likely works in his favor as the Bronx faithful are not overly fond of Burnett at the moment. Put him in your lineup this week.

Gio Gonzalez – In his last four starts, Gonzalez is 0-4 with an 8.44 ERA. In that span, he has a 2.109 WHIP. Gonzalez’ BB/9 has definitely been a problem (6.3) but no one is going to succeed with the .433 BABIP that Gonzalez has during that stretch. So, is there an injury or is it a slump? Gonzalez also has a 9.7 K/9 in that stretch and his 10.0 SwStr% is right at his 9.7 percent mark for the season. It does not seem like an injury and there is no discussion of any health problems. He has two home starts this week and Gonzalez is 7-2 with a 2.21 ERA at the Coliseum. Also his home FIP is 1.07 beneath his road FIP. Keep Gonzalez active this week despite his recent horrible pitching.

Mike Leake – A 3.0 K/BB ratio and five Quality Starts in his last five games have not translated into a great record for Leake, who is 2-3 in that span. He has a nifty 2.53 ERA in his last 32 IP and a normal .316 BABIP. This week he squares off against the slumping Pirates (3-13 in their last 16 games) and Nationals (7-11). Leake is pitching well and he has favorable matchups, so make sure he is active this week.

Cory Luebke – A high pitch count kept Luebke to five innings in his last outing but that was hardly a surprise, as he notched 4 BB and 8 Ks. The walks were out of character but the strikeouts are what fantasy owners have come to expect from the converted reliever. Since moving into the rotation on June 26th, Luebke has a 9.3 K/9. His 2.98 ERA as a SP exactly matches his xFIP. Luebke is stretched out as a SP and has thrown between 100-110 pitches in each of his last seven outings. He has struggled somewhat at home (3.42 xFIP) but he faces two teams from the East Coast and there’s no reason not to have him in your lineup this week.

Other scheduled two-start pitchers in Week 20 are listed below. Please remember that these are projected pitchers and changes can and will happen between now and next week.

Lee, Gallardo, Lester, T. Hudson, Ogando, Jimenez, Bumgarner, Hanson, Holland, A. Sanchez, Pineda, Harang, Liriano, Porcello, Wolf, J. Sanchez, Lilly, Dickey, Vazquez, Collmenter, McDonald, Westbrook, Davis, Blackburn, Alvarez, Moscoso, Hunter, Mills, Duffy, Chatwood, Paulino, G. Richards, Detwiler, Lopez, Sosa.

Check back Sunday night for an update of two-start pitchers.

Now I want to provide some accountability and check in and see how previous recommendations turned out. There needs to be a two-week lag, since last week’s pitchers have not completed their second start yet. So here are Week 18 pitchers and how they fared.

Danks – Advised to start. 5 Ks, 6.00 ERA, 1.667 WHIP, 6 IP, 4 ER
Lackey – Advised to sit. W, 10 Ks, 5.68 ERA, 1.263 WHIP, 12.2 IP, 8 ER
Peavy – Advised to sit. W, 10 Ks, 1.80 ERA, 0.800 WHIP, 15 IP, 3 ER
E. Santana – Advised to start. 2 W, 14 Ks, 1.04 ERA, 1.039 WHIP, 17.1 IP, 2 ER
Vazquez – Advised to start. 8 Ks, 1.39 ERA, 1.000 WHIP, 13 IP, 2 ER

To close out our series of looks at the values of players in ottoneu Pick Six, we look today at pitchers.  As before, the numbers below are based on weighted averages of THT’s Oliver and BPro’s PECOTA (more weight to Oliver b/c it includes this season’s data).  The numbers are FP (FanGraphs Points per IP), though keep in mind that for starters this number is divided by four to keep starters from being the only thing that matters in pick six.

Starting Pitchers

Elite Five (they cost a fortune, but they’re worth it)

Tim Lincecum, 5.33 FP/IP, $48
Josh Johnson, 5.21 FP/IP, $38
Felix Hernandez, 5.04 FP/IP, $49
Cliff Lee, 5.04 FP/IP, $43
Roy Halladay, 5.01 FP/IP, $52

Johnson’s injury risk has kept his value down in traditional ottoneu, but when he’s healthy (currently has shoulder ouchie), he’s the best value of this group.  But you can’t go wrong here: more than any other pitchers in baseball, these guys should give you lots of productive innings per start.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s terrible to be inside on a Tuesday in the summer, but here are a couple players that will set your mind right by virtually putting you on the pitch to use a world cup metaphor. Either that, or they will help you win your league.

Aaron Heilman, Arizona (9% owned)
The worst bullpen in the majors is moving their closer out of the role according to AJ Hinch today. This, despite Chad Qualls being the only pitcher in the pen with an xFIP under four. Well, no matter, it looks like the team will be giving interim save chances to Heilman, the only pitcher in the bullpen with an FIP under four. Seriously, this pen is terrible – their league-worst ERA (7.33) is almost two runs worse than second-to-last place (Milwaukee, 5.88). The only other option is possibly Esmerling Vazquez, who has the best strikeout rate in the pen (9.53 K/9) but has a correspondingly high walk rate (4.76 BB/9) and a mediocre-to-poor groundball rate (37.3%). At least he doesn’t have Juan Gutierrez problems with the fly ball (27.5%). Last but not least is newcomer Sam Demel, fresh off his trade from Oakland – but let Joe Pawlikowski and David Golebiewski run you through the Arizona ramifications for the big trade today. It seems Demel has some hurdles to clear first, like actually pitching well in the major leagues. In the meantime, there’s Nick Pieocoro, the Arizona Republic beat writer, saying that AJ Hinch announced that Heilman gets the save chances for now, and my more lengthy run-down over at Bloomberg Sports.

James McDonald, Los Angeles (0% owned)
This is pure speculation that is most useful to those in the deepest of leagues. But let me lay out the reasons McDonald might be up soon. First, Chad Billingsley went on the 15-day DL today with a groin strain. Second, the replacement for the injured Vincente Padilla, Ronald Belisario, has started two games since 2007. Third, Vincente Padilla himself just got rocked in his first rehab start and may miss another start to extended rehab. Fourth, McDonald is on the 40-man roster and is currently starting. Sure, he has a 5.05 ERA and 1.51 WHIP right now, but he’s playing in a tough league and and still has 47 strikeout in 46.1 innings so far this year. The only other pitcher at AAA that’s showing anything is Seth Etherton, who is not on the 40-man roster. Etherton is a name to remember, though, because he does have a non-adjusted 3.25 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and 39 strikeouts in 36 innings. I don’t see the team wanting to drop an actual prospect from the 40-man to make room for the 33-year-old journeyman Etherton (6.18 major league career FIP). And for those that think that McDonald has no upside, there are two simple numbers that say he should be given another shot: he owns a 9.1 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 career in the minor leagues. THIS might finally be the year, when they turn to him with no other options and he wasn’t even pitching well in the minors. Stranger things have happened.

Over the offseason we’ll take a look at each position on the diamond and see how the past season affected the positional rankings and where there might be some potential bounceback value picks going into next year’s drafts. (See shortstops, catchers, second basemen, first basemen, third basemen, right fielders, left fielders and center fielders.)

Of course, when it comes to pitchers, the format suffers. We’re not about to do tiered rankings for the top 75+ pitchers that get drafted every year in mixed leagues – that would be one long post. Instead, we’re doing starters by tiers. Tier one, otherwise known as SP1, was last week. SP2 is below.

Imagine if, on offense, you were just able to pick whomever regardless of position? Or, more correctly, what if there were only two positions on offense in fantasy baseball? Infield and Outfield? That’s what it’s like on the pitching side. So, not surprisingly, the second tier of fantasy starting pitchers looks pretty nice. (It’s also reason #36,978 to draft pitching later!)

All of the hurlers in the first tier could easily end up as fantasy aces next year. Matt Cain and Javier Vazquez were probably even SP1s last year… we just doubt their ability to repeat those seasons. Jake Peavy got a demotion from the first set of pitchers because of his health and move to the stronger league. Yovani Gallardo and Tommy Hanson are young, exciting, and ascendant: pick one of them as your SP1 and follow it up with a possible bounce-back veteran like Cole Hamels, and your likelihood of having two fantasy aces is high.

The next tier just has more question marks. Clayton Kershaw has some awesome pitches, and an equally terrible walk rate to go with them. Jair Jurrjens just had too many stranded runners and too many bouncing balls go his way to trust him to be anywhere as good as he was last year. Wandy Rodriguez has now sustained his excellence two years in a row – but his fastball barely cracks 90 miles per hour, and throwing all those curveballs (almost 40%) has to catch up with you some day, maybe. John Lackey brings multiple question marks (rising walk rate, dropping strikeout rate and innings totals) with him into a new stadium. Chad Billingsley looks like he got a little unlucky last year and may return to grace, but given his walk rate, his WHIP may never be elite.

The final tier includes some semi-controversial pitchers, since we all seem to love Brett Anderson more than his major league numbers perhaps bear out. It could be because of his unique stuff, as Dave Allen showed us a while back in a great post. Then we have numbers that seem to suggest that Ricky Nolasco was very unlucky last year and should be in line for a good season as the luck pendulum swings back for him. We also see two former aces that have ridden injuries to the bottom of the SP2s in Roy Oswalt and Brandon Webb. Webb’s injury is a bigger deal because it was in his shoulder, but Oswalt is a slight guy with declining innings totals that has talked of an early retirement.

And then we have the two toughest names to place on this list. James Shields never had plus strikeout rates, and with the walk rate and WHIP rising slowly, you have to wonder if he’ll just always be a high-3s ERA guy that won’t get you much more than 160 Ks. Joining him is fellow low-WHIP meister Scott Baker. Both pitchers actually have okay strikeout rates, good walk rates, poor home run rates, and high-3s FIPs. Their low WHIP makes them attractive, and they are good pitchers. But who do you move off the list to get them on?

Here is the latest update to Week 10 two-start pitchers. Again this list is subject to change going forward.

Pitchers not listed on last update

LAD – Billingsley
NYY – Burnett
SD – C. Young
TB – Sonnanstine
DET – Bonderman
BAL – Bergesen
STL – B. Thompson

Pitchers from Friday no longer scheduled for two starts

STL – Lohse
NYY – Wang
TB – Niemann
DET – Willis
BAL – D. Hernandez

Billingsley has pitched at least six innings in each of his 12 outings this year and has 11 Quality Starts. The Dodgers have also supported him well offensively, averaging 5.11 runs per game in his starts.

Burnett went seven straight games without a win before earning a W in his last two outings. It has been tough going for Burnett in his first season in pinstripes. His K/9 are down, his BB/9 are up and his HR/9 have nearly doubled. A groundball pitcher throughout his career, Burnett has a 0.96 GB/FB ratio in 2009.

Young has two road starts this week. In Petco Park, Young is 4-1 with a 2.61 ERA and a 1.053 WHIP. On the road he is 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA and a 1.761 WHIP.

Sonnanstine’s FIP stands at 2.08 lower than his ERA. But his FIP still checks in at an ugly 4.99, over a full run higher than it was a year ago. All of his numbers are worse than they were a year ago. He has allowed five or more runs in five of his 11 starts this year.

Bonderman will make his 2009 debut after being on the disabled list since last June due to surgery to repair a blood clot in his axillary vein. He made four starts in the minors, three at Triple-A. In his last outing he pitched eight shutout innings with six hits, no walks and five strikeouts.

Bergesen is a groundball specialist. His 2.09 GB/FB rate would rank sixth, just behind Derek Lowe, if he had enough innings to qualify. Bergesen has done a good job of giving the Orioles a chance to win, only once in nine outings giving up more runs than innings pitched. His last two outings have been Quality Starts.

Thompson made his first start of the year on June 2nd after nine relief appearances. A curve ball specialist, Thompson relies on control and keeping the ball in the park in order to be successful.

Chad Billingsley is very good.

In 200 innings in 2008, Billingsley posted a K/BB ratio of 201/80 and had a 3.14 ERA. His 3.35 FIP was 11th lowest of all starters in baseball. And he managed such a low ERA while allowing a BABIP of .313. Billingsley did have a somewhat-low HR/FB, as only 8.4% of his fly balls became homers, but this is not much lower than league average.

In addition to notching a strikeout per inning, Billingsley also managed to induce ground balls in 49% of his balls in play. This is quite a rise from 2007, when 41% of his balls in play were grounders. However, in 2006 his groundball rate was 48.2%, and it’s likely that he will be able to maintain a high GB rate in the future, even if it comes down somewhat from 49%.

Billingsley induced swinging strikes on 10.2% of his pitches, and earned called strikes on 19.3%. Billingsley’s swinging strike percentage is probably for real – he has absolutely filthy stuff. However, his high called strike percentage is somewhat surprising – league average for called strikes is 17.1%, and only ten pitchers had a higher called strike percentage than Billingsley. This is somewhat surprising, as Billingsley didn’t have good control this season, walking 80 hitters.

Thus, it’s questionable whether Billingsley can get as many called strikes next year as he did in 2008. If he gets fewer called strikes, he’s probably going to get fewer strikeouts, too.

However, even though Billingsley walked a high amount of hitters this year, he actually threw a league average amount of balls (36.3%). Thus, the high walk total is somewhat surprising, and seems likely to come down next season.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Billingsley’s innings total increased by a lot last season. In 2007 he threw 147 innings, while in 2008 he threw 212 (between the regular season and post-season). This puts him at risk for the so-called “Verducci Effect,”, named after Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci who found that young pitchers who have a big increase in innings pitched from one season to the next are at risk of injury or performance decline in the following season. Billingsley certainly fits the bill: only 23 years old, Billingsley threw 65 more innings than he did last year.

However, I believe that Billingsley may be less risky than other young pitchers. In addition to not having any injury history, Billingsley has also demonstrated the ability to withstand large – but not too large – workloads over the last few years. Thus, while Billingsley is certainly at risk of being effected by the Verducci Effect, I think his risk may not be too pronounced.

Next season, Billingsley may strike out a few less batters than he did this year, but he should be able to maintain one of the highest strikeout rates for starting pitchers. It’s reasonable to expect his walk rate to also go down, as he didn’t throw that many balls this year, despite his high amount of walks; however, his walk rate will probably remain rather high. He could give up a few less hits next year, as his .313 BABIP is likely to regress to the mean, thus helping his WHIP. Overall, Chad Billingsley has some risk of falling victim to the Verducci Effect, but has among the highest ceilings of any pitcher in fantasy baseball. He may not have the same name-recognition as some other similarly-talented pitchers, and thus has the potential to be somewhat underrated on draft day.