Archive for Jon Lester

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.

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This might be something fantasy baseball players accept. Jon Lester posted a 2.46 ERA, a 1.10 WHIP, and 220 strikeouts in 2014. He finished as the sixth-best starting pitcher, per Zach Sanders’ end-of-season rankings at the position.

But maybe some rotisserie and head-to-head managers don’t. After all, Lester was the preseason consensus No. 44 SP at RotoGraphs. He outdid his FIP, xFIP, and SIERA by more than half of a run. This past season was awesome. Its awesomeness is distinctly different from the results in his past couple of seasons. He hadn’t been about this awesome since 2009 and 2010 – coupling 220-plus strikeouts with an ERA that was at least 25% better than league average. His numbers have never looked as good as they did this year. His average velocities dropped a tad this past season. There’s room for doubt.

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*Updated 10/23/2014 with Position Tiers ($5.00 USD).

The 2015 Steamer projections are up on FanGraphs! “Steamer” uses playing time projections from our depth charts, but right now there are important players (Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester for examples) missing actual projected playing time. I therefore went into mensch-mode and manually updated Plate Appearance and Innings Pitched projections – very manually, but at least somewhat rational. What I did for these players was go into their “Steamer 600” projections and took their HR, R, RBI and SB per Plate Appearance projected rates (W, SV, SO per Inning Pitched for pitchers) and outputted associated counting stats connected to the quantity of Plate Appearances/Innings Pitched.

*To see which players I manipulated, go into the “P” and “H” tabs in the below embedded file: click on the “…” tab to the left of the current depicted tab. I highlighted all names and counting stats per plate appearance or innings pitched that I edited in Yellow so that I can associate some accountability with the end-rankings. I edited a few catchers’ PA totals even though Steamer already had totals for them (Lucroy, Mesoraco, etc.). I also edited Troy Tulowitzki‘s and Carlos Gonzalez’s PA totals, because…well, you know. I could spend all month editing the PA totals, but I’m not that much of a mensch.

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I’ve stolen from the movie before. I’ll do so again…

Guarantee? If you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your fantasy teams’ sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about listening to quality content from me.

If you don’t know where this reference is from, then well…just ring your call button, and Tommy will come back there and hit you over the head with a tack hammer.

I actually will play guarantee fairy here, specifically for deep leagues since there are no uber-exciting names that jump out in my below grid. So here goes…

So long as they pitch to a qualifying level of innings without getting hurt or losing velocity (not ballsy enough to leave out these contingencies), I GUARANTEE these starters won’t be any worse next year (although in the grid below I highlighted in different strengths of green/red both starters and relievers):

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I didn’t spend the time to click through each team in the Steamer projections, but I’m guessing the Red Sox are one of few teams, if not the only team, to have the five guys projected to pitch the most innings each be projected for 2+ WAR. They may not have an elite starter, but their rotation has nice depth.

Although not elite, Jon Lester isn’t a bad first option. He’s going on six straight years of 190+ IP, and he topped 200 IP in five of those six years. From 2008 to 2011 he coupled the workhorse inning totals with a sub-3.50 ERA. But the wheels came off in 2012. He lost velocity, and his ERA ballooned up to 4.82 while his strikeout rate fell to league average. Luck also played a part in the down year as his HR/FB rate was about four points higher than his career average, which contributed to a career low strand rate that was about seven points below his career average.

Not that we should have seen such a blow up coming, but the signs were there in 2011 that Lester was in decline. His strikeout rate had hovered just above 26% in the two years prior to 2011, but it fell to 22.8% that year. That contributed to the highest ERA (3.47) of that four year stretch and the first time in three years that his SIERA was above 3.50. At that point it was probably safe to assume that a slow decline had begun. Given that Lester’s ERA finished at 3.75 last year, maybe we should have expected to land in the 3.60 range in 2012 if all else had been equal. Read the rest of this entry »

Starting pitching wasn’t a bright spot for the Boston Red Sox in 2012. Nine different arms toed the rubber as a Red Sox starter last season and as a whole, the club managed just a 121 ERA-, finishing 25th in baseball. The conversion of Daniel Bard as a starter never got off the ground, Daisuke Matsuzaka finished with an ERA higher than his K/9, and their former ace Josh Beckett finshed as a Dodger. Despite all of this, there’s actually reasons for some optimism in Boston’s rotation as they have several starters who ought to merit your fantasy consideration entering 2013.

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Jon Lester was pretty terrific in his last outing, throwing a complete game with six strikeouts while giving up eight hits (seven singles) and one earned run. Owners across the fantasy landscape collectively breathed a sigh of relief. And yet, it was against the Seattle Mariners who have a tendency to make starting pitchers of questionable quality look like Cy Young.

Over the last four seasons, Lester, 28, is ranked 5th among qualified starters in K/9 at 9.17, just a tick behind Tim Lincecum, Yovani Gallardo, Clayton Kershaw, and Justin Verlander. Over the same time span, he’s fourth in overall WAR at 16.9, ahead of Kershaw, Chris Carpenter, Cole Hamels, and Matt Cain, among many other great arms. In most fantasy drafts, Lester satisfies that “staff ace” slot for managers who like to lean on someone to anchor their pitching staff.

But this season, Lester started out with a couple decent outings, a couple of real stinkers, and then a couple middling starts. All along the way, he’s demonstrated an inability to re-create the swing-and-miss stuff that allowed him to breeze through similar tight situations in years past. In general, Lester has just lacked that polish that made him such an effective pitcher for the past four seasons.

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Imagine stumbling on this headline without prior knowledge of fantasy baseball. It would take quite a bit of explaining to understand that this piece will be about the starting pitchers from this list that have the best value vis-a-vis their draft position. Good thing most of you are ahead of the curve on that one.

The easiest way to find value in a tier is to just go ahead and pick the guy with the lowest ADP in the tier, and lo and behold, Dan Haren (40.24 ADP) is that guy for me in the first mini-tier. At first, there seems to be no negative in taking Haren in the early fourth round given his stature among the elite SP1s. For three straight years, he’s had an ERA below 3.33, a WHIP below 1.21, a walk rate below 1.8 per nine, and a strikeout rate over 8 per nine. Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you. I know the cutoffs are a little random, but guess how many other starting pitchers in baseball have managed that sort of sustained excellence over the past three years. Yeah. None.

Let me stop you yeahbutters right now. I know what you’re saying. In 651 Pre-All-Star innings, Haren has a 3.08 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and a 7.45 K/9. In 575 Post-All-Star innings, he has 4.21 ERA, 1.32 WHIP and a 7.76 K/9. Those innings seem significant. I understand the yeahbutting. Here’s my rubber and your glue: Haren’s xFIP by month, career: 3.82, 3.72, 3.73, 3.54, 3.37, 3.64. I don’t see a problem here. Maybe give him a tick forward in roto leagues and a tick backward in H2H leagues where he may or may not disappear for your playoffs. But otherwise, if you want a pitcher in the first four rounds, Haren is your value.

The lowest ADP of the next tier predictably belongs to Chris Carpenter (72.73 ADP) and his elbow and shoulder held together by twine and adhesive. You’re getting a discount because of all that risk. But why should you get a discount for picking Jon Lester (58.95 ADP)? The cancer scare was a long time ago. His career strikeout rate (7.85 K/9) belies his true talent level, as a surge (9.96 K/9 last year) brought him to the top of the leaderboard in that category. Admittedly, there was some question about his walk rate (3.8 BB/9,1.31 WHIP in the minor leagues), but now he’s kept it under three for two straight years (2.82 and 2.83) and seems to have answered the question. He even had a poor BABIP last year (.323), so if he puts that elite strikeout rate together with better luck on the batted ball and the same nice walk rate – watchout hardware.

The last tier features a pitcher that is the subject of more than a few mancrushes. David G declared him an ace last year, Ray Flowers at Fanball.com likes him as an early second pitcher, John Halpin at Fox Sports thinks a gaudy win total is coming, Paul Bourdett claims to have liked him before he blew up, and you can check my Second Opinion graph for proof that I like the beanpole Rockie ace. Here’s a taste: Ubaldo Jimenez (100.58 ADP) has had better than 50% ground balls for two years in a row, and in the last two years he has improved his strikeout and walk rates each time. His fastball, slider and change all gave the Rox better than 9.6 runs in weighted value, and batters have an especially tough time with his changeup (23.2% whiff rate) and slider (19% whiff rate). He’s 26, burns worms, has nasty stuff that gets whiffs and comes cheaply. Does it get any better?

Reader Jonathan G. asks:

I’ve got an upcoming decision for my keepers to make which I can use some FanGraphs expertise on. The keeper rules are that you forfeit a draft pick of the round your keeper is in minus 2. So if you keep a guy you drafted in the 5th round, you forfeit your 3rd round pick. My best keeper options (with rounds I would forfeit) are as follows:

–Chase Utley (forfeit 1st round)
–Adam Lind (forfeit 19th round)
–Adam Jones (forfeit 15th round)
–Gordon Beckham (forfeit 25th round)
–Andrew McCutchen (forfeit 25th round)
–Ubaldo Jimenez (forfeit 17th round)
–Jon Lester (forfeit 6th round)

My league is standard 5×5. My thoughts right now are to keep Utley, Lind, and Jones though I’ve given a lot of thought to keeping Beckham instead of Lind/Jones/Utley because of the value I’d get from keeping him in the 25th round.

I’d appreciate any time + thought that you can give to helping me out.

You didn’t explicitly say, but I am going to answer this with the assumption that you are limited to three keepers. Generally, you want to maximize value with your keepers. We can use the ADP numbers from MockDraftCentral.com as a proxy for value. Here are the numbers for your guys:

Utley – 4 – first round
Lind – 46 – fourth round
Jones – 87 – eighth round
Beckham – 93 – eighth round
McCutchen – 90 – eighth round
Jimenez – 105 – ninth round
Lester – 57 – fifth round

Here, Utley and Lester give you the least amount of value, relative to what you have to give up to keep them. I would also eliminate Jones, because of concerns around both his GB% (55.4) and Contact% (74.6).

Of the remaining four players, I think you can make a good case for keeping any of them.
Lind’s HR/FB rate is a bit worrisome, but he has a better batted ball profile and BB/K rates than Jones. His BABIP was slightly elevated but nothing too concerning. If you keep Lind, you do have to be a tiny bit concerned about his lack of SB.

Beckham begins the year as a 3B and should pick up 2B eligibility by the end of the month, assuming your league allows mid-year qualifications. He held his own as a 22-year old and had his best power month in September (6 HR). He did most of his damage on the road last year and given the hitter-friendly tendencies of his home park, it is not too hard to see him developing into a 25-HR guy as he matures. Ideally, he would have a higher LD% and a lower IFFB%.

McCutchen hit more HR than was expected last year. None of the preseason projections has him maintaining last year’s pace. Still, a 15 HR and 30 SB year is within reach and it is not impossible to see him topping those marks. One thing to keep in mind is that McCutchen did very well last year against FB but was below average against both CB and SL and will probably see more breaking balls in his sophomore season.

Jimenez is a ground ball pitcher that piles up strikeouts. He has three quality pitches and is clearly an ace-type pitcher. The Razzball Player Rater had him as the 57th best fantasy player in 2009. Jimenez did have a low HR/FB rate (7.8%) which gave him an xFIP higher than his ERA. But in 506.1 IP in the majors, Jimenez has an 8.3 percent HR/FB mark.

I would go Jimenez, Beckham and Lind.

The possibility of losing Utley is no doubt painful. But if everyone else has a first-round keeper, you get to re-draft him and keep him regardless. And if other owners opt to keep value picks, you should have other first-round talents to choose from when it is your pick.

Recently, reader Pat left a comment on an article, asking:

“Can’t alot of pitchers HR/FB rates be expected to increase in the second half just due to the weather? … [T]herefore it would seem like a good strategy in a points league to stack pitching in the first half (and then look to make moves around the allstar break to acquire hitters).”

The reasoning here is that since bats tend to heat up as the weather gets warmer, hoard pitching early and then pick up hitters when the season is in full swing and 80 and 90 degree days are the norm.

Seems like a reasonable strategy, but would it work?

Since we would hoard pitchers early, let’s look at the top 20 starting pitchers, as determined by the final dollar values from the RotoTimes Player Rater, and check out their monthly HR and HR/FB data.

If HR prevention is the goal of this strategy, 16 of our 20 top pitchers had a HR/FB rate less than 11 percent in the final month of the season. Even August, the month last year where more HR by far were hit than any other, saw eight of our 20 pitchers have a HR/FB rate beneath 11 percent.

And this does not even take into account that the pitchers who were ranked top 20 at the beginning of the year often are nowhere to be found near the top of the leaderboard at the conclusion of the year. Using my friend Troy Patterson’s 2009 Starting Pitcher Rankings, here are the ones that did not make the top 20 at the end of the year:

Johan Santana (1), Brandon Webb (4), Jake Peavy (5), Cole Hamels (8), James Shields (10), Roy Oswalt (11), Ervin Santana (13), John Lackey (14), AJ Burnett (15), Edinson Volquez (16), Scott Kazmir (17), Carlos Zambrano (18), Chad Billingsley (19) and Daisuke Matsuzaka (20).

If you went into your draft convinced to load up on pitching, you could have wound up with a staff of Santana, Webb, Peavy, Hamels, Oswalt, Lackey and Burnett and at the All-Star break found other owners willing to offer you very little hitting in return.

Now, let us look at how pitchers as a whole fared in 2009. Here are the first and second half splits for all of the pitchers in MLB in 2009:

1st half – 4.32 ERA, 1.389 WHIP
2nd half – 4.33 ERA, 1.391 WHIP

It does not always work out this close, but this is yet another example of how easy this strategy could go awry.

Finally, you also have to consider how your league will handle trading with you when you have such an obvious need for hitters. Will your league-mates be willing to help you out and offer fair or even somewhat reasonable trades given how needy you are for offense? In friendly leagues that might not be a problem but it would likely be a bigger issue the more competitive your league is.

The best pitchers can dominate (or like Rodriguez in June – get lit up) at any point in the season. Stacking up on pitching only to turn around and deal it for hitting at the All-Star break seems like the fantasy baseball equivalent of market timing and not the best way to ensure long-term success.