The 2021 NFBC Unauctioned — Building a Pitching Staff, A Review

Yesterday, I reviewed my $9 NFBC pitching staff. Today, it’s time to review the pitching staff I constructed from only pitchers who failed to be rostered in NFBC auctions during the month of February.

The Unauctioned Pitching
Player W SV SO ERA WHIP $ Val
Carlos Martinez 4 0 57 6.23 1.37 -$9.00
Luke Weaver 3 0 62 4.25 1.19 -$1.04
Anthony DeSclafani 13 0 152 3.17 1.09 $15.51
David Peterson 2 0 69 5.54 1.40 -$6.64
Alex Wood 10 0 152 3.83 1.18 $7.82
Keegan Akin 2 0 82 6.63 1.58 -$15.59
Emilio Pagan 4 0 69 4.83 1.17 -$5.76
Tyler Rogers 7 13 55 2.22 1.07 $6.26
Tanner Scott 5 0 70 5.17 1.57 -$8.80
Total 45 13 698 4.41 1.24

First, let’s compare the group’s actuals to their ATC projections. Because only two of these pitchers recorded more than 100 innings, it’s no surprise that the team fell short in wins and wayyyy short in strikeouts. However, they almost perfectly matched the ERA projection and I’m happy about the big win in WHIP, as the group managed a 1.24 mark versus its 1.35 projection. That’s a significant difference. That’s even better than yesterday’s $9 roster! Though, that was the only category this group beat the $9 team in.

Though the overall roster wasn’t any good, there were some profitable gems mixed in. Only three pitchers earned positive value, but one of those was in the mid-teens and another who fell just short of positive value likely would have earned it had he pitched more innings. While it’s not easy, it proves that it’s not impossible to find value, perhaps even significant value, from pitchers who weren’t even rostered in 15-team mixed leagues. That means it should be even easier to do the same in shallower leagues. The difficult part is simply selecting which from the group is going to earn solid value, as there will likely be a bunch of clunkers from your dart throws.

Anthony DeSclafani was easily the best pick of this group and was automatic pick of mine as I completely ignored his 2020 results. That’s because he made a significant park switch, leaving the home run friendly Great American Ballpark in Cinci to San Francisco’s far more friendly Oracle Park. Furthermore, his fastball velocity had risen every single season he’s been in the league, which had resulted in an increasing strikeout rate each year too, until 2020. While his strikeout rate ended up closer to his 2018 mark than his career best 2019 mark, he did indeed enjoy the friendly confines of his new home park, allowing just a 5.9% HR/FB rate there, versus a 14.4% mark in away parks. That led to his lowest HR/FB rate since his first full season in 2015. Of course, he still required some darn good fortune, as he posted an ERA nearly a full run lower than his SIERA, thanks to career best BABIP and LOB% marks. I’m curious to see how he’ll be valued next season, but I’ll likely be out on him.

Ya think I like Giants pitchers? Alex Wood was another Giants pick who made his debut for the team this season and the second most valuable pitcher from this group. He barely pitched in 2019 and 2020 due to injury, so you can’t blame fantasy owners for ignoring him. But when healthy, he’s always been good and the fact that his velocity rebounded last year, even in a small sample, was enough to throw that dart here. His velocity ended up jumping again to its highest mark since 2017 and led to a career best strikeout rate.

Obviously, buying saves was extremely difficult, so I had to decide whether to just go nine starters and make my roster more realistic and still reserve three spots for relievers and save speculations. I went with the latter since I thought that would provide more valuable insight. Tyler Rogers was the third and final pitcher that earned positive value, even garnering just 13 saves. Heading into the season, there was no standout choice to close for the Giants, but it ended up being Jake McGee who tallied 31 saves and recording the majority of the team’s chances. Rogers was still excellent though and once McGee was the clear every day guy, could have easily been replaced.

It’s pretty shocking to me that Emilio Pagan and Tanner Scott combined for zero saves. The Padres had a host of closer candidates, but I had remembered reading speculation that Pagan would get the first shot at the job. He never got any shot at the job and posted an ERA close to 5.00, so he was a complete bust. Scott was even more perplexing. The Orioles had no clear-cut closer candidate and Scott was coming off a 1.31 ERA with lots of grounders and an above average strikeout rate. The assumption was that he would open the season as the closer. He didn’t. And even when he was getting good results, he still failed to record a save. His season results ended up stinking, but there were many points during the season where you would have expected him to earn a save and he didn’t. I’ve learned my lesson — no more speculating on Orioles saves.

After disastrous results in 2020, Luke Weaver bounced back, as his luck normalized. Unfortunately, injury limited him to just 13 starts and 65.2 innings. Assuming he finished with the same ratios, he would have easily earned positive value.

David Peterson’s season was cut short due to injury, but he was a massive disappointment, at least from a results perspective. His skills, though, were decent enough, as his strikeout rate surged and he increased his grounder rate. Unfortunately, a ridiculous 22.4% HR/FB rate, which helped reduce his LOB%, conspired to push his ERA above 5.00. If he enters next season healthy and with a rotation spot, he’ll be a nice deep mixed and NL-Only league sleeper again.





Mike Podhorzer is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year. He produces player projections using his own forecasting system and is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. His projections helped him win the inaugural 2013 Tout Wars mixed draft league. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.

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