The Hardest Things About Drafting Starting Pitchers

Two things make it hard for me to justify spending precious auction dollars on starting pitching. I touched on this topic in my conclusion to yesterday’s Madison Bumgarner post, so let’s just pick up where I left off.

The two hardest things about drafting pitching are inconsistency and substitutions (in the economic sense). Bumgarner is one of the least inconsistent pitchers in baseball, but even he comes with an injury risk of around 30 percent. As for substitutes, any of the top 20 or so pitchers after Kershaw can be considered interchangeable. Is Cole Hamels much different than Bumgarner? Tyson Ross? Bumgarner is an easy pick to outperform them, but it’s not a lock. If Ross costs $10 less than Bumgarner, than maybe the downgrade in expected performance can be applied to an improvement elsewhere.

In a standard 5×5 league, every position has scarcity except starting pitcher. If you wait too long to fill third base, you’ll be picking between Conor Gillaspie and Casey McGehee. First base can stick you with a mix of Adam Lind, Justin Morneau, and Ryan Howard. Outfielder is deeper, but you’ll have to commit to a platoon if you want cheap production. Don’t even get me started on shortstops.

With pitchers, there’s almost always a whole glob of players who are comparable to the best available hurler. You have to wait a VERY long time to reach the equivalent of the Gillaspie/McGehee dollar days. Even then, it’s a lot easier to get great value. Last season, I found it difficult to justify any expenditures on pitching. My rotations were heavy on Ervin Santana, Yordano Ventura, and Dallas Keuchel. I usually spent $8 to $12 on Corey Kluber as my “ace” investment (I got lucky). With the exception of one league where I actually did pony up for pitching, my rotations were fine. That is what I meant by “substitutes” in the quoted text. With starting pitching, you can always wait for the next guy on the list without missing substantial production.

The bigger issue when targeting starters is their apparent lack of consistency. In an age where the pitcher is king, it’s hard for all but the very best to rise above the pack. The difference between players like Alex Cobb, Anibal Sanchez, and Jose Quintana is liable to come down to “luck” stats like BABIP or HR/FB ratio. Or it will just be whatever player stays healthiest. Maybe Mike Fiers outperforms them all while costing $1 on draft day. Sometimes, good pitchers make good pitches and lose. Sometimes mediocre pitchers make bad pitches and win.

Inconsistency is another word for risk. What do we do with risk on draft day? We price it into our model (whether that’s a fantasy spreadsheet or the ol’ gut approach). Pitchers come with the double whammy of performance and injury risk, making it dangerous to depend upon them. Classically, fantasy owners use a 70/30 budget split between position players and pitchers. The divergence isn’t because pitchers are less important – they control half of the categories too. It’s because of inconsistency, substitutability, and the myriad risks involved.

Starter values are hurt by the present state of pitching dominance. Few past Clayton Kershaw can rise above the mucky muck. Elite relievers are freely available these days, which gives fantasy owners another way to salvage a cheap pitching staff. Perhaps it’s time to consider a 75/25 split. I’ve been doing mostly 80/20 or even 85/15 these last few seasons. When I do spend on pitching, it’s usually for Craig Kimbrel or Greg Holland.

So, as we continue to pump out pitcher analyses here at RotoGraphs, let’s talk about the value of starting pitching. Do you buy the premise that better pitching should lead us to focus even more on position players? Under what conditions do you usually target starting pitching?