The Roto Deep League Cy Young
To separate the deep league fantasy Cy Young from the regular fantasy one, and also from the real-life Cy Young, we’ll need to define the award. Fantasy Baseball is maybe all about value, and value is at least 50/50 cost, so we have to factor in cost to hand out this hardware.
And, in fact, for the deep league version, cost is even more important. Because the cost for a deep league draftee vs a mixed league draftee has to be much lower. Even if the output is lower, the Deep League Cy Young should not have been drafted in mixed leagues, optimally.
So even if Dallas Keuchel was ranked 257th overall going into the season and ended up ninth overall, making him a great contender if not the lock for the overall Roto Cy Young, Dallas Keuchel was a decently expensive deep league starter. We’re looking for that $1 wonder that led your AL-only staff to victory. We’re looking for 2014 Dallas Keuchel, not 2015’s version.
Taking a look through the top 100 starters, it looks like we need another rule, most likely. Jaime Garcia and Marcus Stroman show up in those ranks, and yet not only do they not have a ton of innings, but they were most likely 100% waiver pickups. My version of the Deep League Cy Young pitched 150+ innings so that he was most likely drafted, or at least owned for most of his excellent pitching.
So here are the lowest-ranked starters going into the season that ended up in the top 100 and also had at least 150 innings. They were all ranked worse than 350 overall, which means they were not ranked in the top 100 pitchers, which means they were not drafted in most 12- and 15-team mixed leagues. They also *were* drafted, for the most part, and played on teams all year in only leagues. To… decent results.
| Pitcher | O-Rank | Rank | Diff | ERA | WHIP | K | W |
| Erasmo Ramirez | 352 | 162 | 190 | 3.75 | 1.13 | 126 | 11 |
| J.A. Happ | 351 | 204 | 147 | 3.61 | 1.27 | 151 | 11 |
| Jimmy Nelson | 471 | 331 | 140 | 4.11 | 1.29 | 148 | 11 |
| Hector Santiago | 357 | 225 | 132 | 3.59 | 1.26 | 162 | 9 |
| Kyle Gibson | 429 | 310 | 119 | 3.84 | 1.29 | 145 | 11 |
| Chris Heston | 427 | 311 | 116 | 3.95 | 1.31 | 141 | 12 |
| Bartolo Colon | 367 | 275 | 92 | 4.16 | 1.24 | 136 | 14 |
Rank = Current Yahoo rank
All of these guys were useful in your only leagues, I’d offer. The average ERA and WHIP in my 12-team AL-only league (AL-LABR) was 3.94 and 1.26, respectively. Jimmy Nelson and Chris Heston are therefore disqualified because they didn’t beat either number and mostly made it to where they are by being there. Nelson may have some upside beyond because of his new curve, but we’re looking backwards now, and he didn’t do quite enough to be the Deep League Cy Young winner.
Should we award an NL and AL version of this award? If we do, we’re hurting in the National League, amazingly. Probably because the rankings were mixed league rankings, and if you assume that both National League and American League pitchers are available to you, you’re more likely to rank the NL pitcher higher. Which makes it tough to find a full-season terribly-ranked good NL pitcher right now.
I suppose we give the honor to Bartolo Colon, even if he’s so mediocre. He had two more wins than Heston, a much better WHIP, and the highest final ranking from our collection of bad National League pitchers. If we relaxed the ranking requirement going in to 330, though, Kyle Hendricks would sneak in, with his 3.95 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 167 strikeouts, and top-five changeup by whiff rates. I’m making the rules here, Kyle Hendricks is the NL Deep League Cy Young award winner.
In the American League, there’s stiff competition. If Yoenis Cespedes was disqualified from getting the National League MVP after coming over in the second half, then we can disqualify J.A. Happ. He benefitted from facing the National League after getting a pre-season rank based on being in the American League, anyway.
So we’re left with a trio of contenders from the American League: Erasmo Ramirez, Hector Santiago, and Kyle Gibson. Santiago had more strikeouts and the best ERA of the crew, maybe we should give him the award. But wins still count, and Erasmo had the best WHIP and the most wins, and his ERA wasn’t bad either.
We’ll give the American League Deep League Cy Young to Erasmo Ramirez, the only pitcher ranked below 350 going into the season that cracked the top 175 players at the end of the season. He ended up the 42nd-best mixed league pitcher, and if he wasn’t drafted in deep leagues, he was at least picked up on waivers very early in the season. He always had three pitches that ranked above-average by whiff rates, and he found a way to mix them better in Tampa, and found the success he may have deserved. Call him a post-post-post hype sleeper.
Congratulations to our winners! I’m sure they are honored.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
In support of Chris Heston. I owned him all year and followed one very simple rule, do not start him in Coors. Luckily that worked for the most part and I met my inning cap before his disaster start at home against the Rockies but I can see why you disqualified him though he was my deep Cy in my deep league.
“Dallas Keuchel was a decently expensive deep league starter.”
At No. 257, no he wasn’t. Keuchel was clearly the roto MVP pitcher, and AJ Pollock was the roto MVP player. Adding “deep” doesn’t change that.
He cost $9 in AL-LABR. He was that team’s second-most expensive starter. He was a deep league number two that went to an ace. He can be the overall Cy, but the deep league CYs cost $1 in only leagues.
Keuchel went for $19 in our AL-only keeper league. He was solidly in the 2nd/3rd tier of starters, and was in no way under the radar.
Santiago was particularly valuable if you were able to pick him up early and trade him, before his numbers started to regress.
Erasmo definitely is in contention for deep h2h CY too: 3.38 1.03 with 28 K in 32 IP in the final month. I rode him and Smyly to glory in September.
Yawn . . . I kept Keuchel from last year, and added Ramirez and McCullers this year as FA pickups. Plus Tolleson. In an AL only 12 team dynasty league.
Still didn’t win my league.
In my view it has to be Hector, you can’t let 2 wins tip the scales in Erasmos favor, the disparity in K’s and era is large enough to give it to Hector. You don’t want to give it to Hector because you never touted him and if anything you have derided his ability on numerous occasions. So in essence you don’t want to admit you missed the boat.
Not that yahoo rankings are the greatest, but they have Ramirez ranked 63 spots ahead of Santiago – probably because the difference in whip decently outweighs the difference in era. I’d have rather owned Ramirez in a deep league for sure.