(Very) Early ERA-FIP Streaming Targets
One of my favorite things to do during the first couple months of the season is to scour other rosters and/or the wire for guys that are performing poorly fantasy-wise but have more projectable underlying peripherals. This happens with hitters (see Jason Heyward and his 0.091 BABIP this year) but I feel pitchers are a better target. It’s tougher to “see” a pitcher’s luck. You can watch a guy smash liner after liner to the left fielder, but even when a starter gives up five bloops over short, he gets tagged as “hit around.” So, while very early on, here are the top three big league starters sorted by ERA-FIP (as of last night). These guys have ugly, ugly raw lines after three starts but, hey, there’s reason for hope.
Vance Worley; 10.50 ERA, 3.03 FIP
Kind of hard to believe Worley is only 25, since it seems we are long removed from when the soft-tossing righty was making noise upon his arrival in the big leagues. Traded to the Twins in the offseason, Worley has been absolutely browbeat during his three starts so far in 2013, giving up 14 earned runs in only 12 innings. While some of that is a product of Worley’s abysmally low 9.2% K%, he also hasn’t had much help with the balls in play, allowing a .455 BABIP on the young season. No matter how controllable you think pitcher BABIP is, that’s due for some serious regression. His LOB% (41.4%) is also too low and he pounds the strike zone (career 8.0% BB%). He’ll never be a fantasy mainstay but he’s useful if deployed correctly.
Worley will get the ball tonight against the Angels. Los Angeles is (surprisingly) 13th out of 15 American League teams in runs scored this year and tonight’s game will be played (if played) in nasty, wet conditions with temperatures in the upper-30’s. For a super cheap option in Fangraphs: The Game or as a quick streamer in a deep league with daily lineup changes, he might not be a terrible play.
Wade LeBlanc; 6.75 ERA, 3.03 FIP
Yeah, he plays for the Marlins. Yes, he has a career xFIP in the mid-4s with low strikeout upside. No one is advocating making him a staple in your rotation. But LeBlanc has gotten a bit of an unfair deal so far in 2013, putting up a not-so-sexy 6.75 ERA. The southpaw has actually been… kind of good this year, sitting on a 14/5 K/BB ratio in 14.2 innings while hitters are getting away with a .404 BABIP. There are a few red flags; his SwStr% is still the same as it was last year (mediocre) and his already slow velocity is down another notch but the low walk totals appear to be in line with his improvement the last couple of years.
I certainly can’t advovate rushing out and grabbing LeBlanc unless you are in a super-deep league (like my 20 team dynasty) where there are only a few starting options kicking around on the wire. And I probably wouldn’t stream him against the Reds at Great American this Saturday. But running him out there against a couple weaker opponents when he is home could provide cheap, above (fantasy) replacement level starts here and there. Just be careful playing the matchups.
Edwin Jackson; 6.06 ERA, 2.60 FIP
Jackson is this guy on this list who is closest to a true “buy-low.” Cubs fans are cranky with his 6.06 ERA and E-Jax hasn’t helped himself by walking 10 guys in 16.1 innings. However, his .356 BABIP is well north of his career .307 mark. Same goes for his 55.6% LOB% which projects to regress upwards with time. Perhaps most positive is the fact that he has whiffed more than one-quarter of the batters he has faced this year, supported by a near double-digit SwStr%.
Jackson is scheduled to take on the Brewers Friday night at Miller Park. He should be a solid start there and if an impatient player has already dropped him, snag him before someone else plucks him to be a mid-rotation option for their fantasy rotation. It also couldn’t hurt for those in deeper leagues to toss a line out to a potentially frustrated owner and see if you can buy Jackson for a mediocre guy off to a fast start like Ross Detwiler or Jake Westbrook. It should pay dividends as his on-field performance begins to creep towards his skill predictors.
There are few things Colin loves more in life than a pitcher with a single-digit BB%. Find him on Twitter @soxczar.
I was hoping to read this column to help me discover someone out there who could be a hidden gem.
Honestly, if you roster any of these guys you’re doomed. I don’t know what kind of format or league you’re playing in, but you’re better off taking a chance on a prospect with minimal upside for this year or a #5 on a decent team (see Detwiler or Anibal Sanchez).
The three guys you list aren’t a victim of “bad luck”, they’re a victim of just being bad. All three of them are also on abhorrent teams.
Come on now, you’re better than this.
Really? Edwin Jackson has a history of putting up a 6 era? I must have missed those seasons.
Also, since when is Anibal Sanchez a 5th starter type?
Edwin Jackson has a history of posting good enough stats and ratios to have you finishing about 7th, unless it’s a razz league.
“Honestly, if you roster any of these guys you’re doomed.”
Really? Because I’ve got Edwin Jackson, and I’m pretty sure I’m not doomed. My league has a total of 126 pitcher slots, and realistical—
“I don’t know what kind of format or league you’re playing in”
…Aaand there it is.
Keep Edwin all year… let us know how things end up. Even if you make the case to stream him as this article suggests, he’s really going to hurt you.
I mean over these three guys I would talk about J.A. Happ, Felix Doubront, Brad Peacock, Tommy Milone, or even the horrid Jhoulys Chacin.
JA Happ over Edwin Jackson?! I would enjoy playing in a league with owners like that…
Even in my 14 team league, Detweiler and Sanchez are gone. All the SPs left on the wire are injured or guys like Vance Worley. This article seems to focus on the deeper leagues.
FWIW, I play in a 20 team dynasty, and all three of these guys are owned. If Anibal Sanchez is available on the wire in your league, I suggest you pursue a deeper league. They are more entertaining.
Wow, I was thinking exactly the opposite. Only LeBlanc is even available in my league. My league is fairly deep, but there are many far deeper. I guess if you are in a 10 team Yahoo! league these guys would be bad, but it’s all relative.
What kind of format or league do you play in? Man up, dude. If you have better options than these guys in your free agent pool, you need a better league.
Clint, the entire purpose of this article is to highlight some players that have looked terrible in the early going, but haven’t actually performed that terrible for what they can control. Happ, Milone, Peacock, etc – none of those guys merit mentions…because they wouldn’t fall under the entire purposes of this article, as referenced in the first paragraph.
Way to be the idiot in the room, Clint. Completely missing the point of the article AND completely lacking awareness of what a deep league is AND making ridiculous suggestions about players who are certainly not available in competitive, deep leagues AND managing to be rude and indignant while doing it all.
Was Clint content with a triple, even when the third base coach was frantically putting up the stop sign?!? No sir, he TOUCHED ‘EM ALL! (Obtuse, unaware, rude, AND just plain wrong!)
What a waste of an article, I came here looking for writing that would support my preconceived beliefs, not stuff which hesitantly suggest some careful consideration for players who have some useful discrepancies in their statlines. Please next time, think about what I want to hear and tell me that exactly.
Just a minor correction for those who own Edwin Jackson or are interested in adding him: his start against the Brewers is scheduled for Friday, not Wednesday (tonight). I got nervous knowing I had him on my bench for today. Figured I’d save everyone else the same concern.
Good catch. I had to flip through the probable pitchers and think I had Worley’s “Wednesday” stuck in my head when I put down Jackson.
Fixed.
Wouldn’t mind seeing an addendum at the bottom of players who you’d stay away from. Edinson Volquez was just dropped in my 11-team NL-only league where the next highest available FA pitcher is Slowey. Is Volquez actually that toxic? I see the numbers but haven’t gotten to watch any of his games.
Vance Worley’s nice-looking FIP is almost entirely reliant on his 0.00 HR/9 so far, so I’m not sure if he is the best candidate here. You yourself said he has a putrid K rate so far, and a 1.5 K/BB ratio is not exactly pointing towards a guy who is due to be anything but mediocre. I think the 4.58 xFIP and 4.66 SIERA tell the story better, if there’s a story to tell this early on.
I’m in a 10 team league where most teams have 6-9 starting pitchers, so articles like this are useful. E-Jax was actually just dropped in my league. He’s intriguing, but fear the frequency of Cards and Reds matchups.
I would look at ERA-xFIP rather than FIP (I did it manually by exporting to excel), as Vance Worley has yet to give up a homer, driving down his FIP (his xFIP is almost 5. Stay away from Worley, but Jackson is a good bet (I just Matt Moore and Jaime Garcia for James Shields and Edwin Jackson). I’d also target Lance Lynn, Marco Estrada and Ian Kennedy Josh Johnson (he had a terrible second game, but throw that out as it was freezing in Detroit and JJ wasn’t able to properly grip the ball which severely hurt his control and velocity)
This is a good point (and DonChrysler brings up the same note)!
One reason why xFIP could be problematic this early in the season is it’s easily skewed by out-of-whack batted ball profiles. Having a couple outings inducing 80% grounders can skew your xFIP down just as much as 4 HRs in 20 IP can run FIP up.
FIP obviously has the same problem with straight HRs, but I think the differences (given the SSS) are six one, half dozen the other at this point in the year. Plus, xFIP has only beaten FIP by the slimmest of margins the last few years, because, while pitchers largely don’t have control over their HR/FB% rate, treating it like that their contribution is zero isn’t correct, either.
You can do splits with any of the DIPS to find interesting candidates, I’d guess that all of them provide useful information, but at 15-25 IP, nothing will stand out as statistically a favorite (SIERA compared to FIP, for example) when projecting going forward.
As a DJax owner, I’m keenly aware that he’s underperforming his peripherals in the early goings, and look forward to seeing the ERA begin to regress toward the xFIP/tERA (the latter of which is an even better 2.52).
On a slightly concerning note however, his FB velo so far is down yet another mph, after losing a full one in 2012 from 2011. Let’s hope this is just the spring cobwebs still.
As for LeBlanc, er… Wade in at your own risk!
Er… that should say “EJax”.