Yusei Kikuchi’s Fantasy Value with Projections
When Yusei Kikuchi was posted in early December, he had only a month to sign with a team. For this reason, his signing decision was going to fall over the holidays and Seattle broke the news right before the end of the year. Because of the unique timing, he didn’t get a ton of press, but owners should be aware that he’s a decent starter and not to be ignored on draft day.
First off, the other Jeff beat me to writing about the 27-year-old lefty. Twice to be exact. Once before the signing and once after.
I’m not going to regurgitate all of Jeff’s analysis and anyone interested in a deep dive can go read them, especially the first one when he breaks down Kikuchi’s pitches and injury history. What I will steal are a couple of his conclusions on player comps.
With his low-90s fastball, reliable slider, and slow curve, he pitches in a style similar to Patrick Corbin.
And
Handedness aside, Kikuchi has, in general, pitched like Maeda and Mikolas, in their own final NPB seasons. Kikuchi’s repertoire is like a left-handed version of Maeda’s, and Kikuchi’s bread-and-butter seems to be generating chase swings with his slider. I wouldn’t say that Kikuchi can quite compare to Mikolas’ command, but he’s a little better at picking up whiffs, and he knows how to pitch to the zone. Mikolas just ran an FIP- of 81, and an xFIP- of 90, over 200.2 innings. Maeda, over 435.1 big-league innings, has an FIP- of 88, and an xFIP- to match.
Besides Jeff’s comps to Corbin, Maeda, and Mikolas, I was able to squeeze Kikuchi’s MLE (major league equivalents) and projections out of the great Dan Szymborski.
First the MLE’s.
For reference, his 2017 season worked out to 10.0 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, and 1.2 HR/9 and his 2018 season at 7.9 K/9, 3.3 K/9, and 1.1 HR/9. The 2017 numbers look quite a bit better, but owners should pay for the 2018 numbers and hope for 2017.
| Name | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | ADP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yusei Kikuchi | 7.9 | 3.3 | 1.1 | 185 |
| Jose Quintana | 8.2 | 3.5 | 1.3 | 183 |
| Alex Wood | 8.0 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 221 |
| Kyle Freeland | 7.7 | 3.1 | 0.8 | 126 |
| Average | 8.0 | 3.0 | 1.0 | 177 |
The ADP almost fits in with the MLE comps. Now, moving onto the projections. Here they are:
OK. Not great. Going through the Steamer projections, here are four pitchers with similar projections.
| Name | K/9 | BB/9 | ERA | NFBC ADP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yusei Kikuchi | 8.3 | 2.9 | 4.05 | 185 |
| Alex Wood | 8.2 | 2.8 | 3.99 | 221 |
| Trevor Richards | 8.2 | 3.1 | 4.09 | 405 |
| Tyler Skaggs | 8.4 | 3.0 | 3.96 | 252 |
| Madison Bumgarner | 8.1 | 2.5 | 3.92 | 68 |
| Average | 8.2 | 2.9 | 3.99 | 237 |
I like the Skaggs comp, but Skaggs is going over 60 picks later than the shiny new toy. I’ll take the four-round discount.
Overall, Kikuchi’s talent makes him a must-own in all formats. With Mikolas’s success last season, Kikuchi’s ADP may start improving as owners make the comparison. It’s a worthwhile comp as Mikolas is projected for a similar ERA (4.04) with fewer strikeouts (7.3 K/9) and walks (1.7 BB/9). Mikolas’s current ADP sits at 86th overall and Kikuchi may start moving into the 150 range.
Pulling all the data points together, Kikuchi’s 185 ADP is probably near his value. The problem becomes how much will he move up now that he has a team and the Mikolas comps keep pouring in. Maybe I’d pull the trigger at pick 160 but probably not sooner. I’d rather dig through the Blob™ and find similar pitchers who are going several rounds later.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
“In his first two seasons in Tout Wars, he’s won the H2H league and mixed auction league.” I don’t often read the authors bios but for some reason this one caught my eye…and I almost shot chew spit out my nose trying not to laugh out loud and wake up the wife!
Like Kikuchi with Skaggs, I wonder if those looking at those comps and say “Eh, I think I’ll skip Bumgarner and just wait for that Kikuchi guy”. I don’t think I could, but yeesh that was a shocking comp to see.
“Projections”.
Kikuchi with an ERA in the 4 range?
Odd, I seem to recall Steamer projecting Mikolas for a 5.55 ERA. The media was very loud about those projections too when putting the public spotlight on him – and during a VERY sensitive time when Mikolas was vying for a contract. So a VERY negative light for Mikolas. It goes without saying that he wasn’t regarded very well foming out of the Japanese League, even though he performed better than Kikuchi coming out of the NPB.
Now, for some reason, I saw a bunch of people touting Kikuchi’s numbers in Japan in a positive light – I haven’t seen a single story in a NEGATIVE light about Kikuchi, and even those “not great” numbers of MLE (which is a fake number anyway) are nothing compared to the hatchet job that was done on Mikolas.
I would say that those MLE numbers and other “projections” are EXTRAORDINARILY favorable to Kikuchi, compared to Mikolas, especially in terms of media hype (which is all those numebrs are worth, really).
Why the difference in treatment?
Don’t ask the fake numbers marketers, like Steam or Pecota, they hide their methodolgies which are purposely concealed, not subject to inspection and oversight. They’re marketers and advertisers, not an engineering or construction firm where real numbers are held to the only standard that matters; Physics.
Like journalists, they have NO standing in a professional, practical environment. Among pros in Engineering, Medicine, Construction, Infrastructure, Security, etc, the marketing groups like Steamer are treated like other media and Hollywood;
Highly-paid liars and pretenders.
And while scoundrels like this have “value” in a twisted societal sense, it is the same overall value in Society as any con-artist or criminal – a net negative like any other “sophisticated” barbarian.
(yes, there are lots of very rich bad guys in the world)
I understand why Fangraphs uses marketing schemes, itself being a marketing company. I don’t begrudge them using numbers, as long as those numbers have a basis in reality and fact. They are what they are. Spinning a lie of omission from a kernel of truth is still lying – one might argue the damndest of lies – but at least the liar doesn’t have the audacity to make up numbers from whole cloth.
..which is exactly what these projections are.
They have no basis in reality, and the audacity is ridiculously shameless.
What kinds of idiots fall for these kinds of fake “numbers”? If you want to know why and when scoundrels become powerful in Society, look not only to the scoundrels but to the idiots who enable and empower them.
Their research methodology, formulaic structure, correlation coefficients, etc are completely “opaque” aka “not subject to peer-review”. They even admit to withholding previous “projections” and “processes” – which is tantamount to blatant research fraud. That is not something a reputable “number-crunching” outfit does, but it IS what marketing and advertising groups do routinely to maintain their public “legitimacy” (a poilitical term, not an engineering or professional term). Zips, Steamer, Pecotta, Baseballprospectus, etc are all “marketers”, not “statistical analysts”. REAL analysts have resumes where their methods and results are constantly being held under a microscope, not having their old “projections” (old lies) swept under the rug and replaced with new “projections” (new lies).
It’s an open secret.
“Major League Equivalents”? Give me a break. Where’s the formula? Where’s the data justifying the structure of this formula? Where’s the methodology and oversight mechanic to verify the data? Where are the names and resumes to pin the reputations of those who are implementing this methodology, data-collection, interpretation, etc? Where’s the model to validate all of this?
It’s BS.
If you’re going to make your projections, then make them based on your own methodology and state real-world numbers – VERIFIABLE numbers. And if you’re going to make them based on someone else’s numbers, then you better hope that person or organization is transparent in how they GOT those numbers.
And if you’re just going to make it all up, which is ultimately all you’ve done anyway (whether you outsource that fakery to someone else or not), then just admit that.
There’s a lot more Honor in giving a straight “this is my call” affirmation. Engineers, Doctors, Business Executives, etc do this all the time because the truth is that all decisions are realistically made with only partial information. Having to pretend you’re smarter than you are just gets in the way, and is too often used as an excuse not to make a decision (“I need more information so I can procrastinate”).
It’s the marketers, advertisers, con-artists, Hollywood, etc who use convoluted statistical myth-making to pretend that they’re smarter than they are.