Mound Talk

There’s a reason most fantasy players don’t take pitchers not named Johan Santana in the first round. There’s a reason that. Everyone else is a huge gamble. Pitchers stats are very volatile and taking them early bears a big risk. Draft day steals can be found late if the proper analysis is done. Today, I will explore some methodology in analyzing undervalued pitchers.

Basically, we are trying to isolate the pitchers who are good but were particularly unlucky to the extent that they did not accumulate many wins and/or they suffered from and unjustifiably high ERA and WHIP. By doing this we can attempt to find guys who might not be properly valued by others.

Strand Rate

Knowing how often a pitcher allows runners to score can be important in determining if a pitcher has been the victim of bad luck or has benefited from particularly good luck. The Major League average for starters is around 71%. The formula for this is (H+BB+HBP-ER)/(H+BB+HBP-HR).

Per 9 Stats

It is commonly believed that pitchers have very little effect on balls put in play. For that reason, if we analyze the way pitchers resolve at bats without the ball being put in play, we can effectively find undervalued pitchers. To do this we’ll use the tools K/9, BB/9, HR/9 and K/BB. The 2006 ML averages for these statistics were:

K/9: 7.89

BB/9: 2.40

HR/9: 0.89

K/BB: 3.28

Looking through these metrics, there are several who appear head and shoulders above the rest. Not surprisingly, they are generally the best pitchers in the 5×5 fantasy categories. Excluding relievers, the list looks something like this: Santana, Sheets, Liriano, Oswalt, Schilling, Mussina, Carpenter, Webb, Sabathia, Smoltz, Halladay, Harang, Bonderman and Clemens. With the exception of Sabathia, these were pretty much the exclusive list of top starting pitchers last season. Chalk up C.C. Sabathia as a potential pick with value.

Near the bottom of that list were a few more names that have been dropping down draft boards. Jake Peavey, despite an off year, had excellent peripherals. Sleeping on Peavey is a mistake. But that is a fairly obvious statement. The other name is John Lackey. Not exactly a sleeper or anything, Lackey had a good season in 2006. I’m more skeptical of him than most, but he could still be a good pick later in the draft if he falls.

Beyond the obvious there are two groups of players that can be identified through this analysis: sleepers who everyone knows and sleepers that are actually sleepers.

The first consists of guys like Dave Bush, Chris Capuano, Dan Haren, Javier Vazquez, Felix Hernandez and Brad Penney. These guys, among others, will be good value picks if you can get them after you’ve established your offense. Each one has the potential to have an incredible season but also the potential to be a bust for a variety of reasons. If you really want any of these guys, be prepared to draft them earlier than you would want as everyone knows of their potential.

The second group consists of players that you might be able to draft in the 15th+ round of your draft. Erik Bedard, John Patterson, Jaime Shields, Boof Bonser, Joe Blanton, Ian Snell and Claudio Vargas all show positive peripherals that indicate each might have been slightly unlucky or has the potential to improve on what they have done. Each of these guys can be had late in your draft.

BABIP

As indicated earlier, the pitcher has little effect on a ball hit in play. So when a pitcher has a particularly high BABIP we would expect that to be a statistical blip and the following seasons would demonstrate a lower BABIP and therefore, better WHIP and ERA and potentially higher W total. The same is true of low BABIP. The list of pitchers who excel here is closely tied to the previously listed players and rehashing the list is somewhat unfruitful.

Conclusions

Though this is not meant to be comprehensive in nature, there are some players whose non 5×5 statistics indicate a future success but will still be drafted somewhat earlier in the draft. Guys like Bush, Capuano, Haren, and so on are great guys to have on your team. But they will cost you. Look to pick up one or two of these guys once you’ve established your offense and need to start building your rotation.

The last few rounds are great rounds to pickup guys who could really help you out but if they bomb it doesn’t kill you. Here is where you should be looking for Bedard, Patterson, Shields, Blanton etc. If they come out and live up to their peripherals it’s great and if they don’t, it doesn’t hurt you too much. Grabbing three or four of these guys late helps curb some of the reliance on one guy to have a breakout year. It also allows you the flexibility to know who you’re going to drop after a guy like Chris Shelton lights the world on fire.