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#32: How random are wins for pitchers?

By on December 19, 2011 | Comments { 1 }

Every year I have the same strategy when targeting pitchers in my March fantasy baseball drafts: find guys with high strikeout potential, low WHIPs and completely ignore wins. I’ve always been frustrated by wins as a category because a pitcher’s win total seems to vary so much from year to year.

This offseason it finally hit me that I’ve been employing this strategy based on nothing more than gut feeling and what I had casually observed from years of following the game, but are wins really any less predictable from year to year than ERA, WHIP, strikeouts or even innings pitched for that matter?

To answer this question, number 32 in out Top 100 Offseason Questions series, I went back and looked at how well each fantasy category correlated from 2010 to 2011. I looked at pitchers who tossed at least 100 innings in both 2010 and 2011, and to eliminate any error caused by a pitcher throwing more or fewer innings from one year to the next, I converted each of the four fantasy stats to rate stats (per inning). ERA, WHIP and K/9 are already common rate stats, but I had to convert win totals to wins per inning pitched (W/IP).

There were 103 pitchers who threw at least 100 innings in both 2010 and 2011. I compared their 2010 seasons to their 2011 seasons and this is what I found (% Change refers to how much variation the average pitcher had in each category from 2010 to 2011 so, for example, going from a 3.40 ERA in 2010 to a 4.10 ERA in 2011 would represent a 20.6% change).

As expected, wins (represented as W/IP) showed almost no correlation from year to year. An R-squared value of 0.009 tells us that if a pitcher threw the same amount of innings in consecutive seasons, 99.1 percent of the variation in their win totals from one year to the next is due to chance. You want to predict how many wins Zack Greinke will tally in 2012? You might as well base your prediction on the color of his eyes (they look hazelish to me).

This statistical observation does come with one caveat, though. We can make reasonable guesses about whether a pitcher’s win total should increase, decrease or stay the same based on how their surroundings have changed. When Doug Fister was shipped from Seattle to Detroit we all figured he’d start piling on wins at a better clip than he had been with the Mariners. That ended up being the case. Even if a player doesn’t change teams we can still make educated guesses at what his win total should look like. Did the team’s defense improve? Has the lineup supporting him changed? Did the team gain or lose a legitimate closer to preserve games? We can infer a lot, but wins are still largely very random.

Looking at the rest of the numbers above, we see that strikeouts (0.588) and WHIP (0.139) have the two highest R-squared values of the four major pitching categories (ignoring IP). Apparently my strategy for targeting starters is just what I should be doing. If you want to win you should do the same.

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Do Closers on Better Teams Save More Games?

By on March 23, 2011 | Comments { 2 }

Woody Allen once told us that those who can’t do teach, and those who can’t teach, teach gym.

I think Woody said that with Steve Phillips in mind. First, Phillips failed as a player (drafted in the fifth round in 1981 by the Mets – he was so bad he doesn’t even have a page on Baseball Reference), then he failed as general manager of the Mets and now he works for the XM fantasy sports station giving advice to people who pretend to run teams.

So while I try not to listen to people who have followed the path Phillips has (OK, I’m being really harsh on the guy…for all his shortcomings he does know baseball), he did say something intriguing today. Phillips made the claim that it’s better to target closers on teams with better records because, obviously, they’ll have more save opportunities.

It makes sense that good teams would win more games and thus have more save opportunities, but good teams also tend to win by larger margins more often than bad teams. When bad teams win games, it’s usually by only a couple runs. Do these two competing factors even out?

This wasn’t the first time I had heard this theory, but it was the first time I decided to look into it. I went back over each of the last three seasons and looked at each team’s save opportunities and total wins. This allowed me to create 90 data sets (30 teams over three seasons) and I charted them below.

Note: I used the data available on ESPN. They count save opportunities in accordance with MLB rules, so it’s not a perfect representation of ninth inning save chances (since that stat was not readily available). Still, it shows what correlation there might be between team success and save chances.

Wins on X-axis, save opportunities on Y-axis

As the caption says, team wins is on the x-axis and save opportunities is on the y-axis. We see here that there is in fact a noticeable positive correlation between team success (wins) and saves. We can also see from the graph, though, that there are many data points that fall far from the best-fit line.

Warning: I’m about to go all STAT101 on your ass.

The R-squared value for the data (0.219) further shows this lack of solid correlation. R-squared values range from zero to one, and the closer they are to zero the less correlation there is between the two data sets. R-squared allows us to see exactly how much the variation in one data set is due to variation in another data set. Put more simply, it allows us to see how much of the variation in save opportunities is due to variation in team wins. An R-squared value of 0.219 means that changes in team wins accounts for just 21.9 percent of the change in save opportunities. The other 78.1 percent is due to other factors (such as strength of offense).

Now that the math minute is over, it’s time to sum things up (pun intended). While there is an overall positive trend, there is so much variability from case to case that team wins alone is not an accurate predictor of saves.

Because the data above shows total team save opportunities, including all pitchers in the bullpen, the more important factors in save totals for a pitcher are reliability and job security. Of course, this is not a surprise – closers that have strong holds on the job and receive a greater percentage of their team’s overall save opportunities will likely have more saves – it is helpful to see this trend nonetheless.

Perhaps Steve Phillips knows what he’s talking about after all.

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Fantasy Baseball Auction Draft Strategy

By on March 16, 2011 | Comments { 0 }

There are few things more boring than listening to someone else talk about their fantasy league. There’s only so many times I can listen to my buddy’s hyperbolic retelling of how he totally flim-flammed some random guy I don’t know by swapping an injured Chase Utley for Robinson Cano, and even one time is once too many.

Heck, I’d rather watch my grandmother knit me an iPhone warmer while she learns that the trashy looking guy on Maury is not the father…and I don’t even have an iPhone. Or a grandmother. Is Maury even on TV anymore?

So that’s why I won’t bore you with the pick-by-pick details of a recent auction draft I did with some of my fantasy friends from across the web, but I will use this extremely limited sample to draw some conclusions about how you should approach auction drafts. While many of these tips and strategies will work in leagues of all shapes and sizes, they were written with your standard 10- and 12-team mixed leagues in mind.

As always, know your league settings

It’s amazing how often a brilliant draft strategy reveals itself with a quick glance at your league’s settings. Your head-to-head league has no minimum innings pitched per week? Grab an ace starter, a couple stud relievers, pay for a strong offense and you should be set. There’s 16 teams? Save some money late in your draft for the inevitable run on bargain closers. You need to start two catchers? Better make sure you get one of those top-10 guys.

Ok, so usually it’s not so blatantly obvious, but five minutes of mild rumination and quiet reflection will usually be enough for you to not completely screw things up. Generally, you’ll even excel.

Avoid the elites

This is a very broad generalization, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to spend more than $25-$30 on anyone. Before you close the page and call me a fraud, this obviously comes with the addendum that if someone like Pujols, Troy Tulowitzki, Roy Halladay, Ryan Braun, etc. is available for that kind of price, you take them and praise the heavens. My guess is those guys are going for significantly more than that. In my draft those four went for $41, $36, $38 and $38, respectively. The more starting positions your league has, the more you can afford to sit back and smile while everyone else pays top dollar.

There is of course one caveat to this rule; if your league is uber-shallow (maybe eight or 10 teams, three outfielders, no middle infield or corner infield starters and maybe three to five pitcher spots) you should make sure you get some elite players and it’s probably alright to overpay a little for some of them. In a league this shallow, your depth is wasted. Oh, and as always, AL- and NL-only leagues function like this.

My draft saw Cano go for $38. I got Dustin Pedroia for $20. Sometimes it pays to wait.

Have no fear, under-priced talent is here!

It can be nerve-racking when you start to see elite talent fly off the auction board while you’ve barely made a splash, but this is usually a good thing.

No, you won’t have Albert Pujols, Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford or any of the other top-10 players, but your opponents won’t have the resources to outbid you for the next tier of players and instead will be stuck starting third- or fourth-tier guys just because that’s all they can afford. Better yet, other managers won’t even have enough money to throw in bids for the sole purpose of driving up the price. You can now get players for less than their market value, which will allow you to throw a few extra bucks at the guys you really want.

One of the other managers in my draft asked if I was even there because after 45 minutes and 25 selections I was the only person who didn’t have a player, but by the end of the draft I was getting anyone I wanted for almost any price I wanted including Stephen Drew for $5. To put that in perspective, Hanley Ramirez went for $43, Jose Reyes for $20, Jimmy Rollins for $18, Elvis Andrus for $10 and Starlin Castro for $7. Drew isn’t as good as Ramirez or Reyes, but he’s probably at least comparable to everyone else and he went for less than all of them.

It can be tough, but identify the runs

It’s easy to spot a run on a position in a snake draft, but doing so in auction drafts can be a little trickier. At some point in the middle of your draft, you might notice that everyone has a couple starting pitchers but very few people have shortstops. This is probably a good time to nominate a popular shortstop that you don’t want in hopes that the other managers will bite. You know you’ll be fine waiting for another shortstop because you’re sticking to your plan, but there’s bound to be two or three other managers who will panic and click the “Bid” button a bit too hastily.

But we don’t just nominate players we don’t want. Sometimes we need to nominate the guys we do want. If you have your eye on Matt Wieters and you just saw Geovany Soto go for a couple bucks under his pre-draft estimated value, go ahead and put Wieters up for auction. Soto and Wieters are similar players and there wasn’t a ton of interest in Soto so perhaps you can get Wieters at a good price. If, however, you see Soto go for more than he’s worth, nominating Wieters right now might not be the best idea.

Sometimes the price is wrong even when it’s right

I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to put a bid in for a player just because the value was too great or I didn’t want my opponent to be getting such a great deal. Colby Rasmus went for just $3 in my draft but I already had my five starting outfielders and I really needed to stock up on closers. I wanted to bid on Rasmus desperately, but I had to resist the urge. In the end I got Angel Pagan and Leo Nunez for $2 apiece. While I think Rasmus is better than Pagan, I got both Pagan and Nunez for the same amount I would have had to bid on Rasmus.

Know other managers’ maximum bids

This isn’t particularly helpful early in drafts, but it can be very extremely useful at the end. Let’s say it’s your turn to nominate a player and you still need a starting catcher. You notice all but one of the other managers already has their starting catcher and Mike Napoli is the last of the potential top-five guys left (for some reason people insist on nominating sub-par players like Carlos Ruiz and Yadier Molina early on…I don’t get it).

Normally this would mean an epic showdown between you and the other guy because the difference between Napoli and someone like Kurt Suzuki could end up being pretty large, but you see your opponent has a max bid of $6. This is the perfect time to nominate Napoli. Heck, when the other guy places the next bid for $2, go ahead and raise the bidding to $6. He can’t top you and you’ll win Napoli outright.

Had you bid just $3, he probably would have bid $4, you would have bid $5, he would have maxed his bidding out at $6 and you would have been forced to bid $7 to get Napoli. Save yourself the buck. It might come in handy later on when everyone else has max bids of $1 and you can pick up a lower-tier closer for $2.

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Baseball Prof's 2011 NFBC Fantasy Baseball Draft: Rounds 16-30

By on March 12, 2011 | Comments { 0 }

They say patience is a virtue.

If you’ve ever participated in a slow draft before, then you know exactly what I am talking about. Each team gets a 10-hour limit to make its picks and if it’s 50 rounds like mine, then you’re in a potential month-long commitment.

For example, say each team took the alotted 10 hours per pick. In a 15-team league with 50 rounds the draft would take 312 1/2 days.

Of course, we have the auto draft option and email alerts to help speed up the process, but it’s still a long, tedious process. If you are into immediate results then slow drafts are not for you.

In Part I, we went over the Baseball Professor strategy in rounds 1-15. Now we will cover rounds 16-30 and talk about our thought process as the pickings start to get very, very slim.

Round 16 (Pick 227) – Ryan Raburn, OF, Detroit Tigers

I love getting power in the outfield this late. For two years now, Raburn has had a great second halves but now that he has the starting gig there will be more pressure for him to produce early. He doesn’t walk much so expect the average to dip a little as he will get a lot more at-bats this season, but the power is legit. Now we just have to hope he can keep it together for a full season and give us 20-plus home runs.

Round 17 (Pick 254) – Justin Smoak, 1B, Seattle Mariners

We finally decide to address the corner infield position and it’s between Smoak and Scott Rolen. The big knock against Rolen—besides his rapidly declining skills—is that he probably won’t play more than 120 games this year. We decide to go with the upside in Smoak.

I know he plays in a bad ballpark and a bad lineup. It’s obviously not an ideal situation, but Smoak will get regular at-bats in the middle of the order with Ichiro Suzuki and Chone Figgins batting in front of him. There’s the possibility of a lot of RBI opportunities there. Before Smoak was called up he was drawing comparisons to Mark Teixeira, but I’m tempering them to James Loney with power. You know, the Loney we all thought was eventually coming. Smoak hit line drives 23.1-percent of the time last year so expect that .218 batting average to rise dramatically.

Round 18 (Pick 257) – Scott Baker, SP, Minnesota Twins

I don’t know what Twins’ manager Rod Gardenhire is thinking by putting Nick Blackburn into the rotation—maybe he’s trying to light a fire under veteran pitchers Baker and Kevin Slowey? Whatever the reason, I find it hard to believe that if the Twins keep Blackburn in their rotation that both Baker and Slowey will be on their roster. If Gardenhire is truly convinced that Blackburn is better, the Twins will trade either Baker or Slowey because the Twins also have pitching prospect Kyle Gibson, giving them seven starting pitchers. In my eyes, Baker will either be in the Twins’ rotation or starting on another team (St. Louis maybe?) in 2011.

Round 19 (Pick 284) – Johnny Damon, OF, Tampa Bay Rays

The outfield pool is getting pretty shallow at this point so we decide that it’s time to round out our starting five and also get a backup. Damon should bat at the top of the Rays’ lineup for most of the year with Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist hitting behind him. We aren’t expecting 20 steals out of Damon ever again, but he won’t hurt our batting average while adding double-digit home runs and steals.

Round 20 (Pick 287) – Jonny Gomes, OF, Cincinnati Reds

Gomes will get the majority of the at-bats in left field for the Reds and has some pop in his bat. We figured we had enough high-average guys to counter Gomes’ probable .250ish average. Gomes struggles agaisnt right-handed pitching (.745 OPS since 2008) so there is definitely going to be a platoon situation, but by drafting him as our sixth outfielder, we have the option of picking our spots to start him. He should still hit 15-20 home runs which is nice coming from the 287th overall pick.

Round 21 (Pick 314) – Danny Valencia, 3B, Minnesota Twins

Valencia probably won’t be seeing much playing time on our roster, but with Placido Polanco and Kevin Kouzmanoff as the only other options to backup David Wright, we needed to draft one now. Valencia struggles against right-handed pitching (.713 OPS), but he has the starting job and doesn’t really hurt your team in any category. Looking back, Polanco might have been the better, or safer, pick, but Valencia has more upside so why not swing for a double?

Round 22 (Pick 317) – Reid Brignac, SS, Tampa Bay Rays

At this point in the draft, we are identifying which positions are the most shallow and seeing if we have a need. With Alex Gonzalez, Marco Scutaro and Yuniesky Betancourt as the only other options at shortstop we decided to nab Brignac to provide some insurance for Ryan Theriot. Brignac brings some pop (see a theme here?), which we like because not only is shortstop a very power-starved position, but it’s also harder to find across the board at this point.

Round 23 (Pick 344) – Rod Barajas, C, Los Angeles Dodgers

So far we’ve missed out on several of our targets at catcher like John Jaso, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Yorvit Torrealba. We still need our second catcher so with Ryan Hanigan, Chris Snyder and Hank Conger as the only other names left with Barajas, we choose to go with the Dodger because honestly he is the only one who has a chance to contribute above-average in one category (home runs). In deep, two-catcher leagues either prepare to take catchers early or wait. And wait. And wait.

Round 24 (Pick 347) – Eric Young Jr., 2B/OF, Colorado Rockies

Here is what I wrote about EY2 in my Colorado Rockies preview:

It’s simple. When Young plays, he runs. He runs a lot. Just look at these stolen base totals in the minor leagues: 87 SB/128 G (A), 73/130 (A+), 46/105 (AA), 58/119 (AAA). He doesn’t have a full-time job on the Rockies, but one injury could change that quickly. Draft him in deep and NL-only leagues.

While we have several hitters who contribute a decent amount of steals, only Ichiro is a threat for 40-plus. EY2 will be very valuable because he can boost that category with limited playing time. If he actually lands a starting gig, watch out.

Round 25 (Pick 374) – Hank Conger, C, Los Angeles Angels

Conger will have the opportunity to take away the starting job from Jeff Mathis. Or Mathis will just get injured and make it easy for him. Sure, Conger is probably a better option for 2012, but we decided to swing for the fences here. If he gets the starting job at some point, we have a No. 2 catcher with a good batting average and a little power. If not, we wasted our 374th pick and will start Barajas like we originally planned. That’s bi-winning, the Sheen way.

Round 26 (Pick 377) – Jason Hammel, SP, Colorado Rockies

Hammel isn’t one of those guys you can just “set and forget,” but he can still be very useful in a spot-start situation. We needed some depth in our rotation because we have to start nine pitchers every week. Hammel has increased his strikeouts (141 up from 133 in ’09) in each of the last two years, but don’t expect anything over 150 strikeouts from him. Despite Hammel’s spike in ERA in 2010 (4.81 from 4.33 in ’09), his peripherals were almost carbon copies which suggests a return to the low-4′s could be in Hammel’s future.

Round 27 (Pick 404) – Brian Fuentes, RP, Oakland Athletics

At this point we only have two relievers so it’s finally time to start stacking up. The talent in the reliever’s pool is world’s better than the talent at any other position at this point so it makes sense to double up here.

First we take Fuentes, who will be the set up man for the Athletics and occassional fill-in for closer Andrew Bailey. Fuentes walks a lot of batters (career 3.82 BB/9) and allows far too many fly balls (career 45%, 58.5% in ’10), but the good news is that Oakland’s ballpark can neutralize some bad tendencies for pitchers. It’s not like Fuentes wasn’t putting up good numbers for the Angels. He could be a cheap source of saves throughout the season and Bailey hasn’t exactly been the poster boy for health out there.

Round 28  (Pick 407) – Kenley Jansen, RP, Los Angeles Dodgers

For our next pick we take a more raw, but very powerful pitcher in Jansen. He has an outside shot at landing closing duties in Los Angeles, but even if he doesn’t there is value to be had here. In 27 innings of relief last year, Jansen punched out a whopping 47 batters (13.67 K/9). He induced swinging strikes 14.2-percent of the time, which is 5.7-percent more than the league average.

Round 29 (Pick 434) – Justin Duchscherer, SP, Baltimore Orioles

Ugh, the pickings are starting to get really slim as you could imagine they would at pick 434. Vicente Padilla doesn’t have a spot in the rotation and Rich Harden hasn’t really shown he can pitch without his normal velocity so Duchscherer it is. His health is really the only question because he pitches well when healthy. Not a bad flier in deep or AL-only leagues.

Round 30 (Pick 437) – Melvin Mora, 1B/3B, Arizona Diamondbacks

We haven’t drafted a hitter in a while and I tell Chris that “I’m getting the itch” to draft a hitter. He immediately expresses his concerns and tells me that I should probably get that checked out ASAP.

At this point, 90-percent of the available hitters are at risk to finish the season with fewer than 300 at-bats. However, Mora has the starting job at third base for the Diamondback so sign me up. We almost went with Brandon Allen, but playing time is an issue there. Mora has been known to go on crazy good stretches so why not take him and see what the ol’ man has left?

After 30 rounds we have all of our starting positions filled and are starting to build a formidable bench that will win us all those marbles. The final chapter, Part III, will be written once our draft is concluded (whenever that may be). Let us know what you think of our strategy and team so far!

2011 NFBC Roster: (Backups in parentheses)

C – Matt Wieters

C - Rod Barajas (Hank Conger)

1B – Kendry Morales (Melvin Mora)

2B - Aaron Hill (Eric Young Jr.)

3B - David Wright (Danny Valencia)

SS - Ryan Theriot (Reid Brignac)

MI - Neil Walker

CI - Justin Smoak

OF – Matt Holliday

OF – Ichiro Suzuki

OF – Jason Bay

OF - Ryan Raburn

OF - Johnny Damon (Jonny Gomes, Eric Young Jr.)

P - Jon Lester

P – Matt Cain

P – Ricky Romero

P - Jhoulys Chacin

P – Scott Baker (Jason Hammel, Justin Duchscherer)

P - Joe Nathan

P - Ryan Franklin

P - Brian Fuentes

P - Kenley Jansen

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The Guide to Drafting Starting Pitchers

By on March 11, 2011 | Comments { 1 }

I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times by now—starting pitching is very deep.

Because of the plethora of quality pitchers in the major leagues, there are plenty of bargains to be had in the middle-to-late rounds of your draft. But how do you know who you should take?

Last year, I put together a criteria of categories that you should pay attention to when drafting a starting pitcher. Because wins, ERA, WHIP and strikeouts are the categories where pitchers earn us points during the season, we tend to look at those numbers rather than the ones that actually tell us the whole story. We call these the peripheral stats.

I tweeked the criteria a bit this year to better fit what I like in a pitcher. I added GB/FB ratio because I like my pitchers to be ground ball pitchers first and strikeout pitchers second. You can always find strikeouts, but a good WHIP is hard to come by and ground ball pitchers tend to have good WHIPs.

The New Criteria

Innings pitched: 100 or higher

Strikeout-to-walk ratio: 2.5 or higher

Strikeouts per nine: 6.5 or higher

Walks per nine: 3.o or lower

Hits per nine: 9.0 or lower

Home runs per nine: 1.0 or lower

Ground ball-to-fly ball ratio: 1.2 or higher

Who made the cut

Adam Wainwright, Brett Myers, C.C. Sabathia, Chris Carpenter, Felix Hernandez, Francisco Liriano, Hiroki Kuroda, Josh Johnson, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Zack Greinke

No surprise to see the other regulars here, but the most notable is Zack Greinke. Even in his down 2010 season, Greinke managed to qualify in each category. The move to the National League will only help his numbers and his most recent injury should drop him in drafts, making him a bargain. Remember Cliff Lee missed his first couple starts of 2010 and finished the year as a top-10 pitcher.

Brett Myers and Hiroki Kuroda are great values in drafts because when healthy they have shown they can be very efficient. Myers had a career-year with the Astros where he threw 24 quality starts and lasted at least six innings in all of his start except his final start (5 2/3 IP).

And now for some pitchers who made it oh, so close to making the cut

Missed because of GB/FB ratio

Cliff Lee (1.04 GB/FB), Colby Lewis (0.84), Jered Weaver (0.75), Johan Santana (0.76), Justin Verlander (1.02), Mat Latos (1.10), Matt Cain (0.78), Tommy Hanson (1.00), Travis Wood (0.63)

I’ll admit that this part of the criteria was just because of my personal preference. In reality, a starting pitcher should have at least a ratio of one or greater, but I upped it to 1.2, which was still under the average (1.28) of the 102 pitchers who pitched over 100 innings last year.

Obviously Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander, Mat Latos and Tommy Hanson are still very valuable in drafts, and their GB/FB rates should not alarm you at all. Travis Wood is a popular sleeper among the fantasy community, but temper your expectations because his GB/FB rate is below average and could lead to a lot of home runs.

No punch outs

Brett Anderson (6.01 K/9), R.A. Dickey (5.35 K/9)

These two pitchers missed the cut because of the low K-rates. Chalk up Brett Anderson‘s low rate to his elbow issues all season. In 2009, Anderson managed to strikeout 7.7 batters per nine so expect him to get over the 6.5 mark IF (that’s a big if for those keeping score at home) healthy.

As for R.A. Dickey, I don’t really trust knuckleball pitchers so I would probably avoid him in drafts. He is better utilized as a spot starter in standard leagues.

Out of control

Jon Lester (3.59 BB/9), Tim Lincecum (3.22 BB/9), Wandy Rodriguez (3.14 BB/9), Yovani Gallardo (3.65 BB/9)

Some big names in the group that missed the cut because of their walk totals. I’m not worried about Jon Lester or Tim Lincecum as No. 1 starters, although they probably won’t be on any of my teams this year because I don’t draft pitching early. I’ve always liked Wandy Rodriguez for his good WHIP and strikeouts and he is dominant at home so start him there with the utmost confidence. Yovani Gallardo has the highest walk rate of this group, but last year it was 0.91 lower than 2009. That’s a lot of improvement in one year and it looks like YoGa is on his way to becoming a true fantasy stud.

Just like batting practice

Gavin Floyd (9.57 H/9), Jason Hammel (10.21 H/9)

This pair missed the cut because of their tendency to allow hits. I like Gavin Floyd out of this pair as he tends to turn it on in the second half of the season. Last year, he had  a two-month stretch where he posted a 1.75 ERA with a 1.03 WHIP over 73 innings.

Loving the long ball

Cole Hamels (1.12 HR/9)

Cole Hamels was the only one who missed the cut just because of his home-run rate. However, 1.12 is not a bad rate at all and should not keep you from drafting Hamels as a mid-to-low No. 2/high-end No. 3 fantasy starter.

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Don't Hate the Player, Hate the ADP: Ricky Romero

By on March 11, 2011 | Comments { 1 }

I don’t usually get angry about player’s ADP, but allow me to get something off my chest: Ricky Romero is going way too late in drafts.

Currently, Romero is being taken 193rd on average, 51st among starting pitchers, according to ESPN’s ADP reports. Some pitchers going before Romero are Jeremy Hellickson (159), Brandon Morrow (164), Ricky Nolasco (168), Madison Bumgarner (178) and Edison Volquez (185). Rather than bad mouth some of the pitchers going ahead of Romero (because I like most of them), I will give you four reasons why Romero should be going at least three rounds earlier.

Reason #1 — Strikeouts

In just his sophomore season, Romero eclipsed 170 strikeouts in just 210 innings. He increased his strikeout rate from 7.13 to 7.46 strikeouts per nine and will be relied to pitch deeper into games now that he is the ace of the staff. It’s safe to predict that 180 strikeouts is in his future.

Reason #2 — Ground ball rate

This is one of the main reasons why I love Romero. He induces ground balls 55.2-percent of the time, which helps keep his opponents’ batting average low (career .258) and limit his home runs allowed (career 0.77 HR/9). I don’t know about you, but if a pitcher is going to face the Yankees and Red Sox offenses on a regular basis, he better be a ground-ball pitcher and Romero is one of the best. He has been working on adding a sinker to his arsenal, which only strengthens the argument.

Reason #3 — Improved walk rate, consistency

Last year, Romero improved his walks per nine from 3.99 to 3.51, which is still too high for my liking, but his high ground-ball rate should help keep a lot of those runners from crossing home plate. Romero also showed a lot more consistency in 2010 as he posted 1.32 and 1.25 WHIPs in the first and second half, respectively. This was not the case in 2009 as he posted 1.26 and 1.77 WHIPs showing some growing pains in his first full season as a starter.

Reason #4 — Gotta have faith

Now in his third full season, it’s clear that the Blue Jays are ready to roll with Romero as their ace. If they were willing to trade away Roy Halladay and Shaun Marcum last year you have to think that they have faith in him to get even better and carry the staff. Time will tell if Alex Anthopoulos was right, but he’s been doing a great job so far as the GM in Toronto.

In conclusion, Romero has all the tools to become a solid No. 3 starter in standard leagues, but is currently going as a low-end No.4/high-end No. 5 starter in early drafts. It’s safe to say that if you can wait that long to get him you are getting a real bargain because he should be going in the 14th-15th rounds.

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Baseball Prof's 2011 NFBC Fantasy Baseball Draft: Rounds 1-15

By on March 5, 2011 | Comments { 1 }

As fantasy baseball experts, and professors, we naturally look for as many possible ways to challenge ourselves during the baseball season. My favorites are usually “Beat the Streak,” where you choose one hitter every day and try to beat Joe Dimaggio’s 56-game hit streak, and joining obscure leagues with strangers and dominating them. Over the years, we have taken part in countless leagues but this year we decided to up the ante.

That’s right. The professors are doing fantasy baseball—NFBC style.

If you aren’t familiar with the NFBC—National Fantasy Baseball Championship—it’s basically somewhere where fantasy nerds can get together and play for keeps. And by keeps, I mean a bit higher stakes than marbles. They also hold live drafts in select remote locations, but unfortunately we are all on a tight budget these days. You know, the economy…

So we decided to put our heads together and co-co-(tri?) manage a team and see if we can come out on top. With three brains behind the operations of our team (Da Professors, by the way) we already have three times the advantage over the competition. We can’t lose!

Before I dive into analyzing our draft, you must know our league rules. ALWAYS KNOW YOUR LEAGUE RULES BEFORE DRAFTING! Knowledge is power.

League: Rotisserie, 15 teams, mixed

Draft: Slow snake draft, 50 rounds

Starting positions: 2 Catchers, 1 First Baseman, 1 Second Baseman, 1 Third Baseman, 1 Shortstop, 1 Corner Infielder, 1 Middle Infielder, 5 Outfielders, 1 Utility, and 9 Pitchers

Categories: Standard 5×5

It’s a very deep league and we think it will give you a real insight into our strategy for drafting accordingly. We are ready and up for the challenge so let’s get into the first fifteen rounds (225 picks) of this monster draft.

The Draft

Round One (Pick 14) – David Wright, 3B, New York Mets

Around the sixth pick we decided that our top targets at 14 would be David Wright, Matt Holliday or Matt Kemp given the scarcity at third base and outfield this year. Only problem was Wright was a pipe dream because in such a deep league his value is clearly higher than normal, but then something happened. Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Zimmerman were draft with the two picks before us and Wright fell into our laps. Ureka! We just got someone who not only contributes in all five categories, but filled in at a scarce position. Now we won’t have to reach on Adrian Beltre in the third round, which is always a good feeling.

Round Two (Pick 17) – Matt Holliday, OF, St. Louis Cardinals

We set Wright and Holliday as our top two targets and got them both. We are feeling pretty good right about now because we now have an elite player at third base and outfield and have shored up our batting average. Both hitters should hit in the .300-range and are five-category fillers. We thought about Kemp and Josh Hamilton at this point, but Holliday is much safer and you don’t win leagues in the first three rounds, but you sure can lose them.

Round Three (Pick 44) - Kendry Morales, 1B, Los Angeles Angels

There’s a bit of a misconception about the first base position this year. Yes it’s deep, but it’s also very top heavy with a fairly steep dropoff, which is why we went with Kendry Morales here. You don’t want to wait too long and have to rely on another Paul Konerko surprise or hope for Billy Butler to finally develop some legitimate power. Even Justin Morneau is a huge question mark given his concussion. Morales missed almost all of 2010, but it was a fluke injury and he is good for 30 home runs and 100 RBI with upside to do more damage than that. He is also another good batting average to add to our already strong mix.

Round Four (Pick 47) – Jon Lester, SP, Boston Red Sox

In such a deep league we thought having an elite pitcher was a must and since there are 26 picks in between our selections it was finally time to nab one. Cliff Lee was just taken with one of the “cream filling” picks (if our 44th and 47th selection are the outer cookie layers, then picks 45 and 46 are the cream filling—it’s like an Oreo, try to keep up) so we were left to choose between Jon Lester, Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke. We pegged Greinke with the WHIP advantage and Verlander atop the strikeout totem pole, but we thought Lester was a very close second in both and had the edge in ERA, while playing on the best team. Greinke was a close runner-up just because his upside in the National League is tremendous, but Lester is also a perennial Cy Young candidate who has no weak link in his game.

Round Five (Pick 74) – Ichiro Suzuki, OF, Seattle Mariners

If you recall from earlier this year I wrote a rather harsh article about Ichiro Suzuki and called for the world to stop drafting him as a top 10, or even top 20, outfielder. Well our leaguemates must be reading the site because he fell all the way to 21st among outfielders in the draft. We realized we needed some steals and debated whether or not to draft someone like Juan Pierre later, but when you have such a big gap between picks you need to take what you need when you are up because it is impossible to predict how the next 26 picks will go. Very important lesson here—there is no such thing as reaching in a deep league in a scenario like this. Get what you need when you have the chance, never play the guessing game. In shallow leagues you can afford to guess because there are more players available to draft.

We grabbed Ichiro and got a .300 batting average—with over 700 plate appearances—and at least 35 steals. He only scored 74 runs last year, but that was the perfect storm of bad offense around him. He should get at least 90, right?

Round Six (Pick 77) – Matt Cain, SP, San Fransisco Giants

Time for our first big debate. Hey, with three opinionated minds it was bound to happen at some point right? Matt Cain or Yovani Gallardo…we spent a good 20 minutes on the subject and finally settled on Cain. The reason? Can has pitched 200-plus innings for four straight seasons, while Gallardo has missed time in each of the last two seasons and always seems to fall apart in the second half. Gallardo gives you a lot of strikeouts  (9.7 K/9 in 2010) and he made huge strides in improving his control last year. Still, he hasn’t put together a full season and it’s not like Cain kills you in strikeouts (career 7.4 K/9). We’ll take Cain and his inexplicable pitching success.

Round Seven (Pick 104) – Aaron Hill, 2B, Toronto Blue Jays

I feel like Aaron Hill is becoming my poster boy for why you shouldn’t draft a second baseman in the first 8-10 rounds of a standard 10-team league. We were able to take on Hill’s batting average risk, although we peg him to be in the very reasonable .270-range, and we are rewarded with great power at a position where there isn’t much. Stephen Drew was taken a couple of picks before us, eliminating any chance that we take a shortstop. It was at this point where we decided to not address the shortstop position until a couple rounds later with a guy we all like this year—Ryan Theriot.

Round Eight (Pick 107) – Matt Wieters, C, Baltimore Orioles

Brian Wilson became the first closer taken as one of the “cream filling” picks. This posed the question, do we take an elite closer now, or do we address the catcher position and hold off until the next round for a closer? We decided to go with Matt Wieters here because the options after him (Miguel Montero, Jorge Posada, Kurt Suzuki) were not as good compared to the remaining closers. Also, we need two catchers in this 15-team league so it’s important that we get one of the top 10 options.

Wieters should provide solid power and he is in a very solid lineup so there should be plenty of RBI opportunities. Plus, there’s always a chance he figures it all out and realizes his full potential, which many have pegged to be at .290/30/100. Fingers are crossed.

Round Nine (Pick 134) – Joe Nathan, RP, Minnesota Twins

Remember when I said Wilson was the first closer taken at pick 105? Well, during our 26-pick break 10 closers were taken. Talk about a run! So we missed out on a lot of the elite options, but should we still take a closer? We didn’t want to risk waiting, and missing out on the second tier so we decided to go with Joe Nathan. J.J. Putz was also available, but if you asked me who was more likely to finish the season as a top-5 closer it would be Nathan every day of the week. He was one of the game’s best closers before Tommy John surgery and we saw what Billy Wagner did last year. Despite missing out on Joakim Soria, Andrew Bailey and Heath Bell, I think we got ourselves a very decent option at a discounted price. That’s a win in my book.

Round Ten (Pick 137) – Jason Bay, OF, New York Mets

We still needed a third outfielder, but we also starting talking about a third starting pitcher. Our main options at pitching were Colby Lewis, Matt Garza, John Danks and Ricky Romero (in that order). While the first three were all on the visible page of pitchers, Danks was buried on page five. We have yet to uncover the reason why. This is when we started playing, as Chris cleverly put it, “John Danks roulette.” More on that later.

For outfielders, we are starting to hit the tier where everyone seems to have a glaring question mark. Here’s an example of some players at the top of the list: Jason Bay (concussion), Grady Sizemore (health/decreasing skills), Vernon Wells (don’t get me started), Adam Jones (untapped potential) and Carlos Quentin (health). It came down to Jones and Bay and we thought to go with the guy who gives a little more in both the home run and stolen base department. We need to make up for some power after drafting Ichiro. All reports coming out of spring training said he is feeling great (surprise!), which makes Bay is a nice candidate for a rebound season.

Round Eleven (Pick 164) – Ricky Romero, SP , Toronto Blue Jays

Round two of “John Danks roulette.” We missed out on both Lewis and Garza so we were left to decide between Romero and Danks. Now, we like Danks slightly better because he doesn’t pitch in the AL East and he has more of a track record, but the difference between the two isn’t too great so we decided to go with Romero and take the chance that Danks falls to us in the 13th round. We swear to ourselves that if he’s available we would finally pull the trigger (no pun intended) and take him.

As for Romero, there’s a lot to like as he made nice strides last year by improving his strikeout rate (7.5 K/9) and walk rate (3.5 BB/9). He is also a southpaw, which gives him a slight edge against some of the league’s top offenses. Going into his third full season, he should continue to take strides toward becoming a reliable No. 3 starting pitcher.

Round Twelve (Pick 167) – Ryan Franklin, RP, St. Louis Cardinals

Just three rounds after nabbing Nathan we decided to get our second closer and at this point the options were pretty slim. The only remaining full-time closers were Ryan Franklin, Fransisco Cordero and Brandon Lyon so we chose to go with Franklin as his job is probably safest. He doesn’t wow in any category, but he gets the job done so we can’t complain. Needless to say we needed another guy who could get 30 saves because chances are we aren’t going to start three closers every week in a 15-team league and you can’t have two part-time closers and expect to finish respectably in the saves category. You would have to get very lucky in the later rounds. By the way, Danks is still there.

Round Thirteen (Pick 194) – Neil Walker, 2B, Pittsburgh Pirates

Damn! Danks was finally taken, thus ending “John Danks roulette.” It was fun while it lasted, but now we need another plan. We decide to wait on pitching and address one of the “extra” positions—middle infield. We think about Manny Ramirez and drafting our second catcher with our two picks here, but eventually decide that the dropoff at middle infield after Neil Walker is dangerous. Walker has an outside chance to hit 20 home runs while bat .280 and hopefully score some runs by batting in front of Pedro Alvarez and the powerful Lyle Overbay. OK, so he won’t be scoring 100 runs, but I’ll take 80 and be very happy.

Round Fourteen (Pick 197) – Jhoulys Chacin, SP, Colorado Rockies

Time for our second big debate—Jhoulys Chacin vs. Brian Matusz. At first, Bryan was alone on the Chacin train, but he presented an argument that I couldn’t ignore. Both pitchers have ace potential, but one had problems with home runs and pitches in the AL East. The other induces ground balls, rarely allows a home run and pitches in the NL West. When in doubt go with the groundball pitcher, who pitches in the NL and has better strikeout potential to boot. Needless to say we welcomed Chacin to Da Professors with open arms.

Round Fifteen (Pick 224) – Ryan Theriot, 2B/SS, St. Louis Cardinals

With our 15th pick we decided to finally grab Ryan Theriot to man our shortstop position. I’m feeling really good about this pick and I’ll tell you why. He should hit in the .280-range, but could hit .300 if things go his way. Almost all of his outs happen on the field as his career 12 percent strikeout rate suggests. He will bat leadoff in a very good Cardinals lineup that features Holliday, Albert Pujols and Colby Rasums, which means 100 runs isn’t out of the question and Theriot should get to 90. All that, and he’ll give you 25-30 stolen bases, which makes him very solid in three-of-five categories. You won’t find that too often with the 224th pick in the draft. Theriot is a great guy to target if you choose to wait on the shortstop position.

Part two will come once the 30th round is complete, but until then let us know what you think of our strategies and even some of your own that you implement in deep drafts.

Roster at this point:

C – Matt Wieters

1B – Kendry Morales

2B - Aaron Hill

3B - David Wright

SS - Ryan Theriot

MI - Neil Walker

CI – N/A

OF – Matt Holliday

OF – Ichiro Suzuki

OF – Jason Bay

OF - N/A

OF - N/A

P - Jon Lester

P – Matt Cain

P – Ricky Romero

P - Jhoulys Chacin

CL - Joe Nathan

CL - Ryan Franklin

P – N/A

P - N/A

P - N/A

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