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May 16, 2006 Fantasy FocusWell-Grounded
When searching for potential starting pitching help, I try to avoid win-loss records, and I don't spend too much time looking at ERA as a predictive indicator. Instead, I'll devote more attention to strikeout rate (K/9) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB) as primary indicators. It's an approach that has served me well in the past, but unfortunately, it's hardly unique--many others do the same. The result becomes that the pitchers that grade out well there are usually fully priced, either at the draft or in free agent bidding. Chien-Ming Wang's gem against the A's on Friday night made me look to see if I might be missing out on a cost-efficient way to land effective starting pitching in my leagues. Wang forced 20 groundballs, allowed four flyballs, struck out no one and walked two in eight shutout innings. This was not atypical for Wang, at least in terms of his component stats. He has a 3.13 G/F (groundball/flyball) ratio this year after posting a 2.96 ratio last year, among the top-10 for both years. Similarly, Wang has had low K/9 (3.31 in 2006, 3.64 in 2005) and K/BB (1.13 in 2006, 1.47 in 2005) numbers both years. His ERA has remained essentially the same the last two years, below the league average at 4.04 and 4.02 respectively. Because of Wang's low strikeout rates, and probably because his risk of injury, he came cheaply in drafts this year, despite his low ERA, low homer rate and high likelihood of getting run support from the Yankee offense. I drafted in eight roto leagues and one Scoresheet League where Wang was part of the player pool, and he was kept in another. Yes, I'm in too many leagues--but it's all for you, the reader. Five of the eight leagues were mixed-league drafts--he went undrafted in three of those leagues (all three had an active player pool of 252 players), once he went 252/345, once he went 286/345. In one mixed league auction (299 active players) he went undrafted. In an 11-team AL-only auction and a 12-team AL-only auction he was a reserve pick and a $1 player respectively. He rated highest in the 12-team AL-only Scoresheet league, getting drafted 154th overall. It's only May, but he's only looking like a bargain so far. How common is it for pitchers with Wang's component stats to meet with the same sort of roto success? I took a look at the last three completed seasons and looked at qualifying starting pitchers, as sort of a back of the envelope investigation. To qualify, the pitcher had to be among the top 30 in the majors in G/F, have a strikeout rate less than 6.0 K/9IP and a K/BB ratio less than 2/1. YR Player G/F K/9 K/BB ERA ERA+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2003 Derek Lowe 3.92 4.87 1.53 4.47 105 2003 Mike Hampton 1.95 5.21 1.41 3.84 108 2003 Nate Cornejo 1.70 2.13 0.79 4.67 92 2003 Cory Lidle 1.68 5.23 1.87 5.75 82 2003 Elmer Dessens 1.60 5.79 1.98 5.07 92 2003 Horacio Ramirez 1.53 4.94 1.39 4.00 104 2003 Jason Jennings 1.51 5.91 1.35 5.11 93 2003 Mike Maroth 1.45 4.05 1.74 5.73 75 2003 Shane Reynolds 1.44 5.06 1.59 5.43 77 YR Player G/F K/9 K/BB ERA ERA+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2004 Derek Lowe 2.87 5.17 1.48 5.42 90 2004 Jake Westbrook 2.72 4.84 1.90 3.38 134 2004 Ryan Drese 2.20 4.25 1.69 4.20 120 2004 Mark Mulder 2.05 5.58 1.69 4.43 106 2004 Mike Hampton 2.01 4.54 1.34 4.28 101 2004 Miguel Batista 1.79 4.71 1.08 4.80 101 2004 Shawn Estes 1.73 5.21 1.11 5.84 86 2004 Tom Glavine 1.68 4.62 1.56 3.60 119 2004 Sidney Ponson 1.63 4.80 1.67 5.30 90 2004 Kirk Rueter 1.60 2.65 0.85 4.73 94 2004 Jeff Suppan 1.59 5.27 1.69 4.16 100 2004 Jason Jennings 1.54 5.96 1.32 5.51 92 YR Player G/F K/9 K/BB ERA ERA+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2005 Mark Mulder 2.74 4.87 1.59 3.64 117 2005 Tim Hudson 2.50 5.39 1.77 3.52 125 2005 Jamey Wright 2.06 5.31 1.25 5.46 87 2005 Jason Johnson 1.74 3.99 1.90 4.54 94 2005 Mark Redman 1.64 5.10 1.80 4.90 87 2005 Horacio Ramirez 1.60 3.56 1.19 4.63 95 2005 Nate Robertson 1.59 5.58 1.88 4.48 95 2005 Jason Marquis 1.59 4.35 1.45 4.13 103 2005 Tom Glavine 1.51 4.47 1.72 3.53 118 2005 Brian Lawrence 1.46 5.01 1.91 4.83 80 2005 Jeff Suppan 1.43 5.28 1.81 3.57 120All G/F, K/9 and K/BB stats are from ESPN.com, and the ERA+ stats are from Baseball-Reference.com. ERA+ as computed by Baseball-Reference.com is park-adjusted. When investigating this subset of pitchers, I was looking for:
These sorts of pitchers tend to repeat their component stats. You'll see a lot of the same names making multiple appearances on the list, and many others who would show up multiple times among the top groundball pitchers. It's on the second point, however, where this study fails. Take a look at Derek Lowe, for example. For all three years, he was among the top 10 pitchers in G/F, but last year cut his walks down enough to avoid making this list. His ERA, both raw and relative to the league, fluctuated wildly. When I started this, I was hoping to find a way to sniff out bargains in the future. It looks like I'll need to keep sniffing.
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