2011 Fantasy Baseball, THE RUBBER Week 16: Top 50 Pitcher Rankings
Twenty-two qualifying pitchers have an ERA under 3.00 at the moment. Thirty-six have a WHIP of 1.20 or less. Twenty-nine have a K/BB of 3.00 or better. Twenty-two are striking out more than eight batters per nine innings. Need I go on? Many, many guys are putting up well above-average numbers.
On top of all that, twenty-one of the top 50 pitchers on ESPN’s player rater were drafted in the 20th round or later. Thirteen of those twenty-two weren’t drafted at all in ten-team mixed leagues.
The number of starters that are simply criminally under-owned at this point is further evidence of the depth that exists at the starting pitching position. Here are a few of those guys, all of which could be useful, even if only as spot starters, in anything deeper than a ten-team mixed league.
Danny Duffy (Kansas City Royals, 0.2% owned)
Joe Sheehan tweeted this stat yesterday: Duffy has 29 K’s to just 6 BB’s over his last five starts (28.2 IP). Duffy is definitely the guy on this list with the most risk, but he has been excellent at every level of the minors and has showed the ability to be moderately successful in the major leagues (4.26 SIERA[1], 7.44 K/9).
Felipe Paulino (Kansas City Royals, 0.4% owned)
His roto numbers don’t make Paulino look under-owned at only 0.4%, but the roto numbers are dead wrong on this one. His ERA of 4.39 is not at all indicative of how he has pitched. His SIERA is well over a run lower at an impressive 3.02. His WHIP of 1.42 is just a result of bad luck as his walk rate is a very respectable 2.58, but his BABIP is a terribly unlucky .362. Let’s also not forgot Paulino’s 8.66 K/9 and above average groundball rate of 49%. Paulino has to be the most under-owned pitcher in baseball.
Brandon McCarthy (Oakland Athletics, 1.8% owned)
If you were going to try and poke holes in the “wait on pitching” draft strategy, one of your main arguments would have to be that it can be difficult to find guys that can help with ratios later in the draft. And at this point in the season, or any point in the season really, the waiver wire isn’t exactly brimming with ratio help. But Brandon McCarthy, along with his 3.64 ERA (3.58 SIERA) and 1.22 WHIP (1.43 BB/9), is widely available.
Jeff Niemann (Tampa Bay Rays, 2.2% owned)
Over his last three starts (21.1 IP), Niemann has allowed just two earned runs with 19 strikeouts to six walks. His next three starts are against Kansas City, Oakland, and Seattle. Do with that what you will.
Rubby de la Rosa (Los Angeles Dodgers, 5.8% owned)
3.83 SIERA, 9.54 K/9, 4.47 BB/9
Those aren’t de la Rosa’s numbers. Those are Jonathan Sanchez’s numbers from last year. Compare those numbers to de la Rosa this year.
3.74 SIERA, 8.67 K/9, 4.53 BB/9
I know people love them some Jonathan Sanchez, so why is de la Rosa only owned in 5.8% of leagues?
_________________________________________________________________________________
[1] SIERA is simply an ERA estimator like FIP and xFIP. If you’re not familiar with ERA estimators, they are tools that attempt to say what a pitcher’s ERA should be based on how he has pitched, not based on things he can’t control. The further an ERA estimator is below a pitcher’s actual ERA, the more positive regression you can expect from that pitcher and vice-versa. The guys over at Fangraphs are rolling out a five-part series on SIERA this week, and the first two segments have been borderline revolutionary for me. Check it out.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Alright, let’s rank ‘em. Just a reminder, these rankings are meant to rank expected performance from this point forward, not performance to this point.
The Top 50
1. Roy Halladay | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned | Last week: 1
2. Cliff Lee | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned | Last week: 2
3. Cole Hamels | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned | Last week: 4
I’ve had Lincecum at three all season primarily to avoid having the three Phillies atop my rankings. But the triumvirate is dominating the pitching regime with three of the top five SIERA’s in the league. Additionally, each has a K/9 over 8.00 and a BB/9 under 2.00. How are the Phillies not winning it all with these three?
4. Justin Verlander | Detroit Tigers | 100% owned | Last week: 6
5. CC Sabathia | New York Yankees | 100% owned | Last week: 8
6. Clayton Kershaw | Los Angeles Dodgers | 100% owned | Last week: 9
7. Tim Lincecum | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned | Last week: 3
8. Jered Weaver | Los Angeles Angels | 100% owned | Last week: 5
9. Dan Haren | Los Angeles Angels | 100% owned | Last week: 7
10. Felix Hernandez | Seattle Mariners | 100% owned | Last week: 10
11. David Price | Tampa Bay Rays | 100% owned | Last week: 11
12. Zack Greinke | Milwaukee Brewers | 100% owned | Last week: 12
13. James Shields | Tampa Bay Rays | 100% owned | Last week: 13
14. Tommy Hanson | Atlanta Braves | 100% owned | Last week: 14
15. Jaime Garcia | St. Louis Cardinals | 100% owned | Last week: 16
16. C.J. Wilson | Texas Rangers | 100% owned | Last week: 17
17. Matt Cain | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned | Last week: 15
18. Ubaldo Jimenez | Colorado Rockies | 100% owned | Last week: 20
19. Matt Garza | Chicago Cubs | 95.3% owned | Last week: 21
Sticking with the theme of under-owned starters, what must my boyfriend Matt Garza do to be owned in every league? Granted his stellar outing immediately preceding the break was disconcerting (2 IP, 6 ER), but if you throw that start out he has an ERA of 3.00 since returning from the DL.
20. Jon Lester | Boston Red Sox | 100% owned | Last week: 22
21. Anibal Sanchez | Florida Marlins | 99.2% owned |Last week: 23
22. Shaun Marcum | Milwaukee Brewers | 100% owned | Last week: 18
23. Daniel Hudson | Arizona Diamondbacks | 100% owned | Last week: 19
24. Chris Carpenter | St. Louis Cardinals | 100% owned | Last week: 24
25. Ian Kennedy | Arizona Diamondbacks | 100% owned | Last week: 26
26. Mat Latos | San Diego Padres | 98.8% owned | Last week: 28
27. Yovani Gallardo | Milwaukee Brewers | 100% owned | Last week: 27
28. Chad Billingsley | Los Angeles Dodgers | 100% owned | Last week: 25
29. Ricky Romero | Toronto Blue Jays | 100% owned | Last week: 29
30. Brandon Beachy | Atlanta Braves | 99.6% owned | Last week: 38
31. Madison Bumgarner | San Francisco Giants | 92.6% owned | Last week: 36
32. Tim Hudson | Atlanta Braves | 100% owned | Last week: 30
33. Josh Beckett | Boston Red Sox | 100% owned| Last week: 34
34. Wandy Rodriguez | Houston Astros | 86.9% owned | Last week: 42
35. Ricky Nolasco | Florida Marlins |96.7% owned | Last week: 35
36. Bud Norris | Houston Astros | 61.8% owned | Last week: 40
Again, criminally under-owned. What am I missing here? Norris is striking out more than a batter per inning, has a respectable ERA of 3.59 ERA (3.43 SIERA), and doesn’t look to be subject to regression in BABIP, strand rate or home run rate. It’s possible the improved control might not be completely for real, but if that’s the only knock on Norris, the 61.8% ownership percentage is not justified.
37. Brandon Morrow | Toronto Blue Jays | 95.0% owned | Last week: 41
38. Gio Gonzalez | Oakland Athletics | 100% owned | Last week: 37
39. Tim Stauffer | San Diego Padres | 78.4% owned | Last week: 39
40. Scott Baker | Minnesota Twins | 70.2% owned | Last week: 31
41. Michael Pineda | Seattle Mariners | 100% owned | Last week: 32
42. Jordan Zimmerman | Washington Nationals | 100% owned | Last week: 33
43. Ryan Dempster | Chicago Cubs | 50.3% owned | Last week: 47
44. Jhoulys Chacin | Colorado Rockies | 100% owned | Last week: 48
45. Jair Jurrjens | Atlanta Braves | 100% owned | Last week: 44
46. Max Scherzer | Detroit Tigers | 99.9% owned | Last week: 43
47. Jonathon Niese | New York Mets | 14.3% owned | Last week: 49
48. Trevor Cahill | Oakland Athletics | 100% owned | Last week: 46
49. Edwin Jackson | Chicago White Sox | 13.6% owned| Last week: 50
50. Ervin Santana | Los Angeles Angels | 52.5% owned | Last week: NR
Out this week: Justin Masterson
Masterson went 7.2 scoreless last night and lowered his ERA to 2.64. So why take him out of the top 50 following that performance? Masterson’s peripheral numbers indicate he’s more of a 3.50 ERA guy than he is a 2.64 guy. If you projected even less regression that that and expected Masterson to end up as a 3.30 guy, he would have to be a plus-4.00 ERA pitcher from here on out to regress back to that point.
All ownership percentages from ESPN.com
Written by Brett Talley exclusively for thefantasyfix.com. Brett is a law student in Dallas who is criminally under-owned by the single women in his town. You can follow him and/or ask him for fantasy advice on Twitter @therealTAL.
(June 24, 2011 – Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images North America)
The Author
