2011 Fantasy Baseball Week 6: THE RUBBER – Top 50 Pitcher Rankings

Alan Harrison · May 12, 2011

Too often fantasy baseball players (or worse, fantasy baseball “experts”) cite a single peripheral stat to make an argument for or against a player. However, it can be a mistake to look at peripheral numbers independently. When certain stats are paired with other stats, we can sometimes get a better read on what the “other” numbers are actually telling us.

For example, when looking at BABIP, it can be helpful to also look at batted ball statistics. Because ground balls are the type of batted ball least likely to result in a hit, a high BABIP for a pitcher (aka an unlucky BABIP) should be considered even more of an anomaly when the pitcher induces a large percentage of ground balls. Conversely, a pitcher with a low ground ball rate may not have been as unlucky as his high BABIP would have originally led you to believe.

Strand rate is another statistic that does not necessarily tell the whole story. Looking at a pitcher’s strand rate can tell a different story if looked at in conjunction with strikeout rate. Which is to say that a high strand rate does not always mean a pitcher has been overly lucky because the ability to miss bats and rack up K’s can help a pitcher escape jams and post a higher than normal strand rate without necessarily being “lucky.”

In the same way that looking at a peripheral stat independently can be a mistake, talking about peripheral stats independent of any applicability to a real-life pitcher can be boring. Not saying the rest of this article will be any less boring, but I’ll try.

__________________________________________________________________________

The Fantasy Fix is sponsoring a free one-day fantasy baseball matchup on DraftStreet this Friday for $150 cash, with the top 4 places getting paid. Click here to sign up!
__________________________________________________________________________

Broken Rubber? Don’t Panic
Although Ubaldo Jimenez (Colorado Rockies, 100%) and Ted Lilly (Los Angeles Dodgers, 57.3%) have not pitched as well as they were expected to, I would recommend you sit tight rather than cutting your losses and trading them for less than their draft day value.

Ubaldo missed a few turns through the rotation at the beginning of the season and has yet to completely get into midseason form as evidenced by a scary 5.54 BB/9. Control has never been Ubaldo’s biggest strength, but never in his career has it been this big of an issue. You have to assume the lack of control is a result of rust that has yet to be knocked off. The strikeouts are still there, the strand rate is pretty low, and the wins will come if he can cut out the walks and pitch deeper into games.

Lilly’s main problem is that he has been victimized by a high BABIP. It is true that his strikeouts are down as well, but you drafted Lilly for WHIP, not strikeouts. And the ‘W’ half of that WHIP equation has been better than expected as Lilly’s BB/9 is under 2.00. However, his .347 BABIP has resulted in the ‘H’ part of the WHIP equation being a WHIP killer. The good news is that his BABIP took a turn in the right direction against the Pirates on Tuesday night. Maybe it was just the Pirates, but it seems that Tuesday’s start was a sign of better things to come for Lilly. And he has been dropped in quite a few leagues, so grab him if you are looking for pitching help, especially if you need help with WHIP.

Premature Accumulation
When I was updating the ownership percentages for this week’s Top 50, it took me awhile to figure out why 39 guys were owned in 100% of ESPN leagues and only 37 guys on my list had an ownership percentage of 100%. Then I realized that Jair Jurrjens (Atlanta Braves) and Justin Masterson (Cleveland Indians) had inexplicably been added in every league.

Sure, both guys have posted great roto numbers to this point, but their other numbers show that they are unlikely to keep it up. Of the two, Jurrjens is the one facing the harder fall from the top. The first issue is Jurrjens’ miniscule HR/FB rate of 3%. While it is true that Jurrjens has always been pretty good about keeping the ball in the yard, his HR/FB will almost certainly trend upward.

More importantly is his miniscule 5.00 K/9. Obviously, such a low K rate means Jurrjens is not contributing in the K’s category, but it also means that his 87.8% strand rate is even more fortunate than such a high number would normally indicate. And if that last sentence made no sense to you, you might want to go back and re-read the intro.

As for Masterson, it may not be a complete fluke, but his 81.6% strand rate is a little high, his HR/FB is lower than Jurrjens’, and his five wins could be half his season total if the Indians start losing like they are supposed to. The encouraging thing about Masterson’s numbers is the walk rate of 2.49, well over a walk per nine less than his career average. However, it seems to have come at the expense of strikeouts as his K rate is 0.80 lower than his career average. So either Masterson may not be the K provider he was expected to be, or the brief lapse in issuing walks is only temporary.

To be clear, it is not as if neither guy will be useful going forward. It is just that an ownership of 100% tells me that these guys are getting more credit than they deserve. If you own them, sell high if you can or simply proceed with caution. And I will not be the least bit surprised to see those ownership percentages fall back into double digits sometime soon.

In the pitching matchup of the season to this point, Johnson squared off against Halladay on Tuesday night. Johnson did not seem to have his best stuff, but even so he was still pretty damn good. 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 7 K, ND. The ability to post that kind of line without your A-game makes for a legit Top 5 pitcher.

With another solid outing on Monday, it is officially time to sell high on Mr. Beckett. His sub-2.00 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP may appeal to you, but do not be deceived, my friend! His FIP and xFIP are over a run higher than his ERA, his BABIP is a super-low .211, his strand rate is a lucky 84.2%, and his HR/FB rate is over 4% lower than his career average. It is not that Beckett is due for Josh Tomlin-esque collapse (trust me, that’s coming), but he certainly will not continue to be this good.

Usually pitchers with these kinds of insanely sexy but fluky numbers are of the aforementioned Josh Tomlin variety. Which is to say that people assume the numbers are fluky because no one knows who the hell Josh Tomlin is. But it is rare for a guy with as much name value as Beckett to have numbers that lend themselves to an illusion of a Top 20 pitcher. For that reason, the sell-high potential with Beckett is enormous. For the moment that is. Do all you can to deal him before the rabbit goes back into the hat.

Morrow is another guy owned in 100% of leagues that I still have my doubts about. Forgive me for being cautious with the guy who has a career BB/9 over 5.00 and a BB/9 of 4.29 so far in 2011. However, it is tough to ignore the fact that every single peripheral stat indicates he has been unlucky in his first four starts, and it is impossible to ignore his gargantuan 12.43 K/9.

Out this week: Zach Britton

All ownership percentages from ESPN.com

Written by Brett Talley exclusively for thefantasyfix.com. Brett is a law student in Dallas who goes to school with Zach Britton’s fiancée…I hope she is not reading this article. You can follow him and/or ask him for fantasy advice on Twitter @therealTAL

Follow The Fantasy Fix on Twitter @thefantasyfix

or for Free Fantasy Sports Advice use our Quick Fix to get help with your team!

(April 30, 2011 – Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images North America)

Tags: The Fantasy Fix, 2011 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Advice, 2011 Fantasy Baseball Rankings, 2011 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings, Brett Talley, Pitching Profile, The Rubber

2011 Fantasy Baseball Week 6: THE RUBBER – Top 50 Pitcher Rankings

The Fantasy Baseball Daily Fix: Jason Heyward Dealing with Shoulder Injury & Other News