The Fantasy Fix Roundtable: Prospecting For 2011 Fantasy Baseball Part II – Pitchers
As the conclusion of the 2010 Major League Baseball regular season approaches, identify one pitcher that you are keeping close tabs on, in anticipation of the 2011 season. Briefly describe their 2010, why you are keeping tabs, and what you expect from them in the 2011 season.
One of the best ways to find value on draft day is late round pitching. Mat Latos and Clay Buchholz are prime examples for this season. With that in mind, the player I am going to be keeping a keen eye on in September is Astros’ starter Bud Norris.
As a prospect, Norris had been highly touted due to a plus-fastball and power breaking ball. However, the lack of a true third pitch (his changeup) and concerns over the combination of his size and high-effort delivery had caused many prospect gurus to foresee a late inning role in the bullpen. Norris, at least for now, has silenced any of those concerns.
ERA aside, which we’ll get into later, Norris has been one of the most dominant starters in baseball since July 1st. Now with over 100 innings under his belt this season, Norris has compiled a 9.27 K/9, good for eighth best among major league starters. That K/9 ranks him above Jon Lester, Mat Latos, Josh Johnson and Felix Hernandez to name a few. His command was poor to start the season, but in July Norris posted a respectable 3.45 BB/9 and this month he has shown tremendous improvement in his BB/9 rate, lowering it to 2.48.
Stuff wise, Norris can miss bats with the best of em. His 24.6 percent whiff rate puts him among names like Tim Lincecum and Clayton Kershaw.
About that five-plus ERA…Norris has been a victim of his environment this season. His BABIP against is probably a bit high (.331), but his strand rate (runners left on base) is quite low. Norris’ strand rate is at 63.8 percent, which is well below the league average of 72 percent. Both his BABIP against and strand rate have been products of one of the worst defenses in baseball and both rates should improve next season. These are two factors that Norris can’t control on his own and two big reasons that his xFIP is at 3.91, over a full run lower than his ERA.
The best part about targeting Norris in the late rounds of 2011 drafts is that he is all upside with just about no risk. Sure, the Astros are not going to give him a lot of run support and the defense may not improve much, but you know that Norris is going to rack up the strikeouts when he’s out there.
If he continues to show the strikeout potential and improved control/command in September, Bud Norris is going to be a player I target in every league on draft day 2011.
On a San Francisco Giants team that is loaded with terrific starting pitching, Madison Bumgarner is currently a gem tucked away at the back end of the rotation. The former number ten pick overall of the 2007 MLB June Amateur Draft has provided the Giants with a reliable option this season behind Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Barry Zito, and Jonathan Sanchez.
Bumgarner, 21, is a 6'4'', 215 pound left-handed youngster who demonstrates good strike zone control with all of his pitches. Prior to the 2010 season, Bumgarner was praised for having a mid-90's fastball with an above-average slider and change-up and was ranked as the number fourteen overall best prospect in baseball by Baseball America. Madison was making a name for himself and was easily the favorite to land the number five spot in the rotation when Spring Training ended. Then something happened; Bumgarner lost velocity on his fastball. His fastball was sitting in the high-80's to low-90's, allowing hitters to tee-off against him near the end of March.
Bumgarner would open the season in Triple-A Fresno where the Giants could work on his mechanics, hoping to reestablish his fastball to a respectable level. After compiling a 7-1 record with a 3.16 ERA over 14 starts in the Pacific Coast League, which included a 59/22 K/BB ratio over 82 2/3 innings, Bumgarner was finally ready to join the Giants during the month of June.
Since his callup, Bumgarner hasn’t been Stephen Strasburg dominant, but he's been consistently good during every outing (minus his last start against the Cincinnati Reds – yikes). During his first full month at the Big League level, he held a 4-2 record over six starts with a 2.27 ERA, a 1.19 WHIP and posted a 7.0 K/9 ratio and three home runs over 39 2/3 innings. While AT&T Park is known as a "pitcher's park", Madison has struggled while pitching at home this season, as he's posted an 0-2 record over five starts with a 6.04 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, and has allowed five home runs. On the road, Madison has posted a 5-2 record with a 2.62 ERA over seven starts.
So what does Madison need to do so that he can be successful for the rest of 2010 and 2011? First thing is first, Madison will need to do a better job against right-handed hitters. RHH are hitting .299/.340/.473 against him with seven home runs. As expected, he's held lefties to hitting just .239/.311/.418 with just three home runs. To this point of the season, Bumgarner has also received some help from hitters, as according to FanGraphs, batters have swung at 30% of his pitches that were outside of the strike zone, which can be attributed to Bumgarner's ability to remain around the strike zone as the game moves along. As far as pitch types, Bumgarner will need to steer clear of throwing his low-90's fastball over and over to the hitter during one at-bat. I've noticed that he will pump 4-5 fastballs in a row to the hitter, instead of mixing in his change-up or slider when he falls behind.
For fantasy purposes, Madison Bumgarner should be targeted on your keeper teams and NL-Only teams for next season. Depending on how the Giants decide to handle his innings the rest of the way (He's already surpassed his 2009 total of 141 innings between the minors and bigs) – he becomes a late-round number five or six starter for your fantasy team. Remember, Bumgarner will be 21-years old for a good chunk of the 2011 season and while he hasn't been the dominant lefty we all thought he would be, Bumgarner still has the talent to become a number two or three starter for the Giants down the road. Along with Bumgarner pitching in "pitcher friendly" AT&T Park, he also plays in the weak NL West, which is up for grabs every season.
For the 2011 season, Bumgarner will certainly be back in the Giants' rotation as a number three or four starter. Fantasy owners should expect more development from Bumgarner's off-speed pitches, which will surely help his low-90's fastball against right-handed hitters. With Madison get a full workload in 2011, he's capable of posting a ~4.00 ERA with a 1.35 WHIP and just over six strikeouts per nine innings.
My love for Orioles pitchers runs pretty deep, for whatever reason. I mean there’s nothing better than a starting pitcher on a losing team in the worst division for pitchers in the league. Yet there I’ve been, on guys like Erik Bedard, Daniel Cabrera, Hayden Penn, Jeremy Guthrie, Adam Loewen, and even Sidney Ponson to name a few recent ones. I can pretty much count on one finger how many of those guys have been successful.
Enter Chris Tillman. After putting up high strikeout totals to go along with high walk totals over his first three years in the minors, it looked like we had another Daniel Cabrera on our hands: lots of missed bats, just as many missed strike zones. But last year it finally started to come together after he put together a nifty 9.22 K/9 to go along with a 2.42 BB/9 in the minors. But as soon as he entered the majors, balls stopped missing bats and started getting planted into the outfield bleachers. Still, a 5.40 ERA from a rookie pitcher in the AL East is probably what should be expected. Heck, even everyone’s favorite rookie pitcher two years ago, David Price, put up a 4.42 ERA in his first year starting.
Then came 2010. Again, Tillman was pretty much a train wreck in the majors, while finding success in the minors. In fact, Tillman has seemed to regress since last season. He’s basically mixed good start with awful start this year, while seeing his K/9 decrease and BB/9 increase since last year. His ERA is inflated due to an absurd 54.8% strand rate, but it still sits well above 5 when all is accounted for. However, when he has had some success, it has been against some pretty solid offenses: Toronto, the Yankees, and Texas in Texas, in the middle of summer. So when he puts it together, he can be pretty solid.
Tillman’s working on adding a two-seamer to his repertoire, which could help some. Even more, not getting jerked around by the organization, getting bounced up and down from the big league club could help just as much. Either way, I’ll be watching his September call-up closely, and even more so his offseason. He’s still young at 22 years old, and is super talented, so it’s just too soon to write him off just yet. If he shows any encouraging signs of improvement, I wouldn’t be afraid to grab him with one of my last picks next year. Might as well take the plunge on a guy with big strikeout upside.
Originally drafted in the fourth round of the 2005 Major League Baseball Draft, Jeremy Hellickson entered 2010 rated as the 18th best prospect by Baseball America.
Prior to getting the call, Hellickson appeared in 109 games in six Minor League Baseball seasons, earning a 49-16 record while posting a 2.71 ERA. More impressively, "J-Hell" racked up 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings and achieved a 4.63 strikeout to walk ratio through 588+ innings pitched.
Since getting the call to the big show for his 8/2 debut, J-Hell is 3-0 in four starts with a 2.05 ERA and has recorded 8.54 strikeouts per nine innings. Opponents have been hitting a measly .177 against Jeremy, and of those who reached base, 82.4% have been left stranded. The Rays sent him back to A+ after his 8/20 start versus Oakland as a technicality.
While Hellickson is slated to get called back up when rosters expand, Jeremy is likely headed to the bullpen. His fantasy baseball value will be minimal, although he may be worth the stream if he earns a spot start versus the right opponent.
Although many of the statistics used in this article are taken from the small sample of MLB appearances, I'm confident Hellickson's success in MiLB was not a fluke. I expect Hellickson to be a solid #3/4 starter for fantasy baseball owners in 2011. His excellent command leads us to believe he will provide owners with miniscule ratios and a plethora of strikeouts.
Written by Fonzy for TheFantasyFix.com. You can follow the Fonz on Twitter @TheFantasyFix
One of the most highly touted prospects in the minor leagues heading into the 2009 season, Jordan Zimmermann should be on your radar for 2011.
Let’s look at his minor league career averages prior to his callup in 2009 (2010 was rehab-focused on a pitch count, so not representative of his talent):
2.81 ERA and 1.14 WHIP over 195.2 IP
9.9 K/9
3.1 BB/9
0.7 HR/9
Clearly, Zimmermann is a guy who gets a good number of Ks, doesn’t walk too many batters, and keeps the in the park. It should come as no surprise that he had elite-caliber ratios on the way up.
Looking at his 2009 numbers, we find a pitcher who had a little bit of bad luck (.339 BABIP, 67.5 LOB%, 12.2% HR/FB) behind his disappointing 4.63 ERA. By normalizing those numbers to league averages, though, his ERA should have been closer to 3.50 than 4.60 (FIP of 3.59).
I chalk up some of his struggles, particularly in July of 2009, to the budding elbow injury that eventually shut him down until last week. During June, Zimmermann appeared to be turning the corner (8.9 K/9, 1.90 ERA, 0.97 WHIP), and I believe that is a glimpse of what he can offer us in 2011.
The problem is that he had the surgery, returned about a year afterward as expected, and was promptly shelled for 5 ER by the Cardinals. Now, St. Louis can do that to nearly anyone, so you can’t really draw much of a conclusion from that game. Regardless of the sample size, his luck was worse than ever in that game (.452 BABIP, 52.6 LOB%, and one shiny dinger from Sir Albert Pujols himself).
The rest of 2010 will tell us a lot about Zimmermann. Can he keep the ball in the park like he did in the minors? His 43% GB rate suggests he will, although there are examples of GB pitchers who can’t (Jorge De La Rosa, I’m talking to you). Can he continue to mow down batters post-surgery? Will his control hold up on a rebuilt elbow?
These questions are important. Stephen Strasburg is following his path, pitching well for a large part of his rookie campaign, only to go down with a UCL injury that will result in Tommy John surgery as well. In other words, their "new" franchise pitcher is out for a year, while their previous franchise candidate will be more than 18 months removed from the surgery by opening day. This is Jordan Zimmerman's chance to take the rotation anchor role and run with it.
I’ll be watching you Jordan. And I expect you will be up to the task.
Tommy Landry (http://twitter.com/tommy_landry), co-founder of RotoExperts.com and long time veteran of the fantasy sports industry, is the Fantasy Basketball Examiner for Examiner.com and is also a respected social media and marketing blogger on http://ReturnOnNow/. He was a finalist for the 2008 FSWA Fantasy Baseball Series of the Year.
What pitchers will you be targeting in 2011?
Let us know by leaving a comment or replying to us on Twitter @TheFantasyFix
Tags: The Fantasy Fix, Fantasy Baseball Advice, Fantasy Sports Blog, MLB, 2011, Pitchers, Roundtable, Prospects, Madison Bumgarner, Jeremy Hellickson, Bud Norris, Chris Tillman, Jordan Zimmermann
The Author
