Starting Pitching Strategy

Yeah, posting this now doesn't really help much, but I thought it would be useful to post the strategy I've used for drafting pitching the last few years in my fantasy leagues.

First off, I very rarely, if ever, draft pitching early. I load up almost exclusively on hitting and then sift through the bargain bin to piece together my pitching staff. And each year there is always a handful of excellent pitching options that go way to late in the draft, if they don't get drafted at all. It seems that even to this day, people get too hung up on win loss records and suspiciously low ERA's without looking at the statistics that do a better job of measuring a pitcher's talent.

Determining a pitcher's true talent means looking at strike-out ratios, ground ball to flyball ratios and the ability to not give up home runs and walks. The last two will help lower WHIP and ERA, which should lead to more wins, while the first one leads to strike outs. And since strike outs are a category, we should be looking at high strike out pitchers with decent command that can keep the ball in the park.

If you really want to simplify this thing for yourself, just get a list of each pitcher's K/9 (strike outs per 9 innings). The higher the K/9, the more you should be targeting that pitcher. If you factor in the other peripherals, you can weed out a few more pitchers and you should be left with a list of guys to target.

At the start of the year I basically divided my list of targeted pitchers into two. The first one was guys that were known studs that were likely to be drafted quite high and thus, I wasn't specifically targeting them unless they slipped. This list has some pretty obvious names and looked as follows:

Johan Santana
Jake Peavy
Erik Bedard
Cole Hamels
Josh Beckett
Scott Kazmir
Justin Verlander
Carlos Zambrano
Felix Hernandez
Chris Young
John Lackey
Brandon Webb
John Smoltz
Dan Haren

All those guys are pretty safe bets to post big years if they remain healthy. Of course staying healthy for any pitcher is difficult so its hard to invest an early pick in them. And to drive the point home Lackey, Smoltz, Young, Beckett, Bedard and Peavy have all spent time battling injuries this year. That's almost half the list.

My second list is comprised of guys that have similar peripheral stats as the guys above, but have question marks surrounding them. This causes them to fall late in the draft, but also means they can bring incredible value. This list looks like:

Aaron Harang - Should be on the list above but still doesn't get respect.
Tim Lincecum - Incredible talent, but young and "unproven" and there are durability concerns.
Daisuke Matsuzaka - Wasn't phenomenal last year so lot's of people soured on him in fantasy.
Francisco Liriano - Coming off Tommy John surgery.
Yovani Gallardo - Young and stats from last year look bad because of two horrible starts.
A.J. Burnett - Injury prone.
Ben Sheets - Unable to stay off the DL.
Brett Myers - Struggled at times last year.
Javier Vazquez - Still considered a bust from his days as a Yankee.
Rich Harden - The definition of injury prone.
James Shields - Some people think last year was a fluke.
Rich Hill - Fluke?
Oliver Perez - Seems to be a head case.
Ian Snell - Pitches for the Pirates.
Chad Billingsley - Young and unproven.
Clay Buchholz - See Chad Billingsley.
Ervin Santana - Bad year last year.
Zack Greinke - Pitches for the Royals, head case.
Randy Wolf - Coming off of surgery/mediocre season.
Joba Chamberlain - Started the season in the bullpen.

From the above list Harden, Billingsley, Sheets, Lincecum, Matsuzaka, Santana, Chamberlain, Greinke and Shields have all pitched rather well. I happen to own those players on most of the teams I drafted this year. Harang, Wolf, Vazquez and Burnett have been solid for the most part. The rest of the bunch has either succumbed to inury (Gallardo, Liriano) or lost effectiveness (Myers, Hill, Perez) or in the case of Buchholz, been the victim of the roster numbers crunch.

So for this list we have what is close to a 50% success rate as well. That's pretty similar to the list of well established top line starters. And players like Harden, Sheets, Lincecum, Matsuzaka and Chamberlain all have elite-level potential when healthy.

Taking a bunch of fliers on these types of pitchers works well in mixed leagues because if you lose a couple to the injury bug, there are usually serviceable options on the waiver wire. And in the case of elite pitchers like Harden and Sheets, even if they only stay healthy for the first few months, they still provide lots of strike outs and keep your WHIP and ERA nice and low. If they get injured again you can cut them and not worry about the high draft pick you wasted on them.

The strategy does not work quite so well in deep leagues or AL/NL only leagues. In those leagues, the waiver wire depth is far poorer and you want to focus on reliable pitchers that are most likely to last the season without any issues. That's when a guy like Roy Halladay becomes a lot more valuable.