SubscribeIf you’ve played around with the CHONE projections in the fantasy Price Guide at all, you may have noticed that its projection for Javier Vazquez is, um, really good. And by really good, I mean the second best pitcher in baseball in 2009. That got my attention, so I think he’s worth looking at in some depth.
Here are several different projections for him:
CHONE: 14 W, 3.26 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 200 K, 196 IP
ZiPS: 14 W, 3.70 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 202 K, 202 IP
Marcel: 11 W, 4.35 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 170 K, 186 IP
Now, Marcel looks at first glance to be the realistic, compared to his stats in recent years (e.g. 4.67 ERA, 1.32 WHIP last year). However, CHONE and ZiPS have managed to outperform Marcel in the past, and so I wouldn’t immediately dismiss their more optimistic projections.
Although I’m not sure of the details of how either one of those systems arrive at their numbers, I’m guessing that they are both looking at a pitcher’s peripheral stats — strikeouts, walks, homeruns allowed — when predicting earned runs. Those sorts of things have been shown to be better predictors of a pitcher’s ability than just looking at past ERA, so factoring them in is a good idea.
However, Javier Vazquez has spent most of his career as the exception to that rule. He is the rare pitcher who has consistently underperformed what you would expect based on his K/9, BB/9, and HR/9. That also means that Vazquez has a history of disappointing fantasy owners, many of whom have been waiting for five years for him to match his 2003 success.
So now we have Vazquez’s 2009 CHONE projection. Is this just another chance for fantasy owners to get burned? Maybe, but there are some reasons for hope. Vazquez is leaving the AL for what looks to be somewhat more favorable National League. That should help his stats even if he pitches exactly like he did last year.
And keep in mind that most auctions will have Vazquez going much closer to the $4 that Marcel projects than the $45 that you see from CHONE. Even if you don’t expect him to live up to the first-round potential, there is a lot of upside and not much risk if you can get him around $10.
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I think Vazquez will be huge this year. He also faced relatively tougher hitters last year, as Derek Carty noted here
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/introducing-quality-of-opponent-adjustments-and-caps-for-pitchers/
and here
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/introducing-caps-road-park-factors/
I couldn’t agree more about Vazquez. One other thing in his favor; since that 2003 season, he has not pitched in an evrionment that I would call a good place to pitch. He’s in the good league, in a normal park, with a good defense in 2008.