In looking at 2010′s LIMA candidates, we’ve looked at a couple of major groups already:
Not Necessarily Low Investments
These are guys who are already on the cusp of greatness: Josh Johnson, Jair Jurrjens, Wandy Rodriguez, Clayton Kershaw, Tommy Hanson. They won’t come cheap, but they could still be a bargain if they take another step forward in 2010. If you are following the LIMA Plan, you could consider grabbing one of these guys as your staff “ace.”
Bounceback Candidates
2009 was an unimpressive year on the surface for several pitchers whose track record points to a bounceback: Jake Peavy, John Lackey, Chad Billingsley, Roy Oswalt. Along with reasons for expecting a return to relevancy, there are also risk factors for each of them, and their name recognition might raise their price on draft day.
Today, let’s look at the final group, the pitchers who look like this year’s true LIMA pitchers. They are guys with solid peripheral stats (K/9 > 6; K/BB > 2; HR/9 < 1) and who could be acquired cheaply this year.
Ubaldo Jimenez
Ubaldo was recently the subject of a prominent Yahoo article and has attracted plenty of attention from fantasy drafters this year, who are treating him as a top 15 pitcher.
The projections are…less optimistic. The composite projections here peg him for a 4.01 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP with strikeouts as the only redeeming factor holding him in positive territory.
Although I’m torn between following the fantasy crowd and the projections, I think I have to side with the drafters in this case. I’m mainly suspicious that the projections aren’t valuing his strong groundball tendencies enough when applying the Coor’s Field penalty to his stats. Colorado is the best hitters’ park in the majors, but that effect can be kept in check if you keep the ball on the ground as well as Jimenez does.
A 3.60 ERA and 1.30 WHIP would bump Jimenez from $6 to $15, and that’s probably close to my limit on him. I’m still not sure if that’s enough to win him in most leagues.
Ryan Dempster
In placing Dempster with this group of pitchers, I think I had forgotten his impressive 2.96 ERA from 2008. Maybe I was still mentally penalizing him for his undistinguished time as a Marlins starter earlier in the decade.
This still might be the best place for him, though. I don’t think he’s a bounceback player, since I (and the projections) think he’s more likely to be closer to his 2009 (3.65 ERA) than his apparently flukish 2008.
He appears to be a fairly unremarkable, close-to-average pitcher for fantasy this year. His boring nature makes him ideal for LIMA — a cheaply decent pitcher who lets you focus your attention on purchasing hitters.
Kevin Correia
After a couple decent years as a reliever for the Giants, Correira responded to the switch to starter in 2008 with an ugly 6.05 ERA. Given a second chance by the Padres, however, he turned things around last year with a sub-4.00 ERA in 198 IP.
While that improvement is partly a Petco-fueled illusion, his park doesn’t let us explain away his rise in strikeouts from 2008 to 2009. He looks to be a solid back-end fantasy option with an ERA around 4.00, but he could be even better if you are able to leverage his home starts.
Gavin Floyd
On the surface, it looked like Floyd’s 2009 was a step back from his 2008, as his ERA rose from 3.84 in 2008 to 4.06 in 2009.
But there are reasons to see 2009 as a dramatic improvement for the 27-year-old righty: His WHIP held steady while he cut the number of homeruns he allowed (1.31 to 0.98 HR/9) and stepped up his strikeouts (6.3 to 7.6 K/9).
The projections are still cautious on Floyd, however. As with Jimenez above, they dock Floyd for pitching in Chicago, which is a bit of a hitters’ park.
We also can’t completely disregard his less-valuable performances in 2007 and 2008 after a good 2009. Unsurprisingly, the projections see his true ability lying in between 2008 and 2009. (It’s telling, however, that FanGraphs’ Fan projections are more optimistic than the ones here…)
Hiroki Kuroda
Kuroda missed some time with injury last year, and that could make him a sneaky pick for 2010.
He’s got several extra factors going for him: He’s pitching for the reigning first place team in a division with a couple of teams expected to be poor offensively (the Padres and Giants especially). While he’ll probably get starts in tough parks in COL and ARI, his home park and SD are favorable to pitchers.
Jorge de la Rosa
Another Rockies pitcher means I’ll continue the apparent theme of this post — home parks will largely determine the fantasy fortunes for many of these pitchers.
If you take everything I said about Jimenez above and applied it to a somewhat inferior pitcher, I think you would have a good summary for de la Rosa.
Jeff Niemann and Jason Hammel
As RotoGraphs did, we’ll tackle these two Rays prospects together (even though Hammel is now with the Rockies). The two of them have the lowest projections on this list, and — while drafters are somewhat more optimistic — I think fantasy expectations are fairly low for both of them.
But consider the positives in favor of these monstrously-sized pitchers: Each of them had a decent ERA last year, and that was backed up by the peripheral stats. They’ve both got a solid prospect pedigree and a good minor league track record. Hammel and Niemann might be the best test to see if LIMA can do a better job at predicting improvements than projections alone.
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