Last Player Picked

Yesterday, I asked what you would be willing to pay for Stephen Strasburg if your draft were held today. Reassuringly, the comments I received echoed what I had been thinking, and they basically raised the same questions that I have.

The projections so far (CAIRO and ZiPS) have him as a late-round 4.00+ ERA pitcher for about half of a season. That would probably be worth a mid-single digit bid in most leagues.

But there are enough questions around Strasburg to make bidding much more complicated. I see at the following factors weighing in on Strasburg’s value:

How many innings will Strasburg pitch in 2010?

I don’t follow the Nationals too closely, but right now it looks like there’s at least a chance Strasburg could start the season in the majors. There aren’t a ton of great options available for Washington, so a good spring gives Strasburg a shot at spending April in D.C.

However, it has become common practice to cap a young player’s innings to prevent injuries, and so I’d say the most optimistic prediction for Strasburg would be 160 IP. The Nationals won’t have anything to play for in September, so I’d think they would shut him down.

Of course, the Nationals may also decide to start Strasburg off in the minors. In that case, we’re talking about something closer to 100 IP.

I’d say the risk of only getting 100-150 IP out of a SP is a factor that keeps Strasburg’s value low for 2010.

How high is the upside?

I mentioned yesterday that projecting Strasburg in 2010 is more complex than just picking a single number, like a 4.38 ERA. I’m making up some numbers here, but let’s throw out some quick probabilities for what Strasburg’s ERA might look like:

5% – 3.00
10% – 3.50
25% – 4.00
40% – 4.50
20% – 5.00

That gives, on average, a 4.30 ERA. It also gives Strasburg a 5% chance of becoming a top-tier pitcher immediately. There’s a 10% chance he winds up in the middle-tier for fantasy, and a 25% chance he’s worth a late-round grab. Most (60%) of the time, however, he’s waiver wire fodder.

I admittedly have no idea how realistic those probabilities are. However, I think the chance of him being either good or very good gives him a much higher ceiling than your typical 4.38 ERA pitcher. And I think that upside must slant his value a little bit higher.

How much risk can your fantasy team assume?

When drafting, I try to balance out upside picks with more conservative choices. If I already have, say, Roy Oswalt and Roy Halladay, then I have quite a bit of freedom to take some chances with the rest of my pitching staff.

The answer to this question will be mostly dependent on how your draft is progressing when Strasburg comes up. But I think it also matters regardless of context specifics. In general, I think pitching depth looks pretty good this year. It seems like it will be possible to put together a solid, reliable staff without spending too much money. The availability of quality SP might make me somewhat more inclined to take on a riskier proposition.

Put all of those factors together, and I’m guessing that I’d be willing to bid about $8 on Strasburg in a typical league. That’s not enough to ruin my season if things go wrong, but I think there’s a decent chance he’s worth it.

CAIRO’s latest update gives the Price Guide its first projection for the Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg:

4 W, 4.38 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 70 K, 76 IP

SG is going from college stats here, so this is still wildly speculative. The Price Guide indicates that a pitcher with those stats isn’t worth starting in most fantasy leagues, including NL-only leagues. It would be the kind of pitcher you draft for your bench, only to drop in April so you can pick up some guy who starts the season on an unexpected hot streak.

Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS gives a somewhat more optimistic look for Strasburg:

10 W, 4.18 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 113 K, 114 IP

That’s a draftable pitcher for late in a fantasy baseball draft. The IP make it hard to find a comparable, but that’s roughly what you might expect from Rich Harden or Chris Young. (They have injury risk, but Strasburg has risk as well.) It’s also not too far off from what you might expect from A.J. Burnett (with significantly fewer IP).

With Strasburg, of course, you’re not simply drafting a projected statline. There’s an enormous amount of upside, much more so than your typical 4.38 or 4.18 ERA pitcher. That upside is obvious for those in keeper leagues, but is it worth anything in 2010?

What do you think? Let’s say you’re in a 12 team, standard redraft league and have $260 to spend. If your draft were held today, what would you pay for Stephen Strasburg?

And you can’t say, “I wouldn’t draft him because someone else would pay more.” How cheap would he have to come for you to bid on him?

I’ll give my answer tomorrow.

Here are CHONE’s 2010 projections for three very similar-looking starting pitchers:

Pitcher A – 3.96 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 150 K, 168 IP
Pitcher B – 3.89 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 165 K, 183 IP
Pitcher C – 3.85 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 174 K, 187 IP

Pitcher C is World Series hero and fantasy mainstay Josh Beckett. Pitcher B is two-time Cy Young winner Johan Santana. Pitcher A, of course, is Colby Lewis.

Colby Lewis? Really?

Lewis has spent the last two years playing for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp in Japan’s NPB league. He was recently inked by the Texas Rangers to fill out their rotation. Before his time in NPB, he was a top prospect for Texas who managed some unimpressive MLB stats from 2004-2007. In Japan, however, he became a new pitcher:

2008 – 15 W, 2.68 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 183 K, 173 IP
2009 – 11 W, 2.96 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 186 K, 176.3 IP

CHONE takes those awesome Japanese stats and tempers them considerably; the sub-3.00 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP are lost in the translation. Even taking quite a bit off of his NPB stats, Lewis looks like a very good player in MLB.

Before you get too excited abut Colby Lewis, though, I’ll make a few cautionary observations:

1. CHONE hates Santana as much as it loves Lewis.

The comparison of Colby Lewis to Johan Santana is not just a statement about Lewis, but also about Santana. CHONE is projecting a 3.89 ERA for Santana, and he hasn’t topped 3.33 in the past eight years.

Apparently there needs to be a separate post to examine what to expect from Johan Santana in 2010. So that comparison is more for shock-value than for balanced analysis. Guys like Matt Garza and James Shields are the sorts of guys we really expect to have a 3.90 ERA with lots of strikeouts, and they are probably a better benchmark for Lewis.

2. Not all projections love Colby Lewis.

ZiPS isn’t on this site for 2010, but it is considerably less optimistic for Lewis:

11 W, 4.39 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 128 K, 176.3 IP

That’s still above replacement level, on par with end-game picks like Gavin Floyd and Andy Pettitte. ZiPS appears to be putting less weight on his Japanese stats and more on his undistinguished MLB-career.

This raises an important question: Which is more indicative — recent stats in a non-MLB context or MLB stats from three or four years ago? Colby Lewis in 2010 could be an important data point in this discussion.

3. Translating Japanese stats is an imperfect exercise.

While MLB-NPB translations are based on how the switch impacted other players, it is still hit-or-miss. The Japanese game is simply different than what is played in North America, and skills that were valuable in one league might not help in the other.

However, the track record for CHONE has been pretty good on recent imports Hiroki Kuroda, Kenshin Kawakami, and Koji Uehara. These were pitchers who looked like decent-not-great fantasy pitchers based on the projections, and who basically lived up to those expectations. The fact that a 2.90 pitcher like Lewis would be a 3.90 pitcher in MLB seems to indicate that the translation is being fairly conservative.

The bottom line: Lewis could come very cheapily in 2010 drafts, as long as the hype on him doesn’t build. Magazines that have an early print date probably won’t be aware of him, and that means that there are probably several people in your league who won’t be aware of him, either. There’s also no $51 million posting fee to create the buzz like what surrounded Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Even using the more pessimistic ZiPS, I feel pretty good about paying at least $5-6 for Colby Lewis. At that price, it’s not a big deal to cut him if he doesn’t work out. If it turns out CHONE is right, then that’s a cheap bet that could pay huge dividends.

One of the most exciting parts about baseball projections are the projections for the minor leaguers. Here we get a chance to see what just about every professional player could do if he were given a full season in the majors.

For the most part, translating the stats for minor league players shows that even the best prospects wouldn’t be impact players for fantasy. The one skill that translates well to the majors is speed, and so there are quite a few young players that look like they could steal 30-60 bases if given a chance in the majors.

Looking over the current values on the Price Guide, here are a few names that stand out as SB-threats:

Eric Young (2B, OF – COL)
CHONE thinks Eric Young Jr. could nab 39 bases in 2010, while CAIRO puts him down for 52! (ZiPS splits the difference with 45 SB.) He is coming off a 58 SB year in Triple-A, so those numbers are quite attainable.

His fantasy value is also aided by playing in Colorado and by being eligible at middle infield. Both projections have him as about an $18 player this year in standard leagues, in the ballpark of guys like Evan Longoria, Lance Berkman, and B.J. Upton. I’m trying to temper my expectations, but that would be incredible.

Best of all, it looks like he’s going to be given the chance to start 2010 with the big-league club as a utility player (2B, 3B, and OF). That was a role that worked well last year for Ian Stewart (who, as projected, quietly put up a solid fantasy season in 2009).

Stewart also played a valuable role as the Player Most Likely to be on My Fantasy Teams, and I’m guessing that Eric Young will play that part this year. For lots of steals without killing the other categories and great positional eligibility I’m ready to go into double-digits for Young. I doubt anyone will be pushing me up to $20, but the projections think he will be worth it even so.

Julio Borbon (OF – TEX)
Julio Borbon is another speedy player that the projections love. He’s pegged for 34 (CHONE), 35 (CAIRO), or 41 (ZiPS) SB. He’s not yet expected to be the hitter that Young is, so his projected fantasy value is around the upper single-digits.

The big impact for Borbon is the Cubs signing Marlon Byrd to a 3/$15 deal this offseason, which frees up a spot in the Texas OF for Borbon. The current plan is for him to be the starting CF and leadoff hitter for the Rangers, and that could be very good for his fantasy value.

Michael Brantley (OF – CLE)
Michael Brantley’s name may be familiar as one of the prospects Milwaukee gave up for their late-season rental of CC Sabathia back in 2008. There’s a possibility that he is the starting LF for the Indians in 2010, and that would give him a chance at 30+ SB. The rest of his game is not quite fantasy-worthy, but he could be a valuable guy on the bench and as a keeper after this year.

Eric Patterson (2B, OF – OAK)
Patterson could be a 10-30 player in 2010 — basically Shane Victorino with less batting average. It’s not clear yet if the A’s have a place for him (and his questionable defense) on the diamond. Depending on how things are looking this spring, he could be worth a late flier.

Other possibilities for 30+ stolen bases don’t look like they offer enough with the bat to get a starting gig with a major-league team. Some names for those who are panning for gold include:

Eugenio Velez (2B, OF – SF)
Freddy Guzman (OF – NYY)
Jason Bourgeois (OF – HOU)
Tony Campana (OF – CHC)
Josh Anderson (OF – CIN)
Eric Farris (2B – MIL)