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LIMA 2010: Bouncebacks

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February 22nd, 2010 by Mays
Categories: LIMA, Sleepers

So far this year, we’ve examined how LIMA pitchers did in 2009 and looked at 2010’s LIMA candidates. Last week, we broke down the first grouping for 2010, LIMA pitchers who might not necessarily be low investments.

The next group of 2010’s LIMA candidates are pitchers who are primed to bounce back from a down year in 2009: Roy Oswalt, Chad Billingsley, Jake Peavy, and John Lackey.

Here are their ERAs in 2009:

Roy Oswalt 4.12
Chad Billingsley 4.03
Jake Peavy 3.45 (102 IP)
John Lackey 3.83

Fantasy owners tend to have short memories, focusing mostly on a question of “What have you done for me lately?” If people in your league focus only on 2009, these four pitchers may be available for cheap.

In contrast to your typical fantasy owner, projections recognize that players who have an abnormally good or bad year tend to regress back to their established level of performance. That gives some reason for optimism for these pitchers. There’s still risk:

Roy Oswalt is getting old, and his strikeout rate has never been dominant. The 2010 Astros are shaping up as a terrible offensive team that could struggle to get him wins.

Chad Billingsley walks a lot of guys. With a consistent 1.30+ WHIP, the 4.03 ERA of 2009 seems more appropriate than the 3.14 ERA from 2008.

Jake Peavy is leaving the favorable PETCO Park in San Diego where he had put up ERAs in the 2.00’s for several years. He will spend 2010 in a much less-favorable park for the White Sox. Plus, he managed a 4.09 ERA stinker even with the Padres.

John Lackey is now two years removed from the excellent 3.01 ERA year he had in 2007, posting a 3.75 and 3.83 in the past two years. He also moves to a very tough AL East.

No doubt, there’s risk involved with all four of these pitchers. With strong peripheral stats, however, there’s also the possibility of a big payoff in 2010.

CHONE’s Best Bargains

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February 21st, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Other Sites, Sleepers

Andrew at Fantasy Ball Junkie points out what he finds to be the best fantasy bargains for 2010, according to the CHONE projections:

1. Eric Young
2. Russell Martin
3. David Ortiz
4. Julio Borbon
5. Jeff Francouer
6. Melky Cabrera
7. Delmon Young
8. BJ Upton
9. Magglio Ordonez
10. Jose Reyes

A couple of names (Eric Young Jr., Julio Borbon) also popped up on my SB sleeper list earlier this year. Many of the rest are guys who had a down year in 2009. Even though fantasy owners tend to focus solely on last year’s results, projections remind us that players tend to return to their established level of performance.

That could be good news for those willing to take a risk on Russell Martin, David Ortiz, B.J. Upton, or Jose Reyes.

Rick Porcello Takes the Next Step

2 Comments
February 18th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

I’m confident that Rick Porcello will take the next step in 2010. The real question is whether that next step will be a step forward or a step backward.

After only one year in the minors, Porcello managed this MLB line in 2009:

14 W, 3.96 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 89 K, 170.2 IP

That’s pretty good for a 20 year-old rookie, good enough for a $5-6 value last year. But the predictions for 2010 are…pretty divided. Let’s take a look at the negatives first:

Rick Porcello takes a step back in 2010.
(CHONE: 5 W, 5.08 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, 69 K, 124 IP)

Someone recently pointed out to me that Porcello’s projection wasn’t showing up on the Price Guide. After a little digging, I found that that wasn’t quite true: Porcello is on the Price Guide for 2010, but he doesn’t rank in the top 250 pitchers that are shown by default. The reason why is nicely illustrated by CHONE’s projection above.

With a 5.00 ERA, Porcello winds up in the -$16 range for standard league. Why the pessimism for a pitcher who finished 2009 with an ERA below 4.00? Most likely it comes from Porcello’s very low strikeout rates over his two professional seasons. With so few strikeouts, there will be lots of balls put in play. More balls in play means more hits and more runs, and that’s going to show up in his WHIP and ERA.

Even without the impact on ERA/WHIP, it’s hard for a pitcher with so few strikeouts to be valuable in 5×5 fantasy. That projected line above presents no redeemable qualities for fantasy.

Rick Porcello takes a step forward in 2010.
(Fans: 12 W, 4.10 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 110 K, 180 IP)

What the projections don’t know, however, is that Porcello is a somewhat unique pitcher. He’s a first round pick who has shot straight to the majors, which means he’s at least impressed some people — bad pitchers don’t jump from A-ball to the majors.

Mike at THT Fantasy makes a comparison with Ben Sheets. Like Porcello, Sheets was a 1st round pick who wasted little time in the minors. Although he started off his major league career with middling K/9 numbers, Sheets’s strikeout-rates improved and he turned into a very good MLB pitcher. It’s not an exact comparison, but it shows that it’s possible for Porcello to improve.

That’s the sort of thinking that is influencing the fan projections above. There’s a little bit of decline in rate stats, but that’s compensated by an improved K/9.

So what can we expect from Rick Porcello in 2010? I’m not making any bold predictions, but I will say that the potential downside makes him a risky pitcher to draft this year.

LIMA 2010: Not Necessarily Low Investments

2 Comments
February 15th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: LIMA, Sleepers

As we look at 2010’s LIMA candidates, let’s start off by looking at some guys who meet the statistical LIMA qualifications, but probably miss the “low investment” requirement. They were good enough last year that they aren’t going to come cheap. However, there’s still room for them to take another step forward in 2010, much like LIMA-qualifiers Felix Hernandez and Matt Cain did in 2009.

The pitchers in this group for 2010 are:

Josh Johnson
Jair Jurrjens
Wandy Rodriguez
Clayton Kershaw
Tommy Hanson

With the LIMA strategy, you’re obviously going to be passing on the big names (Halladay, Sabathia, Greinke, etc.) so that you can use that money for hitting. But maybe you can still target one of these guys as your staff ace. You can get similar production as you would from the household names in the top-tier, but at a bit better price.

With this tier of LIMA pitchers, there’s both good news and bad news. The good news: All of them were very good in 2009, although Hanson’s limited innings pitched capped his value a bit. The bad news: They are all projected for significant decline in 2010.

While I know the math behind the projections is — on the whole — solid, I can’t help but feel that these pitchers are being underestimated a little. Take a look at the projected ERA’s compared to last year:

2009 Actual ERA
Josh Johnson 3.23
Jair Jurrjens 2.60
Wandy Rodriguez 3.02
Clayton Kershaw 2.79
Tommy Hanson 2.89
Average 2.91

2010 Projected ERA
Josh Johnson 3.47
Jair Jurrjens 3.71
Wandy Rodriguez 3.74
Clayton Kershaw 3.65
Tommy Hanson 4.17
Average 3.74

Does that seem a little pessimistic to anyone else? They are projected to give up the same number of earned runs in 2010 as in 2009 (300) while pitching 200 fewer innings, and the result is an average ERA jump from 2.91 to 3.74!

One good sign for their future is that adding ZiPS would make these projections all a little brighter — across the board increases in IP and a significant improvement in ERA for Hanson, Kershaw, and Jurrjens. Based on last year’s results where the projections tended to miss the improvements made by LIMA pitchers, I’m going to err on the optimistic side this year.

So, no, I’m not going to stop bidding on Tommy Hanson at $5.

2010’s LIMA Candidates

2 Comments
February 8th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: LIMA, Sleepers

Last year, I highlighted 17 pitchers who showed signs of becoming very good pitchers in 2009: They struck guys out and limited the walks and homeruns. Despite these indicators of success, they were still priced cheaply enough to provide a good fantasy return on investment.

As we saw last week, 12 of those 17 pitchers improved on their 2008 marks in 2009. Felix Hernandez, Adam Wainwright, Matt Cain, Randy Wolf, and Jon Lester surged to greatness. Even players who the projections panned (John Danks, Wandy Rodriguez, Jorge De La Rosa) made a fantasy impact in 2009.

So let’s try the same thing for 2010. If 2009 is any guide, these are players whose skills may be a better indicator of future fantasy success than the projections on the Price Guide.

We’ll first eliminate the top tier of pitchers who meet the LIMA qualifications — LIMA is about building a cheap staff and Roy Halladay and Zack Greinke aren’t coming cheap. It’s interesting that several names from last year’s list (the aforementioned Hernandez, Wainwright, Lester, and Cain) have graduated into the top fantasy tier.

We’re left with the following 18 pitchers with K/BB >= 2, K/9 >= 6, HR/9 <= 1, and IP >= 100 in 2009:

Very Good and Probably Not Cheap
Josh Johnson
Jair Jurrjens
Wandy Rodriguez
Clayton Kershaw
Tommy Hanson

Known Commodities Off a Down Year
Roy Oswalt
Chad Billingsley
Jake Peavy
John Lackey

True LIMA Pitchers
Gavin Floyd
Ryan Dempster
Kevin Correia
Hiroki Kuroda
Jeff Niemann

Colorado Rockies
Ubaldo Jimenez
Jorge De La Rosa
Jose Contreras
Jason Hammel

(That’s right, the Colorado Rockies get their own tier of LIMA pitchers. Despite solid peripheral stats, the projections uniformly hate them all, presumably because of their home ballpark. Of course, the projections already missed once on De La Rosa last year, so take that how you will.)

We’ll break down those categories one at a time throughout the coming week.

The Strasburg Questions

5 Comments
January 27th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

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.

Where Would You Draft Stephen Strasburg for 2010?

9 Comments
January 26th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

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.

Johan Santana, Josh Beckett, and…Colby Lewis?

4 Comments
January 25th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

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.

Interesting Catcher Prospects

6 Comments
January 19th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Keepers, Projections, Sleepers

Last week, I pointed out some unexpected players who had positive fantasy values due to their speed and stolen base potential.

In combing through the Price Guide, there is a second set of relatively surprising players who show up above replacement level: Minor league catchers.

The problem here is twofold: First, the replacement level for catchers is really low, especially in leagues that start two of them. When a guy can hit .260 with 12 HR and be considered above average, you know it doesn’t take much offense to be above replacement.

The second issue is with the defense rigors of catching. There are quite a few guys in the minors who have a major-league quality bat for a catcher, but not a major-league glove. (Likewise, they could handle first base on defense, but their offense wouldn’t be worth it.) So they are stuck in the minors until their defense improves.

There’s no one as interesting as Matt Wieters was last year, but there are several of relatively unknown catchers who are showing up in positive territory:

J.R. House (KC – $5)
This one is a mystery to me. House is 30 years old and has just finished his third year in AAA. His 2007 and 2008 minor league stats look good, so I’m guessing that’s part of what is driving CHONE and CAIRO to both place this guy above replacement level (basically on par with Chris Iannetta).

Luckily, this projection is an enigma that shouldn’t cause much concern. House is buried on the Kansas City depth chart behind the newly-arrived Jason Kendall and returning favorite Brayan Pena.

Carlos Santana (CLE – $4)
Buster Posey (SF – $1)
Carlos Santana and Buster Posey have some similarities and are worth looking at together. Both are top prospects, and neither is really blocked by anyone on the major league roster. Cleveland traded off Victor Martinez (BOS) and Kelly Shoppach (TB) to free up a spot for Santana, and San Francisco let their incumbent, Bengie Molina, leave for free agency.

Now, it is possible that one or both of these teams will attempt to acquire a 1-year stopgap to give their prospects more time to develop (and to prevent them from accruing service time). That was the case last year with a somewhat better catching prospect in Baltimore, as the Orioles grabbed Gregg Zaun with the intent of easing in Matt Wieters. Even with the possibility of their teams bringing in a veteran, I’m still counting on an ETA for both of these guys sometime in 2010.

The projections are split on who they like better for 2010. CHONE ranks Posey a bit above replacement and Santana just below it. CAIRO places Santana about $12 higher than Posey, with one on either side of the replacement level. Posey has the better prospect pedigree of the two and probably the one I would favor as well.

I’d say that Wieters’s 2009 is about the best you can expect from Santana or Posey in 2010: Two-thirds of a year with about 10 HR and a not-deadly average. That’s a lower end starter in a two catcher league or a decent bench player for leagues starting one catcher.

Jesus Montero (NYY – $1)
Montero is the Yankees’ clear number one prospect, recently drawing a comparison from John Sickels to perrenial fantasy first-rounder Mike Piazza. Unfortunately, Montero is unlikely to see any time in 2010 with Jorge Posada entrenched as the starter and a couple of solid backups (Jose Molina and Francisco Cervelli) already in place. It’s possible that he could enter the picture in 2011 (the last year of Posada’s current contract) and potentially handle the lion’s share of starts in 2012.

All of that assumes he sticks at catcher, which isn’t a guarantee at this point. For 2010, despite already having 20 HR power, his only value is as a keeper.

Jonathan Lucroy (MIL – $2)
Angel Salome (MIL – $1)
We’ll tackle these two Milwaukee catchers together. Jason Kendall has moved on to Kansas City (see J.R. House above), which means Milwaukee should be trying out a new catcher in 2010. Interestingly, CHONE seems to prefer Salome to Lucroy, and CAIRO like Lucroy more than Salome.

The bottom line: Posey and Santana look like the main targets, guys clearly worth bidding on this year. Lucroy or Salome could be a $1 flyer in two-catcher leagues, depending on how the Brewers handle things. Montero is a 2011/2012 keeper only, and House is probably not worth targeting.

A couple of other names of interest that the projections like:

John Hester (ARI)
Tyler Flowers (CWS)
Michael McKenry (COL)

Interesting SB Prospects

3 Comments
January 14th, 2010 by Mays
Categories: Projections, Sleepers

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)

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