SubscribeLast year, I did a series of articles looking at pitchers who met the qualifications for the LIMA Plan. For those who may be unfamiliar with the strategy, LIMA stands for Low Investment Mound Aces, and it’s a strategy to get SP with good skills on the cheap so that you can spend more on hitters. You target cheap players who have a K/BB over 2.00, a K/9 above 6.00, and a HR/9 below 1.00.
After throwing out the obviously good pitchers (Lincecum, Halladay, Sabathia, Santana, etc.) who wouldn’t come cheap, I found 17 LIMA pitchers for 2009, and I broke them down into categories based on the 2009 projections. Here they are again, with their 2008 actual values, 2009 projected values, and 2009 actual values:
Already Good, Could Be Great
| Player | 08 Act. | 09 Proj | 09 Act |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Beckett | $10 | $22 | $18 |
| Matt Cain | $2 | $18 | $21 |
| A.J. Burnett | $9 | $19 | $6 |
| Joba Chamberlain | $8 | $17 | -$5 |
| Felix Hernandez | $4 | $16 | $32 |
True LIMA Pitchers Projected to Improve
| Player | 08 Act. | 09 Proj | 09 Act |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Sanchez | -$6 | $3 | $4 |
| Kevin Millwood | -$14 | -$4 | $7 |
| Andy Pettitte | -$2 | $3 | $5 |
LIMA Pitchers with No Projected Improvement
| Player | 08 Act. | 09 Proj | 09 Act |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adam Wainwright | $10 | $9 | $28 |
| Matt Garza | $7 | $8 | $9 |
| Gil Meche | $6 | $5 | -$8 |
| Paul Maholm | $4 | $1 | -$4 |
| Randy Wolf | $0 | -$2 | $20 |
| Wandy Rodriguez | $6 | $2 | $19 |
| Jorge De La Rosa | -$4 | -$7 | $8 |
LIMA Pitchers Projected to do Worse
| Player | 08 Act. | 09 Proj | 09 Act |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Lester | $13 | $2 | $20 |
| John Danks | $13 | $1 | $10 |
With hindsight, we might split them up like this, instead:
Better than Expected
| Player | 09 Proj | 09 Act |
|---|---|---|
| Randy Wolf | -$2 | $20 |
| Adam Wainwright | $9 | $28 |
| Jon Lester | $2 | $20 |
| Wandy Rodriguez | $2 | $19 |
| Felix Hernandez | $16 | $32 |
| Jorge De La Rosa | -$7 | $8 |
| Kevin Millwood | -$4 | $7 |
| John Danks | $1 | $10 |
Met Expectations
| Player | 09 Proj | 09 Act |
|---|---|---|
| Matt Cain | $18 | $21 |
| Andy Pettitte | $3 | $5 |
| Matt Garza | $8 | $9 |
| Jonathan Sanchez | $3 | $4 |
| Josh Beckett | $22 | $18 |
Worse than Expected
| Player | 09 Proj | 09 Act |
|---|---|---|
| Paul Maholm | $1 | -$4 |
| Gil Meche | $5 | -$8 |
| A.J. Burnett | $19 | $6 |
| Joba Chamberlain | $17 | -$5 |
On the whole, that seems like a very good performance. Almost half of the pitchers did significantly better than projected. Another five met their projections, which was still an improvement over what they had done in 2008. Only 5 out of 17 players did worse than projected, and really only 3 (Meche, Burnett, and Chamberlain) would count as disappointments.
Those results are both surprising and pleasing. I really expected the projections to recognize that pitchers with solid peripherals would improve, but they still undersold most of these guys. And it’s exciting to think of what can be applied for fantasy drafts in 2010.
Tommorrow: What lessons can we learn from 2009?
Related posts:
I think it’s also important to remember that Lester and Danks were hard to project last year. Lester due mostly to a poor sample size and Danks due to a change in his pitching style.
There’s a lesson there in thinking about how you look at the projections. Danks did pretty much what he did in ’08, and Lester continued his ’08 growth in coming back from cancer.
Surprising that Edwin Jackson is not on this list, I was able to get him and De La Rosa for $1 each last year.
@Molson: The hard thing about Lester and Danks is that it seemed most observers (other than the projections here) expected them to improve or at least maintain their 2008 seasons. The projections, on the other hand, couldn’t get past poor 2007 seasons and predicted both of them to get worse.
@HustlinOwl: Jackson had occasionally flashed good strikeout rates, but the 5.30 K/9 that he put up in 2008 wasn’t good enough to meet the LIMA qualifications. He’s also been too homer-prone (the cutoff is 1.00 HR/9) throughout his career, including in 2009.
But LIMA’s not trying to identify the conditions surrounding every breakout pitcher; it’s trying to just form a small set that’s likely to improve.
I don’t know how much of a conclusion that you can draw from this list without comparing it to a control group.
@rwperu34: Consider this:
Let’s work with the pool of 72 SP that were projected above replacement level in 2009. The projected value for those 72 pitchers was $888, or $12 apiece.
In reality, they returned $468, or $7 per SP. (The other $400 or so in actual value came from pitchers projected below $1.)
So the population as a whole loses about $5 each, while this segment of 17 LIMA pitchers gains $4 each.
Here’s another one (I’m throwing these numbers together quickly, so there may be some minor errors. I think the point stands, regardless.)
There were 22 pitchers (out of the 72 projected above replacment) that beat their projection in 2009. That’s about 31%, and that’s including these LIMA pitchers. Throw out the 12 LIMAs above replacement, and it’s 23% (14 of 60).
Of these LIMA pitchers, 8 of 12 were projected above replacement and beat their projection. That’s 67%.
So:
Non-LIMA – 23% of SP beat projections
LIMA – 67% of SP beat projections
Total population – 31% of SP beat projections