SubscribeOver a decade ago, Ron Shandler introduced a strategy he called the LIMA Plan (Low Investment Mound Aces). The idea is simple — focus most of your money at the auction on acquiring top hitters and closers. Then add in a few cheap starters with strong peripheral stats. Specifically, look for:
K/BB above 2.0
K/9 above 6.0
HR/9 below 1.0
It’s a strategy that has continued to be suggested over the years, but does it really work? Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
More fantasy owners are aware of peripheral stats.
The fantasy game has changed since 1998, and one of the biggest changes has been the merger of statistical baseball analysis with fantasy baseball analysis. Ron Shandler himself has been one of the pioneers in this area as a whole statistical toolbox for evaluating players for fantasy has been added.
Fantasy players are more aware of some of the signs that a pitcher is ready to break out. Don’t expect the price on those players to fit with a “low investment” strategy.
5×5 leagues raise the price on LIMA starters
Shandler originally suggested the LIMA plan for 4×4 leagues — leagues that only count W, S, ERA, and WHIP. In a 4×4 league, owners aren’t necessarily concerned with the number of strikeouts a pitcher gets.
In 5×5, owners are already focused on high-strikeout pitchers so that they can compete in that category. With two of the three LIMA skills (K/9 and K/BB) affected by strikeouts, players that meet the qualifications will probably be highly valued by other owners, regardless of strategy. And that means you’ll have a hard time finding cheap starters that meet the qualifications.
Strikeouts, walks and homeruns are only part of the equation.
It is certainly valuable to look at how well a pitcher does at striking out batters, avoiding free passes, and preventing the long ball. However, those things aren’t the only indicators of future success.
More and more people are seeing the importance of also looking at how a pitcher does on balls that are put into play. Did a pitcher allow a high batting average on balls in play (BABIP) that is likely to drop this year? Is he able to induce hitters to hit groundballs? These other factors need to also be examined when looking for pitcher success.
With those caveats in place, I find the following pitchers who fit the LIMA qualifications for 2009. I’ve grouped them based on their dollar values in past years and what is projected for them this year:
Already Good, Could Be Great
Josh Beckett
Matt Cain
A.J. Burnett
Joba Chamberlain
Felix Hernandez
True LIMA Pitchers Projected to Improve
Jonathan Sanchez
Kevin Millwood
Andy Pettitte
LIMA Pitchers with No Projected Improvement
Adam Wainwright
Matt Garza
Gil Meche
Paul Maholm
Randy Wolf
Wandy Rodriguez
Jorge De La Rosa
LIMA Pitchers Projected to do Worse
Jon Lester
John Danks
We’ll continue this series by looking at each group in a little more detail.
Related posts:
Why do you project that Danks and Lester to do worse?
With Lester, the only stat of his that stands out as exceptionally low to me is HR/FB, which accounts for some of his low HR/9, but he get more grounders than flies so that shouldn’t jump too much.
And Danks is likely due for a rebound in his HR rate, but he should still be a solid pitcher at the price he’s going for.
But moreover, both pitchers are young and still improving. Danks is 24, Lester 25. What’s not to like?
Well, I don’t necessarily have an opinion one way or the other… I’m just going off of what other project, and what they all project is Lester and Danks both seeing at least a one run increase on their ERA.
I’ll break things down more in a separate post.