Five NL Starters You Shouldn’t Draft
Every year, a number of starting pitchers get drafted higher than they should because of their successful performances the year prior. Call me crazy, but I tend to avoid these pitchers. Why? Because the expected cost outweighs the projected output. Instead, I set my sights on pitchers still on the upswing, and even a few coming off disappointing seasons who are likely to bounce back.
Not every pitcher can be Roy Halladay or CC Sabathia, guys who can actually sustain their peaks across multiple years. But that doesn’t stop owners from latching onto a pitcher following a big season, or even an outlier season, hoping that said pitcher has established a new talent level. In most cases, though, the wave has already crested.
This strategy gets tricky because it requires: 1) distinguishing between pitchers still capable of better and those about to take a step back; and 2) accepting that there are simply some pitchers you won’t own come draft day. The five below fall into that category for me this year.
My cohort Mr. Podhorzer covered some lower-level overvalued players earlier today, but here are five candidates who rank a bit higher. As a bonus, I’ve included a pair of lower-tiered options (by RotoGraphs standards) that could provide better value.
In short, let other owners grab these guys.
Mat Latos, Padres RHP
The Padres ace busted out in a big way last year, joining some elite company, as colleague Mr. Axisa noted. But Latos is pretty much the poster boy for this, well, post for a few reasons. First, his innings increased by more than 60 from 2009 to 2010, a jump that typically signals an adjustment is coming. (Familiar with the Verducci Effect, right?). In fact, it started to show at the end of 2010, when Latos clearly tired from the workload even though San Diego tried to limit his innings: Over his final seven starts, he went 1-5 with a 5.66 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP. On top of that, Latos’ team is unlikely to repeat the success of last year—much of which is owed to him—meaning it will be harder to come by wins, giving him a smaller margin for error. And yet the righty is still a sexy pick, going as early as Round 6.
Alternative Options: Safer, more proven pitchers in better situations who have just as much upside in 2011, like Roy Oswalt or Yovani Gallardo.
Matt Cain, Giants RHP
Strike One: Owners have gone from long-underrating Cain (his 26-42 record from 2006-08 had a lot to do with it) to overcompensating by giving him too much fantasy love this year. Strike Two: He threw a career-high 244 and 2/3 innings last year, and while he actually had a 0.00 postseason ERA and is a genuine 200-inning horse, Cain has now piled up a whopping 1,070+ innings over five seasons. Do you want to gamble in Round 8 that he can tack on another 200 and have a career year? Strike Three: Really, still? Then allow me to point out that the guy is dealing with elbow inflammation this spring.
Alternative Options: Chad Billingsley or Matt Garza, two still-underrated workhorses with less wear and tear and tendencies to dominate for stretches.
Tim Hudson, Braves RHP
This is no knock on Hudson, who couldn’t care less about this sort of thing, but he is the prototype better-in-real-life-than-in-fantasy pitcher. Look, his 2.83 ERA and 1.15 WHIP from 2010 are shiny, as are his 17 wins. What’s not? His K/9, which was 5.5 last season and hasn’t topped 6.0 since Moneyball came out. Now that pitching is plentiful and oodles of starters can help bring down your ERA and WHIP, Hudson’s skill set is no longer as valuable, especially in leagues that use strikeout rate as a category or have an innings cap, thus making K/9 more of a focus. A year ago, owners could sneak Huddy with late-round pick (remember, he only made seven starts in 2009 while returning from TJ surgery), but now, he’s going in Rounds 12-14.
Alternative Options: Hiroki Kuroda‘s similarly sturdy ERA and WHIP—and slightly higher K/9—will be available a few rounds later, as should the “other” Hudson, Daniel, who may be primed for a breakout as a D-back.
Jaime Garcia, Cardinals LHP
Another innings increaser. Except in Garcia’s case, the hike alone—125 and 2/3 innings!—should scare the bejesus out of you. Paired with the fact that the Cardinals can’t afford to limit the 24-year-old’s innings like they did at times last season—losing Adam Wainwright‘s 230 will do that—and things get even more frightening. While there are positives here, like his 55.9% ground ball rate, Garcia’s splits (1.74 ERA and 1.15 WHIP at home vs. 3.82 and 1.51 on the road, which jibe with ESPN’s park factors for Busch Stadium) indicate we may be looking at merely a very good spot starter rather than a potential stud-in-the-making. You should shoot for more than that with a mid-round pick.
Alternative Options: Jorge de la Rosa and Anibal Sanchez have their flaws, but they offer upside—de la Rosa has a 9.0 K/9 rate since 2008, while Sanchez’s improving fastball could hint at bigger things to come—and both can be drafted later.
Bronson Arroyo, Reds RHP
How does Arroyo do it? Over the past three seasons, he’s picked up 47 wins with a 4.25 ERA and 1.28 WHIP. Spiffy digits, especially in NL-only leagues. He consistently outperforms his xFIP by half a run or more, owing to his typically low BABIPs (.239 in 2010 was MLB’s second-lowest). That suggests this wily vet knows a thing or three about making hitters get themselves out—after all, his strikeouts plummeted to 5.05/9—while tossing 88 mph fastballs, lots of change-ups (career-high 25% last year) and plenty of other junk. Still, as a pitcher with this profile is wont to do, Arroyo also walks a very thin line between mastery and disastery. If he tricks enough hitters again, you’re missing out on a mid-3s ERA and strong WHIP available as late as Round 20, but if he proves more fool and less gold, at least you won’t have to worry about spending a month recovering from one bad outing.
Alternative Options: Owners have trouble trusting Javier Vazquez
after A Bronx Fail: Part 2 or Jason Hammel and his cringe-worthy surface stats, but either would be a better upside play this late.
11
Garza and Billingsley must be ecstatic to be mentioned in the same sentence as Cain. Neither of them have even sniffed Cain’s level of success in any year of their careers.
I would be interested in some analysis of if the park factor adjustment for Garza outweighs the NL-switch? Does going from one of the most pitcher friendly parks (the trop) to one of the worst (wrigley) outweigh the lack of DH?
Cain’s elbow inflammation coupled with his workload is certainly cause for pause, and I respect Billingsley. Billz was a beast at times last year for long stretches last year. Having said that, the elbow issue seems to be a trivial concern so far. I think it’s pretty common for pitchers to have a twinge here and there and it not be anything serious.
I can see the Billz recommendation, especially if he’s available later in the draft. Garza in no way should be mentioned in the same class as Matt Cain, especially pitching in that park. He shouldn’t have a big regression from TB, but it’s also unlikely he’ll be much better.
Cain and Billingsley are pretty remarkably comparable.
Both are big righties drafted in the middle of the first round out of high school by NL West teams. Both dominated the minors and were top 10 overall prospects according to BA by the end of their time in the minors. Both have outperformed their xFIP significantly due to lower than normal HR/FB rates.
Career numbers:
Billingsley has a 3.55 ERA, 3.68 FIP, and 4.05 xFIP in 825 innings.
Cain has a 3.45 ERA, 3.84 FIP, and 4.43 xFIP in 1095 innings.
Billingsley gets more strikeouts, Cain has better command, and Billingsley gets more ground balls, but their profile is still very comparable.
The fact that mentioning Billingsley alongside Cain engenders this kind of reaction among many fans is EXACTLY the point of articles like these. Cain and Billingsley are very similar, but the perception of them is very different. This is precisely what makes Billingsley a better value in fantasy. He is available later and is a good bet to produce similar output.
What he said.
“Neither of them have even sniffed Cain’s level of success in any year of their careers.”
To add on to your excellent response, I’d point out that Bills has exceeded 4 WAR in a season twice in his career, something Cain’s yet to do.
now compare them using rally’s war (available on b-ref).
Billz is a better pitcher in real life than in fantasy. WHIP is the most predictive fantasy stat, especially H2H leagues, so I stay away from pitchers with a high WHIP. Over the past 3 years Cain has been much better than Billingsley in fantasy production.
“a very thin line between mastery and disastery…”
Bravo.
Jaimie Garcia over De Le Rosa. belee dat
Or both.
My pitching line to start the season (in one of two league – the other is an injury-filled nightmare) is looking pretty sweet with Garcia, De La Rosa, Matt Harrison, and Jeremy Guthrie.
29.1 IP, 28 K, 6 BB, 0.31 ERA, 0.68 WHIP, 1.30 tERA.
This is a cheap rotation that won’t perform like this all year, but OMG.
I agree on the Latos recommendations. Stay away!
I can see Kuroda being of equal or slightly better value as Tim Hudson, but Daniel Hudson is a wildly speculative option.
I really like Garcia’s combination of GB tendency and K rate. I think he can keep it going. DLR is just too inconsistent and pitches in Coors Field, no thank you. Sanchez is wildly speculative.
I addressed Cain above.
I’ve never been a huge Arroyo fan, but Vasquez and Hammel don’t do anything for me either.
I’m not going to say you are wrong with Latos, we’ll let his performance determine that, but you are wront to say he tired at the end of the year. If you look back at those last 7 starts and the news tidbits you’ll notice that he had a mechanical issue for 2 starts and over his last 3 starts he put it back together again once they fixed it. He wasn’t dominant but he wasn’t horrible either.
Also you fail to mention he still had a great 39/8 k/bb over those final 7 starts. It’s 2 horrible starts and a small sample size more then him tiring, sorry.
Agree that it was mostly two poor starts that knocked his numbers around in September. But I guess I simply choose not to ignore that in this case. Maybe the reason for his mechanical issue was related to fatigue, causing him to alter his motion or release point or whatever it was.
All in all, I actually really like Latos, and he’s a guy I’d target in keeper leagues. I just think in one-year leagues, you need to be all-in on him this season if you are going to even sniff a chance to get him at drafts or auctions. I’m not.
I agree with Odditie.
You say Latos wore out and was only 1-5 with a 5.66ERA in his last 7 starts/35innings pitched. However, during that stretch he had a 2.65FIP, 10.03K/9, and 2.06BB/9. He had some bad luck with a .393BABIP and almost half the guys reaching base were scoring on him. I disagree with your assessment and will happily draft Latos.
Oh sweet I already drafted both Latos and Garcia in my slow draft. Of course I also drafted Bailey and Domonic Brown sooooo…
So should the Cardinals have limited Garcia to 67 innings last year?
Who with a brain actually follows the causation=correlation crock that is the Verducci effect anyways?
Actually, they did a solid job handling him last year, considering they needed all hands—and arms—on deck during a pennant race they didn’t drop out of until the last few weeks of the season, at which point they shut him down. But Garcia had thrown 100+ innings three times in the minors prior to his surgery. I just think he’ll pay for the increase this year.
Who was going to draft Bronson Arroyo?
Kinda my point, but Yahoo! has him going in the 21st round. ESPN: No. 214 overall = 18th-21st. Not to mention, he’ll be owned in every NL-only.
The Verducci Effect, to me, is very misleading. Overuse as I see it would have more to do with a) pitches and not innings and b) high leverage situations vs not and c) and rest in between. I’d imagine playoff innings take a much larger toll on the body. And for some, their starts may even be pushed up, causing further strain on the arm over tie. I bet you’ll also find that pitchers with better control are less prone to the “effect”, because of less strain per use (per inning). I’d expect it would take many more innings to truly wear them down vs guys who are inefficient with their pitches.
I’m not really a big believer of the Verducci Effect but I don’t think anyone can deny that Latos is an injury risk. For as long as I can remember him as a prospect he’s been labeled an injury risk. And he earned that label by missing parts of 2008 and 2009 with injuries.
On the positive, he has almost everything you look for in a young pitcher. He’s got great stuff, greats stats with great peripherals everywhere he’s been, pitches at Petco and he pitches in the NL. Unfortunately everybody knows this and he’s being overdrafted currently.
i’m not buying this overdrafted bit, all the talented ‘sure things’ are off the board by round 8-9 (pretty much all positions not just pitchers) …
you have to draft someone.
Latos and Cain seem like decent picks (ie not old, really talented, nice stat history) when you see who else is left and you’re look for a #2-#3 SP . the Alt’s mentioned above all have ugly spots, Oswalt isn’t getting younger, has a tough home park and arm troubles of his own in the past, Gallardo’s WHIP is an issue (this is rotographs after all and WHIP counts in most leagues) and his own injury history, Billingsley can outright lose control of his stuff, which anyone who’s owned him can vouch for and the dodger lineup isn’t looking all that special atm, and Garza… he shouldn’t even be in the conversation with any of the above mentioned pitchers, definately a tier below imo.
everyone is saying that pitching is deep this year and available late but, do you really want a staff of Chacin’s, Kennedy’s, & Volzquez’s, after you get your ace? sure it might pay off but, look at the bats you can get in the same part of the draft as Cain/Latos are going in : Konerko, Hart, C & D Young’s, Stubbs, Prado and a bunch of other uninspiring picks… I don’t see anything wrong with taking Latos here, his ceiling hasn’t been established yet and his stuff is filthy, to say his upside is the same as Oswalt’s is a stretch
This might be the worst article I’ve seen posted on here. Latos will be a stud. Matt Cain is way better than the alternatives listed. Tim Hudson is dependable but nothing special. Same for Arroyo. And with Garcia your taking your late risks on upside and improvement. None of these guys are wildly overpriced and are all draftable at their going rate.
Mattsd thinks Cain and Billz are similar? The only thing similar about them is their road to the majors, and their physical build.
Their style of pitching is completely different, and the output you will get from them on your fantasy team is completely different. One will provide you with a strong K-rate, but a lot of walks. The other will provide you with a lesser k-rate, but better control.
I don’t see a lot of similarities in the way they pitch…you’re pretty off base there.
I’m not seeing how you’re not seeing it.
You mentioned K rates and walk rates, right? Well, here are their career stats in those cats, as well as their 2010 seasons:
Billingsley
Career: K/9 = 8.2; BB = 3.9
2010: K/9 = 8.0 ; BB = 3.2
Cain
Career: K/9 = 7.4; BB = 3.4
2010: K/9 = 7.1; BB = 2.5
So in the most general sense, you were correct when you said:
“One will provide you with a strong K-rate, but a lot of walks. The other will provide you with a lesser k-rate, but better control.” But frankly, last year was the first time Cain’s walk rate was sub-3, so I don’t know if he’s a control fiend just yet.
But as far as getting “completely different” output from them—even their wins totals are similar (in full seasons, Billingsley is averaging 13 Ws per; Cain 11 Ws per)—maybe you’d like to point out some other categories where this is true?
Whether you agree with the Verducci effect or not- the jump in innings is a flag with Latos. However to say that he clearly tired is flat out misinformation. He suffered from some bad luck. His k/9 as well as his bb/9 continued to be excellent, he still kept the ball on the ground and in the park, the only thing that seemed to change were his hit rates and strand rates, and thus less batters faced per game.
Drafting Latos seems to be a question of how risk averse you are and who else you have rostered, as well as what your league parameters are. He will not go cheap, but other than the innings spike and the fact this will only be his 2nd full season there are no indications he cannot at least duplicate 2010.
Avoid a Pitcher who posted four straight months of 10 k/9 and 2.5 BB/9 to end the season? Mat Latos is the man, you are not (and neither is Tom Verdouchey).
Good analysis…
So, how about that Latos, and his 2 mph dropoff?
I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this article — every time Latos pitched especially — because of the response it got. And even while taking into account that we’ve only made it through two months of the season (or a little less than a third), I have to say that the only guy I was totally off on among the five I listed is Jaime Garcia. Yes, there’s time for some of the others to turn their seasons around or pick up their rates, etc. But the basic idea — these five won’t wind up being good values at your draft — still holds up. At least I think so.
Garcia has, if possible, been better than he was last season, which was something I did not expect. So hats off to him — and owners who bought in. I missed, plain and simple. Still my suggestions of Anibal Sanchez and Jorge de la Rosa (until he got hurt for the season yesterday) were at least proving to be very good in both performance and value.
The rest? Cain has been pretty much his typical self — a rotation stalwart — but he’s certainly no more than a good No. 3 fantasy SP in shallow leagues. So I don’t feel that bad telling owners to avoid him in favor of Billingsley and Garza, who could still outperform Cain going forward based on all three pitchers’ peripherals, especially Ks.
Tim Hudson has been exactly what I thought: Solid enough pitcher but the lack of Ks in this pitching-heavy environment completely limits his value. Kuroda and Dan Hudson have both been markedly better, especially Hudson, who was a gamble — as DrBGiantsfan mentioned — but one that has paid off nicely.
Arroyo has really fallen on hard times, so even though my recommendation of Javy Vazquez — who looks to be done, sadly — was totally unhelpful to owners, Arroyo himself is just as droppable in most leagues. And Jason Hammel hasn’t been that bad, if not always startable.
And well, Latos. Yeah, that happened. His underlying numbers still aren’t so bad, but his current fantasy value is that of a complete buy low candidate who you have to either stick with and hope he turns things around enough to be an SP 3/4 or trade for 50 cents on the dollar. As for Oswalt and Gallardo, I still hold out hope that they’ll be good-to-great at times — and certainly a better draft-day value than Latos.
Can’t say I didn’t warn you. Or at least try to.
Jason,
Before dealing for Garcia I was trying to recall why I was so low on him during the draft and I think the innings jump you mention is exactly why. It’s pretty cool that you came back and reviewed your list now that there are some results. Since the player pages link to articles it would seem like more authors would do this at FanGraphs.
I pity the fool who drafted Bills over Cain.
1 out of 5 ain’t bad huh. Just drop the “n’t” off the title and noon will notice how dead wrong you were!
EDGY SMART and Christian:
Couple things, fellas.
1) EDGY SMART: Please read the column. I never said you should draft Billingsly over Cain. Rather, I said that you could wait and draft Billingsley a handful of rounds later and get similar production. Yes, that ended up being a poor call on my part.
2) Christian: I think you’ve got the numbers backward. If you held off on going after Mat Latos, Tim Hudson, Jaime Garcia and Bronson Arroyo, and instead waited to draft the guys I suggested as secondary options — Gallardo, Daniel Hudson, Hiroki Kuroda, Anibal Sanchez and Javy Vazquez — you would’ve gotten anywhere from a little more to a lot more value out of your picks. And even with Matt Cain, while I missed on Billinsgley, if you’d waited to take Matt Garza later, the value was pretty good.
(and instead drafted Gallardo later), Tim Hudson (and taken Daniel Hudson or Hiroki Kuroda several rounds later), Jaime Garcia