Roy Halladay and Risk
In 2004 and 2005, Roy Halladay missed significant time with first a shoulder injury and then a leg injury. Since then he’s started 31 or more games three consecutive years but some fantasy players still consider him an injury risk. That’s good news as it means that one of the top pitchers in the game doesn’t carry the cost that he could.
In 2008, Halladay led the American League in WHIP (1.053), finished second in Wins (20) and ERA (2.78) and third in strikeouts (206). Yet according to the latest rankings from Mock Draft Central, Halladay is the seventh pitcher off the board, with an ADP of 47 or 30 spots behind Johan Santana.
Last year, Halladay started throwing more cut fastballs. He got more swings outside of the zone and batters made less contact on those swings than they had previously against him. All of that led to a 7.54 K/9, his highest total for any season with more than 17 starts.
There is at least one big concern around Halladay. In 2008, manager John Gibbons let him throw nine complete games, which led to 246 innings, his highest total since 2003. The next year is when Halladay came down with his shoulder injury.
All pitchers carry risk. And perhaps Halladay has slightly more risk than others because of his past injury history. But according to the RotoTimes Player Rater, Halladay was the top pitcher in 2008 with a $34.14 earned dollar value, which was good for eighth overall. It’s up to each fantasy player to weigh the risk and the reward for each player and value them accordingly.
No one can accurately predict the risk of a pitcher coming down with an injury. But most people would say that it is less risky to have a 31-year-old pitcher throw 246 innings than a 26-year-old one throw 266, like Halladay did in 2003.
However, that is not the only risk that owners have to take with Halladay. While he was the top pitcher in 2008, he was outside the top 30 in 2007, when he made 31 starts. Was 2008 simply a career year for Halladay? It was certainly his best to date; but he also has a greater track record than just one season, as he was one of the game’s best in both 2003 and 2006 and was on pace in 2005 before the leg injury.
Fantasy players should look for certainty with their first few picks. But at some point you have to add risk and upside or you are certain to finish out of the money. So far this off-season, owners are saying Halladay’s risk becomes appropriate near the end of the fourth round.
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Well, in 2005, he was having a career year for career years. 2.41 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, ERA+ 184, 3.03 FIP, 6-1 K/BB, highest GB rate of his career. I’d say ‘crusing’ to another Cy Young. But he took a line drive off his leg in Texas (his cursed stadium) and missed the rest of the season. It’s hard to add that to the risk category IMO.
As far as high inning totals, hard to argue that. But, Halladay is a model of efficiency, limiting his pitch totals greatly, and sometimes finishing games with less than 100 pitches (for 9 innings). He pitches to contact, and regularly gets worm burners to the middle infielders (Jays defense has been solid for years).
My only worry is indeed the cutters, his 2007 was good, but average for Roy and I think the increase in cutters thrown from 05 (9%) to 06 (19%) was pretty huge as he was learning the new pitch. He looked ‘arm weary’ in 2007 though I’d say he is probably better adjusted now as his velocity was up on all of his offerings in 2008 and he looked great.
His increase in K’s looked like it was by design as opposed to flukey, I think he made a greater effort to throw slightly harder in 2008 and finish batters with his overhand curve a little more. Maybe AJ helped him in this regard throw a bit tighter snap dragon…
There isn’t another pitcher I want on the mound in a big game than Doc Halladay…
Thanks for your detailed and informative reply Matt!
The only thing I would quibble with is that Halladay being injured in back-to-back years does equal risk, regardless of how it happened. It’s fine if you want to say it was unlucky. I’d say the same thing with Nick Johnson breaking his leg while having a teammate plow into him while fielding a pop-up.
Nick Johnson carries more risk, because those unlucky things happen to him year after year while Halladay’s seems to be an isolated incident. But the fact that it happened the year after his shoulder injury causes some people to view him as a risk. I’m not passing judgment on the validity of that claim – I’m just saying that it exists.
Agreed. As good as Halladay has been, he could’ve been even better without some of these injuries, incidents. Even the start of his career was strange. A near no-hitter in his first career start until Bobby Higginson (is this guy still alive?) hit a 9th inning HR was followed by one of the worst seasons of all time as Halladay was still throwing completely ‘over the top’ or overhand.
Mel Queen reworked his delivery and arm angle and the product was forever improved thankfully.
He certainly carries risk, unfortunately. You just can’t look past those IPs. Although a 250 inning season for Roy is certainly less taxing than a 250 inning season for most other hurlers.
Great article, Brian! Thanks for a solid read.
I just wanted to throw some tasty nuggets of info your way:
While Doc finished 2nd with 243.2 IPs and 987 batters faced in ‘09, he finished with the third-fewest pitches per inning (14.5) behind only Greg Maddux and Paul Byrd. On top of all of this, he finished seventh overall in Ks with 204.
Talk about efficiency!
Roy’s total number of innings pitched could certainly seem alarming, however, I feel as if his pitch efficiency should put to rest the minds of the doubters.
Good stuff Michael!
To underscore Halladay’s efficiency, he threw 90 less pitches last year than Burnett over 27 more innings. No reason to think that last year’s workload should add any additional risk for 2009…
Thanks for blowing the cover on Halladay. I was enjoying getting him in the 5th round.
The other thing to keep in mind with the injuries is that his injury in 2005 was a grounder off the bat of Teixiera (I remember this vividly because I was watching one of my best hitters face off against my best pitcher, and Tex ended my fantasy year) which broke his shin. So this injury was completely fluky and not related to wear and tear, as the shoulder injury was.
See above…
Umm, Duggan,
I don’t mean to say you have a poor memory, but as a Jays fan I am 100% certain that it was in fact Kevin Mench, not Teixiera who ended Roy’s season in 2005.
As a Jays fan, I can agree with you 100%. It was Mench.
…not that that is really neither here nor there in regards to the point of the article, though.
Is there any evidence-based reason to think a fluky, non-arm/shoulder injury in the past constitutes greater risk for injury (fluky or otherwise) in the future? I know this is a powerful bit of conventional wisdom, but the primary form of ‘evidence’ to buttress this view is simply naming other players with multiple fluky injuries.
I think the analysis by the posters on Halladay is spot on. The guy is incredibly efficient, harking back to Maddux in his heyday. 9 innings of Halladay is like 6-7 with most other pitchers. Also, his increased use of the cutter should be less alarming knowing that he reworked his grip based at least partially on that of Mariano Rivera in an effort to decrease the wear on his arm.
As for the innings thing, besides the efficiency factor, does anyone else just think the guy is good for it? He has a great delivery if you subscribe, as I do, to the Chris O’Leary school of pitching mechanics and is built strong with a heavy reliance on fastballs, which are not as stressful as breaking pitches. Seriously, guys like Ryan and Carlton would be laughing at Halladay’s innings load, so I don’t see why it should be a problem.
hey
halladay number one. there is no reason for concern. halladay is quick and never wastes a pitch. and chris o’leary not the greatest person to listen to although he has good back up i don’t think he is correct, one reason barry zito why hasn’t he been injured yet??