Taking pitchers early

[daweasle]

Let me preface this by saying this applies primarily to 5x5 rotisserie in a 15 team mixed league similar to the setup of NFBC or the like.

I was recently listening to the replay of the Experts draft on Sirius XM Fantasy Sports radio and I heard the lovely Kay Adams ask a drafter why he chose so many stud pitchers so early in the draft and he made a statement that kind of shocked me as being so precise to the point and against everything I have ever been taught.

(MY preconceived notion = wait on pitchers, get 1-2 early to anchor your staff and fill up your offense or you will be chasing offense the whole draft and end up missing your targets on offense across the board, pitchers more likely to miss projections, pitchers more likely to be injured, etc etc)

But his point was something to the effect of this:
You have 14 hitters which means each hitters provides 7.1% of your overall team's offense.
But a pitcher who pitches 200 innings can account for 20% of your total teams pitching stats. (assuming you pitch approx 1000 IP)

But being that you only have to pitch approx 900 IP to reach the minimum and most teams average around 1000-1200 innings. You could have 4 STUD SP then each of those four picks would make up approx 21% towards your overall pitching numbers.

THEN he said something else I took as a revelation. Pitching stats count just as much as hitting stats.

So let's say you drafted with this approach. And you were able to grab four stud SP's and 2 average closers.

Is this the craziest idea ever?

[Todd Zola]

The problem is most teams pitch closer to 1500 innings in the NFBC. Studs or not with the 4SP, you still need 3 more to compete in wins and saves.

The whole percent of points argument is not new. It goes back to the hit:pitch split in auction being 69:31 when it "should" be 50:50.

The questions are

1) How good is your offense when you overload SP early

2) So you really NEED to overload on SP early to build a highly competitive staff.

I think when you combine 1 and 2, you see your offense is lacking when you overload on arms early and since you are better able to manage a staff (stream 2-start pitchers, take advantage of good matchups, use strong set up men, etc), you find that while there is nothing wrong with investing in SOME pitching early, you really, really need a lot to go right to compete if you stock up on pitching early.

[SteveB]

Doesn't this get into being able to replace any potential slumps and injuries among your staff more easily. I remember reading an article about the amount of "raw stats" for the whole league left at the end of the draft being higher in the P free agents than in the hitting free agents. Basically you can make up ground in pitching stats much easier with the free agents.

It doesn't seem like it the last few years with Posey and VMart going down, but arent pitchers perceived to be a greater injury risk? I dont know if thats the case or just a perceived notion either way it lends MOST drafters to wait a few rounds prior to taking a #1 pitcher. SO if everyone else is waiting why would you not? If you fill in no offense for the first few rounds then your WAY behind in offense counting stats AND the pitchers that are still available in rounds 2-5 are solid tier one , high tier 2 types depending how they are being drafted. SO you are behind in counting stats and your opponents who went hitter , hitter, pitcher are only slightly behind you in quality of their first pitcher.

[TheRunner77]

There has been significant decline in power, further to the supposed end of the steroid era.

Those who led in homers and were exposed, have left the game. Some hangers-on have survived despite admitting to using (A-Rod) or further to having been caught (Manny et als.).

Concurrently, ERA and Ks have soared.

Hence, there is a much smaller number of power hitters than in past years, most of which are heavily depleted by Round 4.

Second, there are no pitchers capable of delivering in more than 4 categories. There are several select hitters who can.

If you pick 4 pitchers early, I can't see how you can be remotely competitive in hitting counting stats, esp. HRs. That, and you'll miss out on all 5-category producers available within a very short window.

[daweasle]

very interesting discussion.

I guess all we mentioned here is similar to the "conventional wisdom" preconceived notions I've always "known" to be fact - but I was starting to wonder if in fact, "the times - they are a changing"

5 years ago there was no such thing as a sure fire lock SP

in April 2011, if anyone asked me who the top 5 pitchers would be, my draft board was Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, Jered Weaver, Justin Verlander. In that order. I seriously had 5 of the top 7 in my top 5. (Sorry I didn't bite on kershaw)

Now sure some of them could have gotten hurt, but they didn't. They performed like studs.

I don't think that was the case in 2006. I think it was much harder to predict which pitchers would dominate, because HR rates were so much higher and there were far fewer "sure things"

When you had guys like Giambi, Bonds, Sosa, Mcgwire, arod hitting 45+ bombs each, that severely skewed some pitching stats - now days that braun is the only one juicing, you see pitching numbers seem much more reliable/predictable.

[Captain Hook]

I haven't calculated the numbers in current leagues (guess that will be next Monday's Captain's Log) BUT as always the nature of the format leans in heavily on this.

In the NFBC Main Event (and most satellite leagues tend to draft like the main as people are getting ready) you are not only competing in your individual 15 team league but have your ten category totals scored against the entire field. Given you try for top 20% of all ten categories as Todd said above you need a strong pitching staff to compete in W and K.................thus the reason that most NFBC drafters would likely have three pitchers - three SP or two and a closer amongst their first ten picks

Numbers on Monday.......

[daweasle]

regarding being able to add from the scrap heap to accumulate more stats, if you were playing in the NFBC online with no free agent moves and no trades - that does not apply.

Obviously you could add from your 24 man bench, but that is set at the end of the draft so no one is going out picking up the next big thing off waivers.

[Black Sox]

Reguarding SP being more injury prone, one thing I would say is a SP has lot less opportunities to help your team vs a position player when comparing 30-35 starts vs 600-700 PA. It's the difference in a 15 day DL stint between 2/3 starts vs 40/50 PA.

I still subscribe to the theory of grabbing hitters early, but I do think you need to invest in SP earlier than you used too. With all the advanced metrics it's a lot harder to "steal" pitching late, I'd say it's pretty fairly valued now. You get what you pay for

[SteveB]

regarding being able to add from the scrap heap to accumulate more stats, if you were playing in the NFBC online with no free agent moves and no trades - that does not apply.

Obviously you could add from your 24 man bench, but that is set at the end of the draft so no one is going out picking up the next big thing off waivers.

yeah i am in one of those now and looking to do a second . I think though same prinicipal here applies and is why your seeing teams stack 22-25 P on roster and only start 9. You will find more late nuggets in P between round 40-50 then you will hitters.

[Captain Hook]

See today's Captain's Log for a breakdown on where pitchers are being drafted