Fantasy Baseball Advice

The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame (in conjunction with Razzball.com) is a new website dedicated to recognizing the accomplishments of Major League ballplayers during the “fantasy era” (1980-present). The greatest of these players will be elected to the Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame. To read more on the FBHOF, click here.

In a continuation from last week, Part II of the starting pitcher class is enshrined today. The corresponding FBHOF page for the catchers can be found here.

I have a confession to make – chick’s may dig the long ball, but I dig a sub-2.00 ERA.  I have always been a sucker for starting pitching and would take 1994 Greg Maddux over 2001 Barry Bonds every day of the week.  I weep openly when reviewing the 1906 Chicago Cubs rotation and pine for the next Walter Johnson.  An elite starter is the most potent weapon a team can field as he alone has the singular ability to render every other player at the park virtually meaningless.  It didn’t matter who Bob Gibson or Randy Johnson faced when they were at their best because making contact was a fruitless exercise.

Five starting pitchers are to be enshrined today, four of which are immortals that separated themselves from the rest of baseball like no quartet has done before.  Randy Johnson, Gregg Maddux, Roger Clemens, and Pedro Martinez are all first ballot Hall of Famers when considering skill and skill alone.  They are elite Fantasy Hall of Famers as well.  No players, at any position, improved their team’s chances at winning more than these four.

But first we pay our respects to #5 all time, Curt Schilling, a starter who battled himself and injuries for 9 years before becoming a fantasy star.  Schilling’s best season came as a 35 year old with the Diamondbacks in 2002.  He won 23 games, held his WHIP down to 0.97, and struck out a whopping 316 batters.  The year before he won 22 with a 1.08 WHIP and had 293 strikeouts.  In 1997 and 1998 he also struck out an extreme number of batters, giving him three 300+ strikeout seasons.  Since 1990 Schilling is one of just three pitchers to strike out this many; has the second most such season seasons since 1980; and third most since the deadball era ended.  Yet, Schilling never finished any season as the best fantasy pitcher, with good reason though - his competition was fierce.

The Top 25-Fantasy Pitchers:

Schilling was superb, scoring over 72 points while contributing in just 4 categories, but had no where near the impact of the “Big Four”.  Martinez, ranked 4th, scores full 17% better than Schilling, who himself scores 15% better than Kevin Brown.

Holding fantasy value aside for the moment, one can make a convincing argument that no pitcher in the history of the game was more dominant over a two year stretch than Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000, the latter year being the single greatest pitching performance in the history of the sport in my opinion.

I think we are all now familiar with Baseball-Reference.com at this point, and likely all familiar with ERA+, but in case you are not, ERA+ is a statistic that shows how much better than average a pitchers ERA is, when considering ballparks (it is more difficult to pitch at the Ballpark in Arlington than it is at Shea).  Holding aside the 1800’s where the game was vastly different than it is today (9 balls, batters get to call their own pitch, etc) here is the Top 10 list of best seasonal ERA+ scores:

291 – Pedro Martinez, 2000
279 – Dutch Leonard, 1914
271 – Greg Maddux, 1994
262 – Greg Maddux, 1995
259 – Walter Johnson, 1913
258 – Bob Gibson, 1968
253 – 3-Finger Brown, 1906
243 – Pedro Martinez, 1999
242 – Walter Johnson, 1912

As impressive as it is to have an era 191% better than league average, it is probably more impressive to be this much better than the next best.  Further, in 2000, Martinez had an unheard of WHIP of 0.74.  That figure is so good it’s unjust, perhaps even Wiffle Ball good, and is best mark all time 1800’s be damned.

Martinez had more to his career than 2000 of course.  He also finished first among pitchers in 1999 and recorded 4 other Top-5 seasons, giving him a stellar record of performance during his peak:  19 W, 0.92 WHIP, 2.18 ERA, 278 K during his best 5 years.

It’s odd thinking about this now, and it isn’t just a reaction to the recent criticism Roger Clemens has brought upon himself, but somehow the greatest pitcher likely since the 1930’s has gone underrated.  Make no mistake, Clemens was awesome over a period of almost 20 years.  In 1986, his third year in the bigs, and in his first season as a full time starter, the Rocket won 24 games, struck out 238 batters (in 254 innings), recorded a WHIP of 0.97 and an ERA of 2.48.  In his 22nd season as a major league starter, Clemens came through a 1.87 ERA and 1.01 WHIP in just over 211 innings of work.  In between he won 17+ games eleven times; had ERA’s well below league average thirteen times; and struck out 185+ batters 14 times.

As a fantasy player Clemens was at his best in 1997 when tossing for the Blue Jays:  21 W, 1.03 WHIP, 2.05 ERA, 292 K’s and the #1 pitcher ranking in the game, a feat he achieved on three earlier occasions as well in 1987, 1990 and 1991.  His 5 year peak average looks like this:  21 W, 1.06 WHIP, 2.56 ERA, 260K with finishes of 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd.

What separates Clemens from Greg Maddux for fantasy purposes is an utterly dominant season.  At his best, Clemens scored 16.2 FBHOF points.  Maddux finished both his 1994 and 1995 seasons with more points, and more points by far.  In 1994, a strike year of course, Maddux won 16 games mostly because of his off the chart rate stats – 0.90 WHIP and 1.56 ERA.  He also struck out 156 batters, which seems low, but is quite good when considering he lost as many as 10 starts, perhaps 60-65 total K’s.  This line of thinking is instructive - prorating for the whole season his stat line becomes:  22 W, 0.90 WHIP, 1.56 ERA, 221 K which just happens to be the single most dominating performance in fantasy history – 18.8 FBHOF points.

The following year he bested Clemens top performance again, this time with 17 points due to a 0.81 WHIP and 1.63 ERA.  In all Maddux has four #1 finishes to his name and his peak 5 year average is masterful:  18 W, 0.96 WHIP, 2.03 ERA, 183 K.

Finally, we end with Randy Johnson, of whom it can be argued, for fantasy anyway, was Clemens and Maddux rolled into one.  Clemens was amazing for his longevity – 12 seasons of 8+ FBHOF points.  Maddux scored so high due to his tantalizing rate stats - eight seasons with a WHIP under 1.10 and seven with ERA’s under 2.65.  Johnson himself is just shy of Clemens with eleven “Hall of Fame” worthy seasons and does indeed match Maddux for incredible ERA’s and falls just one short on WHIP side of the ledger.

Remembering that pitchers can score in just four categories we also need to bring up Johnson’s record of six seasons scoring 16+ FBHOF points.  How good is this?  In 2000 Johnson had 19 W, 347 K, 1.12 WHIP, a 2.64 ERA and it basically doesn’t count towards his Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame credentials since it wasn’t good enough to count as part of his 5 year peak.

Further, Johnson struck out 300 or more batters twice as much Schilling and all told bested the 290 mark another nine times. Nine! What do you get when you combine the power of Schilling with the finesse of Maddux, and then mix in the sustained greatness of Clemens?  You get the best Fantasy Baseball player in history.

A chart of some key metrics for our last five inductees, because, yes, I love great pitchers:

The Yanks start Joba Chamberlain. The Mets start Pedro Martinez. The Red Sox start top prospect Justin Masterson.

You probably didn’t know any of that because traditional media is obsessed with Radhames Liz’s earning a win in his first Orioles start and Ross Gload’s struggles at winning back the Royals starting 1B position. That’s why we’re here. We like to muckrake.

So Joba was extended to 62 pitches tonight and made it all the way to 2 1/3 innings. He didn’t get hit. He couldn’t throw strikes. 4 BB in 2 1/3 IP. His control has been off all year - close to double last year’s rate. Not sure why the young Yankee pitchers forgot to throw strikes this year. I had better strike zone management playing wiffle ball in my backyard growing up.

Onto Pedro…nothing says “We missed you” like having your first start at San Francisco opposite Barry Zito. The control isn’t there yet for Pedro but his stuff looks solid for Met-era Pedro. Up 9-3 after 5 IP and throwing 90 pitches, it looked to everyone - including the announcers - that Pedro would be done for the night. But Willie was feeling a little grady (get it?) and sent him back out - probably b/c the bullpen was wiped after Oliver Perez’s 1/3 of an inning start the day before. Pedro gave up two straight hits before striking out two of the last three. Pedro’s relying on guile and his curve more than peak-era Pedro but this version could still win 10 games with decent ERA/WHIP/Ks. (BTW, isn’t it fitting that as one of Manny’s favorites goes on the DL, another one comes off? Everything turns out even steven for Manny - he’s like the Dominican Magoo.)

As for Justin Masterson, 6 innings of 6.00 ERA, 1.33 WHIP isn’t that exciting but he got the win against your 1st place Rays. With Dice-K on the DL, he’ll likely get another start or two. Depending on the matchup, he could be worth a flier. Based on recent Sox pitching prospect history, there’s an 100% chance Masterson throws a no-hitter in his next couple of starts. On a more tragic note, there’s a 50% chance that he has cancer.

Dan Uggla - Is 2B the new 1B? Uggla hit 2 bombs against Campillo and now only trails fellow second-bagger Utley for the MLB lead. When I look at his underlying stats, I’m surprised at how not surprising they are. Sure, his .300+ average is unsustainable given he has a Howardesque K rate of 30% (that’s 180K in 600 AB!). At that rate, he’s lucky to hit .270 the rest of the way. But he hit 49 doubles and 31 HRs last year. That topped Hanley on both counts (48 and 29). If he fell back to last year’s rate, he’s still got at least 15 more HRs left for this season. In a year where Cano no can do and Weeks is weak, it’s got to be nice being an Uggla owner this year….

Khalil Greene - …but, instead, I have this schmohawk. He also had an incredible number of extra base hits for an infielder last year (44 doubles, 27 HRs) that you could draft in late rounds. But he’s been Razztastic this year. .214 average with only 12 extra base hits (7 doubles, 5 HRs). You know how much it hurts to know that my Razzball SS (Cristian Guzman) is crushing Greene in all statistics?  If I had him in a shallower league, I’d drop him and pick him back up when I saw signs of life. For now, I’m just grinning and bearing it.

Albert Pujols - Left the game in the 4th inning due to calf tightness. Early reports of a hairline fracture were later corrected to a hairline recession.

Aaron Harang - 3.86 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 74 Ks in 82 IP. In line with all expectations. Well, except he’s 2-8 now after being outdueled tonight by Adam Eaton. I assume most offenses try their best to hit for struggling starting pitchers. The Giants had to be pressing to score a couple touchdowns when Zito started the season on a well-deserved 0-fer streak. But Harang? The Reds offense just hates him. They turn into a deadbell-era offense. Hell, even Jay Bruce pretends to be mortal.

Zack Greinke - 6 IP, 8 ER, 4 HR allowed…Greinkes! He’s still a useful fantasy pitcher but consider him no higher than a 5th starter. Why? The Royals suck and Greinke is just a good pitcher. 4.00 ERA at best. A little better than average Ks. Since I traded him to Grey for a since-dropped Melky Cabrera, Greinke has thrown 45 IP at a 5.40 ERA and 1.36 WHIP. I can’t believe the ESPN experts think he’s going to be more valuable going forward than Billingsley, Maine, Burnett, and Marcum. If you can swap him for any of those guys, do it. Do it now.

Randy Johnson - Now #2 in career Ks. Mullet over for a bit. It’s hard to trump Clemens these days but the Big Surly did it. Solid start by Randy (8 K’s) but he got hit in the 6th and 7th. Arizona should be content if he gives them a solid 6 IP at this point..

Erik Bedard - Another bad start for the best Canadian pitcher in the game. Buy him now as the hockey season is almost over so he’ll stop being distracted. Just make sure Alanis Morissette or Bryan Adams aren’t playing in the same city where he’s pitching.

Wow, that’s an exciting title, huh? I’m sure it will be a big seller for Google searches. Right after the search bukkake + carved pumpkin faces. Whatever, it’s boring to talk about fourth starters for your fantasy baseball team, right? What do Oliver Perez, Randy Johnson, Aaron Harang and some other schmohawk who didn’t pitch well yesterday have in common? They didn’t pitch well. Jair Jurrjens and Shawn Hill did. I’ve touted Jurrjens and Hill in the past on this site. Search on the left if you don’t believe me (it hurts that you don’t believe me, but I’ll get over it). I’m not even sure how to spell Jair Jurrjens’s name half the time, but he’s on a lot of my teams. Why? They’re both cheaper than dog balls to acquire and will put up decent numbers. Jurrjens gets the Padres next time and Hill gets the Astros and Cassel. If you need to Mapquest your way to your waiver wire, do it. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday:

Shane Victorino - The Flying Hawaiian is now the The Benched Fourth Phillie Outfielder™. Heffin’ hey, take Jenkins out of the lineup! Werth has looked the part of starter thus far, but Jenkins? Can I have “Has-Been Players” for one hundred? He is to Milwaukee what Luis Gonzalez is to Arizona. Who is Geoff Jenkins, Alex? Anyway, Victorino’s got too much to offer to be a bench player, he’ll be back in there. Werth’s a six hole hitter (which Jenkins is too) and Victorino’s a one or a two. It’ll all work itself out. Say Victorino doesn’t start for two weeks then he gets what? Four and a half more months to play. He can still get to 15/40. He only played in 131 games last year and he got 12/37. Patience is key.

Chase Utley - I misspoke when I said Chipper’s going to be the Player of the Month. I hope Phillies fans don’t throw any batteries at me now.

Kevin Kouzmanoff - Looks like he just needed some razzing to get going. Actually, he hit the home run off Jamie Moyer, who I believe is a grandpappy, so we probably shouldn’t start giving ourselves a reacharound just yet.

Jon Herrera - The new Rockies 2nd basemen as Barmes takes over for Tulowitzki. Herrera’s minors numbers look, well, minor. By ‘minor,’ I mean don’t even bother picking him up.

Jonthan Sanchez - I like him, don’t get me wrong, but his K/BB ratio is not good. He’s liable to have some tough starts ahead.

Austin Kearns - Some how he ropes me every year. I will never tout him again. Please remind me if I ever forget this. Besides never performing well something else that bothers the popcorn out of me — he never seems to care. I officially hate Austin Kearns. Somebody should start austinkearnssucks.com. I have my hands full.

Conor Jackson - Another home run; he can get to 25.

Nick Blackburn - Twins always seem to farm usable pitchers, some times great ones. Blackburn seems usable, not great.

Carlos Quentin - Seven home runs and counting. How about you give me your login and I pick up Quentin for you?

Nick Johnson - Okay, this is uncanny. Nick Johnson after a 3-for-3 game — Nick Johnson after an 0-for-4 game.

Mark Grant - Who? The retired pitcher/Padres announcer. Why? Cuz he’s got a stalker.

Felipe Lopez - Belliard hasn’t had an official at-bat since April 20th.

Travis Hafner - Hafnot wasn’t even starting against Washburn. The same Washburn who Hafnot has lifetime’s numbers of .400/3/7 in 20 at-bats.

Franklin Gutierrez - The Big FraGu is 9 for 20 on the homestand.

Russell Martin - Home run, but more importantly getting rest from catching by playing third base. He probably won’t get position eligibility at third in most leagues and it doesn’t really matter. You want him at catcher anyway.

Micah Ownings - He hit a pinch hit home run! But I didn’t see because they like everything big in Texas, including commercials.

Randy Johnson - Just a bumpy beginning in what was an otherwise decent start.

Xavier Nady - I told you in the first three days of the season to just pick him up. Nady finished April with 26 RBIs while batting .337. I’d say unload him for someone more trustworthy, but I can’t imagine anyone’s actually buying into this.

Alexis Rios - As member of Da Razzpound pointed out yesterday, he’s been leading off, which would hurt his RBIs. But it’s not going to stay that way. He’s the Jays best hitter. You don’t bat your best hitter leadoff then Rolen third. I mean, this isn’t the Red Sox or Yanks lineup we’re talking about, the Jay aren’t that deep to be batting Rios leadoff. Again, patience.

Dustin McGowan - He’s not out of the woods yet, but getting into the eighth with only one walk is a great thing, know why? Cause now he has some value for you to trade him.

Daisuke Matsuzaka - Another guy that had a good start, that I’m not going to get behind. (Frankly, I have a hard time getting behind any American League pitchers, especially ones in the AL East. But I digress.) You can trade him and still be a Son of Sam Horn, they don’t check your teams for Sawx, do they?

Josh Hamilton - Weird how smack and crack are used for both the sound the bat makes when hitting the ball and for drugs.

Brian Bannister - He got smoked by Josh Hamilton.

Derrick Turnbow - Six runs in two-thirds of inning is the kind of middle reliever hit that really hurts. It was a bad situation with the game out of hand. He shouldn’t been in there, and hopefully you didn’t have him in there.

Wladimir Balentien - Rudy just picked him up in one league. Hey, ya’ll, Rudy knows what he’s doing. At the age of 24 in Triple A, Balentien’s numbers were 77/24/84/.291/15. Look at those numbers again. You’re welcome.

Adam Lind - This is who I added in a deep league. Numbers, please… .378 career OBP in almost 1400 at-bats minor league at-bats. Last year he received almost 300 at-bats from the Jays and hit 11 home runs with a putrid OBP. The fact that the Jays called him up already and have been starting him tells me they are committed. He’s, as they say, a flier. I kinda like Balentien better, but I thought I’d spread the Razzball love.

Casey Kotchman - His average isn’t as much a fluke as you might think. He still won’t hit 30 home runs.

Jeff Clement - Eligibility count: 1 game at catcher.

Dioner Navarro - He got 2 RBIs; Salty didn’t play.

Chad Billingsley - I liked him coming into the season. Still do. A pitcher with his stuff, in his division, in his park, it’s almost not fair.

John Smoltz - He says he will come back as a reliever at least initially. I say, he’s not going back to starting. This also takes the shine off of Acosta and Rafael Soriano. Smoltz will get the bulk of the saves.

Max Scherzer - In his relief appearance, Jobacum left without a stain. Now he’s getting the start over Edgar Gonzalez on Monday for his first major league start. Too bad he’s not on the Rangers, then there could’ve been a battery of Jobacum-Salty. For next Monday’s start, I guess we’ll have to settle for Jobacum discharging the Phillies.

(NOTE FROM GREY: Last week I sent out feelers to the top baseball team blogs to see if they would be generous enough to write a quick preview for their favorite team. So over the course of the next two weeks, mixed in with your daily fantasy info, you will get some of the most astute, in-depth coverage of teams around the major leagues for the upcoming 2008 season from the people that know these teams best. Each post will include a link to their site, please take time to visit these bloggers’ sites, because these posts are truly the tip of the iceberg for their team knowledge. Now enjoy the 2008 Arizona Diamondbacks preview.)

Last year, the Arizona Diamondbacks outperformed the sum of their parts, posting the best record in the National League despite being outscored by their opponents. In fantasy baseball, as opposed to the real thing, this is not good: wins are important only as one category of pitching stats, rather than being the only thing that actually counts. How will the team fair this year - and, more importantly from a rotisserie perspective, how will the individual players fair? Rather than picking out the best players - if you don’t already know Brandon Webb is among the best pitchers in the National League, this article won’t help you - here are the ones who are most likely to overperform, underperform, or simply have questionmarks over them.

LIKELY TO IMPROVE
1B Conor Jackson. Definite sleeper potential here. Jackson had an abysmal April, but after that, quietly batted .296 with rate stats that, pro-rated over 162 games, would have been 22 homers and 82 RBI. He has picked up speed over the off-season; while he won’t be Jose Reyes on the basepaths, a few more infield hits are likely, and you could be looking at a .300, 25 HR season. The departure of Tony Clark leaves him the full-time incumbent, though he may lose some starts to Chad Tracy, after he returns.

SS Stephen Drew. ‘Buy low’ is what you are doing here, and Drew is likely to improve, simply because he’s better than the .238 he posted last season - he was a career .299 hitter in the minors. Drew was, to some extent, the victim of bad luck, with his BA on balls in play flukishly low. There aren’t many alternatives on the D-backs roster, so even if he struggles initially, he’s still going to get playing time for Arizona.

RHP Tony Peña. Most of the D-backs bullpen are due to regress back towards the mean this year, but Pena’s big advantage is that he’s the immediate heir apparent for the closer’s spot. If Brandon Lyon falters - and there are a good number of experts who think that he will - Peña will immediately become a lot more valuable. Last year’s Arizona closer, Jose Valverde, led the league in saves, as much because the team gave his so many opportunities, 61 of their 90 wins being by three runs or less. Expect the same this year.

LIKELY TO FADE
LF Eric Byrnes. With mostly a young squad, age is on the side of Arizona, and Byrnes, now aged 32, is the ‘elder statesman’ among the position players. He had a decent 104 OPS+ last year, but that was his best since 2004 and he’s at the age where further improvement is doubtful. Might still be worth picking up for steals - he swiped 50 bags last year - but if you do, trade him by the All-Star break, as his career average in the second half is only .239, more than fifty points worse than during the first half.

LHP Doug Davis. A 4.25 ERA in a hitter’s park like Chase might tempt you, but don’t be fooled, as Davis dodged an awful lot of bullets last season. Non-pitchers batted .294 against him, and his WHIP of 1.59 ranks him just worse than Jose Contreras and Daniel Cabrera, who had ERAs of 5.57 and 5.55 respectively. Davis can still pitch, when he doesn’t walk too many people, but if his control deserts him, the hits which are an inevitable part of his game will lead to too many unsightly box-scores.

WILD CARDS
RHP Randy Johnson. Johnson made only ten starts last year, but posted a decent 3.81 ERA and a very respectable K:BB ratio of 72:13. He’s come off back surgery for the second consecutive season, but his rehab this time round has been longer - he now admits he rushed back in 2007, and that was likely in part responsible for the relapse. Needs 16 wins to reach the magic number of 300, and that will likely drive Johnson. No doubting his competitive urges; don’t expect 30+ starts, but worth having on your bench and picking your spots.

RF Justin Upton. Expectations are high for Upton, with Bill James predicting a line of .278/.353/.496, to go with 19 homers and 74 RBI. To put that prediction of an .849 OPS into context, even an .800 figure by a 20-year old over a full season has only been seen twice in my lifetime [from some guys called Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr...] Much as I would love to see Upton become the third such phenom, I think we’ll have to wait until 2009 to see the full flowering of his unquestionable talents. He’ll be lots of fun to watch, but let some other manager go through the growing pains Upton will endure this year.

3B Mark Reynolds. Pulled up from Double-A after we ran out of third-basemen, Reynolds exploded, batting .459 in his first ten major-league games, including a five-hit night. The rest of the year was like a roller-coaster: Reynolds hit .162 in June, .194 in July, but .342 in August and .300 in the final month. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle. He has genuine power, and 25 HR seems easily achievable, but he will also likely strike out 150 times or more. Will also likely split some time at third with Chad Tracy, but a late-round pick could pay dividends.

Jim McLennan grew up in Britain, but fell in love with baseball because of its statistics, and has followed the D-backs since their home field was just a hole in the ground. He can be found ranting about them, on an almost daily basis, at azsnakepit.com.