If you’re familiar with the French language or the Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy skit, the title of this post might ring a bell. If not, well, bear with me. No, I didn’t say bare with me. Minimize that redtube clip for just a minute. Perfect, now let’s continue. How would it sound to you if I told you that you could acquire a #3 starting pitcher at a #6 price on draft day? Too good to be true? Of course not. There are late rounders and pitchers who go undrafted that produce this kind of value every season, such as Tanner Roark, Collin McHugh, and Matt Shoemaker from this past year. The key is to be able to identify the players who have a good chance of joining that group in the coming season.
Let’s take a look at some key statistics produced by four different fantasy-relevant pitchers in 2014, blind resumé style:
| K/9 | BB/9 | K/BB | HR/9 | BABIP | LOB% | Contact% | SwStr% | WHIP | ERA | xFIP | SIERA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player A | 10.76 | 2.02 | 5.33 | 0.67 | 0.28 | 81.50% | 73.20% | 12.90% | 0.97 | 2.17 | 2.83 | 2.56 |
| Player B | 10.13 | 1.8 | 5.63 | 0.96 | 0.315 | 74.80% | 76.30% | 11.20% | 1.12 | 3.14 | 2.56 | 2.64 |
| Player C | 10.29 | 2.57 | 4 | 0.74 | 0.315 | 77.20% | 75.30% | 11.50% | 1.18 | 3.15 | 3.12 | 2.98 |
| Player D | 10.23 | 1.69 | 6.05 | 0.92 | 0.29 | 66.90% | 72.90% | 12.60% | 1.02 | 3.69 | 2.84 | 2.51 |
Player A was slightly better than the others at limiting baserunners and stranding them once they did reach base. Players B and C profile quite similarly, with B having a slightly better walk rate and C being more effective at keeping the ball in the ballpark. Player D had the best K/BB ratio of the four, as well as the 2nd lowest WHIP and 2nd highest swinging strike rate, but had some trouble preventing runners from scoring once they reached base (66.9% LOB%; MLB average in ’14 was 73.0%), which led to an ERA that was almost a full run higher than the stats suggest it should’ve been. Outside of these few differences, the numbers look fairly similar across the board.
Alright, time to unmask and identify the mystery contestants:
Player A is Chris Sale.
Player B is Stephen Strasburg.
Player C is Max Scherzer.
Player D is Yusmeiro Petit.
Sale probably isn’t much of a surprise to those of you who are familiar with his ridiculous ratios from last season. Scherzer’s eyes probably gave him away from under the hood. However, you’re likely asking yourselves, “How in the world did Strasburg make it into this group?” Wait, what? Nobody’s asking that question at all? Oh, rrriiiggghhhttt. Petit. Sale, Strasburg, and Scherzer are all fantasy (and real life) aces who will once again be top 50 overall picks this season, and should be counted on to return that type of value barring injury. But why is nobody talking about Petit as a viable fantasy option?
There are a few things to be concerned about regarding Petit. The first concern is that he’s not even guaranteed a rotation spot in San Francisco. Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain (when healthy) are locked in as starters, and Tim Hudson and Jake Peavy are slotted in behind them. The 5th spot seems to be up for grabs, but with a good spring, Tim Lincecum would probably get the nod over Petit due to his salary and past production. The Giants also pursued Jon Lester earlier this offseason and could be in the mix to sign Scherzer or James Shields, which would all but guarantee a spot in the bullpen for Petit. However, even if they decide to add another SP this offseason, there’s quite a bit of risk in the starting rotation outside of MadBum, so Petit is likely to receive an opportunity to start sooner rather than later.
Secondly, Petit was much more effective as a reliever than as a starter last season. Across twelve starts (68 IP), he produced a 5.03 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP and hitters managed a .745 OPS off of him. As a reliever (49 IP), he produced a 1.84 ERA and a .86 WHIP, while hitters managed only a .472 OPS. There are some RHB/LHB (.510 vs .777 OPS against, respectively) and home/away (2.74 ERA, 0.91 WHIP vs 5.06 ERA, 1.17 WHIP) splits to keep an eye on as well. Despite those issues, his strikeout and walk rates remained elite throughout the season. Also, it’s not surprising to see a flyball pitcher have more success at AT&T Park than at any other ballpark, nor for a pitcher to have more success against same-handed hitters than versus the opposite side.
Another issue to be aware of when evaluating Petit is his sub-par velocity. Among all pitchers who threw at least 100 IP last season, Petit’s average fastball velocity of 88.9 mph was the 17th lowest out of 149 qualifiers (MLB avg. was 91.8 mph). However, this lack of velocity is offset by his elite arsenal of offspeed pitches, specifically his change-up and curveball, which resulted in an OPS against of .480 and .458 respectively. In fact, he induced a swinging strike rate of 28.5% on his curveball last year, which was among the league’s best and might be reasonably sustainable based on the 27.8% rate that he produced on that same pitch in 2013. Did I mention that Petit’s 72.9% Contact% was tied with Clayton Kershaw and Masahiro Tanaka for the 3rd lowest mark in baseball? Yeah, his offspeed stuff is pretty good.
So once you’re deep into your fantasy draft and other owners are settling for yawnstipating players such as Jed Lowrie and John Jaso, take a chance on the soft-throwing journeyman with an uncertain role. Sounds like a no-brainer to me!
