Deep League Thoughts: Trevor Bauer

Per the usual, I have to drop a caveat when it comes to Deep League Thoughts about pitchers: there’s no such thing as a deep league pitcher.  Unless you’re talking 20 team leagues and then you’re calling some relievers deep league pitchers.  I ain’t going there so let’s realize upfront before you feel affronted.  Now that we have that settled, when does a young pitcher settle?  Two years?  Four years?  Do they ever?  It’s all hard to predict.  As we’ve seen through our years as fantasy baseballers, growth isn’t a promise from a young kid, it’s a possibility.  How many rookies came and went on your rosters in 2014 alone?  I’m not asking you, Grey.  You’d add and drop the same player five times in one day so you don’t count, you chronic rosterbator.  That said, I’m sure Trevor Bauer hit your roster more than once.  He had some good with some bad in 2014.  Maybe you got the bad from him and won’t go near him again.  Maybe you had more of the good like I did and you’re willing to look into him a bit further.  If so, trudge on with me.  We’re about to go deep inside the enigma that is Bauer and what he can do for you for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…

So we’re gonna play a little game.  It’s the believers vs truthers game.  Truthers are out to disprove and believers…well, c’mon put 2 and 2 together and don’t ask me if it’s tuna just cuz the can says chicken of the sea.  For fun, I looked back at age 23 seasons from starters with 150 innings pitched or more over the last 5 years.  I know, that’s a pretty small and extremely specific sampling but baseball is a changing sport and I’d rather look at recent comps than try to compare Trevor to Roger Clemens, m’kay?  The believers will point to the fact that Bauer had the 9th highest K/9 of pitchers his age over the last 5 years with Yordano Ventura sitting at 10 and Mat Latos sitting at the eight spot.  The truthers?  They’ll point to his 7th worst BB/9 rate, behind so far mediocre starters in Matt Moore, Jhoulys Chacin, Zach Britton, Shelby Miller, and Trevor Cahill.  Yuck.  So to say you’re drafting him on his current K%-BB% of 12.5% (which was only 47th best in the league) would be a fallacy: you’re drafting for growth.  But can’t the same argument be said for Yordano Ventura?  Oh, you’d never seen him before and Bauer got old fast with his 2012 and 2013 stints.  I see, 33.1 IP did it for you?  You know what Bauer is or isn’t now?  Gotcha.  The reality is, if we did a blind stat-sniff test, who do you want?  Bauer bettered Ventura in K/9 (8.41 vs 7.74) almost mirrored in BB/9 (3.53 vs 3.42) and though the ERAs were nearly a run different (4.18 to 3.23), the xFIPs suggests their seasons weren’t that far from each other (4.18 vs 3.77).  Of course, this isn’t a damning of Ventura anymore than it’s a praising of Bauer, but it comes back to who you think you’re drafting.  Draft one because they have upside, ignore the other because they’re toast yet they’re both 23.  Now it may be that Bauer never figures it out.  Maybe we’re seeing his peak at this ripe, young age and any improvements will be subtle and menial for fantasy purposes.  But if that’s so, his stats say he could be a top 40’ish pitcher given 180 innings.  Don’t believe me?  Yordano finished as the 41st best pitcher according to player rater.  So you have floor with potential for much higher and a draft day price of…well, there’s really no draft day price.  He’s freer than Tara Reid’s boobs on the red carpet after a cocaine binge.  Yeah it was a dated reference but I don’t get out much.  Did ya SEE the writeup I just did?  Sheesh…