Each year, this post takes a look at pitchers and how they fluctuate in terms of regular value from year to year. The point of the matter is simple: Pitching is a crapshoot.
From year to year, there is a fixed number of pitchers that will regularly perform well. There are much more that will move into or fall out of the top-50 pitchers according to various rankings. The past few years, I have strictly used the ESPN Player Rater as my metric. It was easy to find, easily understandable and made quick intuitive sense of the matter for even the most novice of fantasy owners.
This year, ESPN has upgraded and provides consolidated rankings from their own rater as well as that of Elias, Inside Edge and the Baseball Encyclopedia. Using the composite ranking average for these still yielded similar results.
First, it helps to know the history. From the final player rater of 2008 to the last one in 2009, names changed. In fact, 27 players that were in the final list of the top-50 in 2008 were not on the list in 2009. Some of this is injury-related, some of this is performance. Whatever the reason, having that type of turnover underscores the fluctuations we see on the mound.
Even when looking at 2008, of the top-30 pitchers ranked, 11 were drafted in the 12th round or later (using a standard 10-team league). More than that, only 22 of the 30 were starters, meaning half of the starters on the list were not taken in the first half of most drafts. These are telling stats, and the turnover seen from the 2009 list to that in 2010, is just as alarming.
Using the combined stats from the four sources and average ranks, the list of top-50 pitchers for 2010 contains 31 names that were not on the same list in 2009. That equates to over a 60 percent turnover in one year.
Of the 19 names that appear on both lists, several had precipitous drops. Chris Carpenter went from the third-ranked pitcher down to the 37th while Tim Lincecum went from second to 29th. Dan Haren fell from grace as well, moving down from ninth to 44th overall. Of the pitchers that were not on the list in 2009 but made it in 2010, Roy Oswalt saw the biggest climb as he checked in as the fifth-ranked pitcher for the year. Tim Hudson, David Price and Clay Buchholz also went from unranked to inside the top-15.
Looking further, Zack Greinke and Javier Vazquez were ranked numbers one and six respectively in 2009 yet neither can be found on the 2010 list. Another name missing is Wandy Rodriguez, and he is a pitcher that threw the ball well in the second half of 2010 and all of 2009. Young guns like Dan Hudson cracked the list, showing that there is potential to find value even in the younger pitchers if an owner is patient. Ten players showed remarkable consistency from year to year. You would expect that from some elite names, but even Matt Cain, John Danks and Clayton Kershaw are on this list of players.
The question is what the information should tell us. It continues to develop the theory that pitching is always a wildcard. Yes, there were 19 repeat names on the list between the two years, but that is a 40 percent success rate in selecting them. There is flux within every tier and that needs to drive owners into a conservative state.
Yes, you can win drafting pitching early, but building an offense in the first few rounds is going to prove to be less risky than the problems that can come in pitchers. Injuries are part of the equation here more so than in most positions, but the fact they only have personal control over one category for certain (strikeouts) and two on the fringe (WHIP and ERA) should tilt a toss up to the guy that swings a bat on draft day.
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