Why Starting Pitchers are Overrated
Written by Worm on October 29, 2004
Quick quiz: who were the top pitchers in roto baseball this year? Easy, right? Johan Santana, Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, Roy Oswalt, and a handful of others. And if you had any of these guys, chances are you outdistanced yourself from your competitors in the pitching categories. Now, if only you had a couple more hitters, you mighta done something.
Every year in baseball, there is a distinct class system among pitchers; maybe ten or so pitchers dominate their league throughout the year, and manage to stay healthy. After that, there is a quick drop-off. There’s a large class of pitchers who pitch well enough to win games, put up decent numbers, but still get knocked around with fair regularity. For the most part, these pitchers’ numbers are interchangeable, and this class of pitchers includes many former “aces,” (see Bartolo Colon, Mark Mulder, Mike Mussina, etc.) Then there’s a small class of pitchers who are dominant when they pitch, but spend half the year on the DL. And then there’s the large class of “hurlers,” who remind you why they were on the waiver wire before you put them in for that 12 ER, 3 IP start.
Dominating the pitching categories means owning at least one of the top class. Period. I think most roto players recognize this fact, and therein lies the overvaluing of starting pitchers. Because owning one of these top 10 starters is so important, owners are often willing to pay premium prices -- spending early draft picks and trading top notch position talent -- for a long list of supposed “aces”. The problem is that they are more than likely going to get burned. Either they’ve traded a top tier hitter for a broken “sure thing” Roy Halladay, or they’ve wasted a high draft pick on “a hope and a prayer” Kelvim Escobar. In this way, the Esteban Loaizas and Greg Madduxes of the world enjoy a higher price than they deserve, (you could do as well with Doug Davis or Jake Westbrook,) while one or two lucky suckers hit the jackpot with Johan Santana and Ben Sheets. Really, it’s like playing Lotto. I say keep the dollar, and keep the dream too. Sure, spend a high pick on a pitcher who does it every year, like Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez, but the fact is that the few pitchers who will comprise the top class by season's end could come anywhere in the draft. Where was Oliver Perez taken in your last draft?
Basically, it is a matter of spending wisely. I hold that staying away from the bottom class of pitchers, the “hurlers”, is almost as valuable as owning one of the few “aces”. If you stick to the middle class of pitchers, you may get middling numbers in return, but you won’t be wasting your resources. You may even get lucky and pick up a freak season from one of your middle-class pitchers. Meanwhile, you can spend more picks and more trade value on the hitting categories. This is not insignificant in the case of our Rotogods baseball league, where there are 7 hitting categories, compared with the standard 5 for pitching. Furthermore, no matter how good a starting pitcher is, he can help you in no more than 4 of those 5 pitching categories. So while other owners are wasting top picks on Javier Vazquez, Josh Beckett and Kerry Wood, you can be building a dominant lineup to more than make up what you lose in pitching, if anything.
Not that I’ve ever done that. Now, somebody trade me Santana, dammit.
Um, no he's mine.
Posted by: Junky at October 30, 2004 12:49 AM