Crooked Pitch

One of my favorite strategies in deep leagues is to run the best four starters I can get out there every game, and fill in the rest with high-K middle relievers. I’d rather have a guy who gives me killer ratios for 75 innings than a mediocre starter who gives me 200 with a 4.40 ERA and 1.30 WHIP. You’ll usually win the ratio categories with this strategy, and if you’re far enough ahead in those, you can always pick up the occasional spot starter if you need a W or some Ks.

Dominant middle relievers can be had on the wire every year if you know what to look for. Last year Heath Bell, Carlos Marmol, and Rafael Betancourt could be picked up for free in nearly every league, and were three of the better fantasy pitchers in the game. Yahoo ranked Betancourt as the 19th(!) most valuable pitcher in ‘07, Bell the 24th, and Marmol the 39th. I grabbed both Betancourt and Marmol off the wire during the season in 20-team dynasty leagues. I missed my chance on Bell. With relievers, the stats to look at are BB:K (command), K/9 (dominance), and possibly GB% (HR prevention). ERA and hits allowed are too volatile in the small amount of innings a reliever pitches to pay too much attention to. BIP numbers, (like GB%, FB%, LD%) are pretty worthless until there’s a decent sample to look at as well.

Everyone’s seen the starts by guys like Joey Devine, Santiago Casilla, and Hong-Chih Kuo in our leagues this season, so let’s look at four guys you should still be able to find on your waiver wire:

Jared Burton: Burton made a bit of a splash last year with a BABIP-assisted 2.51 ERA in 43 IP, most after the All-Star break. This year, he’s doing it for real, with drastically improved control and K-rate. Last year Reds manager Pete Mackanin wanted to give Burton an audition at closer when David Weathers needed a rest, but who knows what the situation is now with Dusty and Frankie Cordero in the mix.
2008 Stats: 27.2IP 30H 10ER 8BB 29K

Edwar Ramirez: Edwar had a little bit of a following last year after putting up video game numbers at two minor league stops (56.2IP, 26H, 22BB, 102K in AA/AAA), but he ended up struggling with his control in 21 big league innings (despite 31K!). This year, he’s got the walks down while still maintaining a great strikeout rate with his plus-plus change-up. Mariano Rivera can’t pitch forever, and with Joba moving to the rotation, Edwar’s looking like the best in-house option to close should the need arise.
2008 Stats: 14.2IP 10H 0ER 6BB 15K

Alex Hinshaw: Nobody knows anything about Alex Hinshaw. Seriously, look around the net, and there’s next to no info on this guy as a prospect. Rotoworld says about Hinshaw, “There’s no real upside here, but it’s worth giving him a look to see if his soft stuff can fool major league hitters.” Yet Fangraphs has his avg. fastball speed at 92.4MPH (with a whoa-slow-down 72.3MPH curve), which is gas for a southpaw. So far, that “soft stuff” has Hinshaw striking out 9 of the 16 major league hitters that have faced him, of which only three have reached base. He has a career 10.99K/9 in the minors, and has drastically reduced his walk rate while maintaining the Ks in three minor league seasons, to the point where he had a 21:4 K:BB in 15.2 AAA innings before being called up. Maybe he has no real upside; maybe these first six games are a fluke. With Brian Wilson interminably struggling with the closer role though, Hinshaw’s gotta be worth a flyer.
2008 Stats: 4.1IP 0ER 2H 1BB 9K

Ramon Ramirez: Now in his third season, Ramirez has finally escaped Coors Field and is enjoying life in the only mildly hitter-friendly Kauffman Stadium. He was one of the Rockies’ better relievers as a rookie in 2006 before losing most of last year to an elbow injury. While Ramirez can sometimes struggle with control, he’s posting one of the better strikeout rates in the game right now, at 11.2K/9. We really don’t know what he can do in a neutral environment since he’s spent most of his career in the Rockies’ organization, which is mostly drastic hitters’ parks all the way up. With the Royals: so far, so good.
2008 Stats: 23.2IP 21H 9ER 9BB 27K

This entry was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.