MVN: Most Valuable Network

Fantasy baseball newbies often wonder why pitchers are not drafted more highly. In a typical serpentine draft it is not unusual to see the first pitcher taken as deep as the late first or early second round. From there a slow trickle will ensue until all the first and second tier pitchers do not leave the draft board until the early middle rounds. By contrast, there will not be a first tier batter available after the early second round. Why the discrepancy?

The problem with pitchers from a fantasy perspective is that they are more injury-prone than batters and their performance is more unpredictable. Despite the fact that the top pitchers will often finish the season as the highest-scoring components of many fantasy teams, we continue to draft them lower than batters. Apart from their fragility and unpredictability, the biggest reason for this is the ease with which pitchers may be acquired within the course of the season.

Thirty major league teams with five-man starting rotations will use at least 150 starting pitchers throughout the course of a season. Additionally, if each team has one closer and one setup man, that makes for approximately 60 relief pitchers with some fantasy value. There is no other position in the game that has those kind of raw numbers. That means that there will be a lot of pitchers on the free agent waiver wire during the course of a fantasy campaign.

In all fairness, most of the arms available for pickup during the season will have little to no fantasy value. However, amongst all those duds will be a few studs that smart fantasy players can identify and acquire. This article is intended as a primer in how to do so.

Last week I went over the various statistics that we can use to evaluate pitchers. Now let us take that knowledge and apply it in the form of a lesson in what to look for from pitchers who are available on your league's waiver wire.

All of a pitcher's stats have something to say about their respective value, but only a few contain the critical clues within the puzzle. To keep things simple for now, my favorites are WHIP, strikeout rate (K%), strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB) and BABIP. WHIP tells us how good the pitcher is at keeping runners off base. K% tells us how good he is at preventing contact. K/BB is an indicator of the pitcher's relative level of control. BABIP tells us if he has been lucky or unlucky and whether or not he could be due for a correction.

When evaluating a pitcher's WHIP, I am actually more interested in seeing how many walks he has given up. Even the best pitcher is going to give up a hit every now and then, but walks are much more within the control of the guy on the mound. Nothing will send an ERA higher than a pitcher who gives too many free passes -- they will catch up to him sooner or later. If you see an available starting pitcher who has a sub-1.25 WHIP over three or four starts or a reliever with a sub-1.10 WHIP over six to ten appearances, that should be reason enough to flag him as a possible pickup.

Strikeout rate comes next in the process. Even though strikeouts are fascist (thank you Crash Davis) and they make pitchers throw a lot of pitches, batters who strike out have no chance to do anything damaging to a pitcher's numbers. For that reason, a pitcher who can maintain a decent K% has potential fantasy value across the board. A starting pitcher with a K% in the range of 6.0 to 8.0 over three to four starts or a relief pitcher with a K% in the range of 7.0 to 10.0 over at least six to ten appearances is a candidate for acquisition.

Regarding strikeout-to-walk ratio, a high number signifies a pitcher with outstanding control of his arsenal. To get a 2.0 K/BB, a hurler must have at least twice as many strikeouts as walks. That means fewer baserunners and less chances for damage. Any pitcher who can maintain a K/BB over 2.0 across three starts or six appearances has to be considered as an addition to your team.

BABIP is kind of a luck indicator that can tell us whether or not a pitcher's numbers are fraudulent. Since BABIP only measures hits on balls that are actually contacted and do not leave as home runs, it can help us understand if a pitcher is simply suffering from too many bloop hits falling in or if he is enjoying a run of balls headed right at his fielders.

The league average BABIP is usually around .300, so a pitcher with a BABIP that is either much higher or much lower could be due for a correction. A high BABIP means that a lot of hits are falling in and the pitcher's numbers are likely suffering; he could be due for some better outings. A low BABIP means that fewer hits are falling in and the pitcher's numbers could be artificially low.

I do not believe that any of these statistics should be examined by themselves when you are evaluating talent. Prudent fantasy owners will take into account all available information and make judgments based on it. But all of these unconventional stats examined as a whole should help to tell the story of a pitcher's abilities.

To weave all of this together, let us look at a real example of a fine pickup for many fantasy owners in 2008. Ricky Nolasco went undrafted in virtually every fantasy league last season, but he finished the year with a 15-8 record, a 3.52 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 186 strikeouts in 212 1/3 innings pitched. He started the year roughly, but from May 9 to May 31 Nolasco had five straight starts in which he compiled a 1.23 WHIP, a 7.06 K%, a 2.1 K/BB and a .269 BABIP.

Depending on how much roster space you had available on May 31, picking up Nolasco might have been a good idea on that date. Despite the .269 BABIP serving as a danger sign that maybe he had just been getting lucky (he finished the year with a .273 BABIP), the rest of his numbers screamed that he was a good in-season pickup. In fact, you would have done well to get him in late May, because he went on an absolute tear from June 10 to July 12 in which he went 5-0 with a 1.95 ERA, a 0.81 WHIP and 48 strikeouts in only 50 2/3 innings. By the end of that streak he was probably unavailable in all but the shallowest leagues.

Evaluating pitchers is an inexact science at best. But since half of a fantasy league's points are determined by pitchers, it is absolutely essential that we learn to do so effectively. As with the Nolasco example, sometimes you have to ignore little warning signs and go with the rest of a pitcher's numbers. If you had done so at the beginning of June you would have gotten one of the best pitchers in the National League last season for practically nothing.