Thursday, March 15, 2012

Fantasy Focus: Rotation on a Budget

Right now, I'm obsessed with fantasy auction values and how to build a roster on a budget. I've always believed in having strong pitching in fantasy baseball. Fortunately, I've been more successful in finding good pitchers than good hitters. One strategy I have used with quite a bit of success is to fill my bench with starting pitchers and use it as a rotation extender. With 5 starters, 5 bench spots and 2 P spots, I have to potential to have a 12 man pitching rotation. Since there are no innings limits in H2H and a staff of strikeout pitchers, I can pretty much guarantee a W in the K column every week. I let W's, ERA and WHIP take care of themselves after that. It's hard to beat a small rotation that has a great week and runs up and ERA of under 3. On the other hand, with so many innings, on bad start does not sink your week. You have the innings to buffer it.

With $260 to spend on a 26 man roster including bench players, you could budget as much as $120 on those 12 pitchers, but then you would probably get badly outbid on the offensive side of the ledger and would not have anything left for closers/Saves. So, the challenge here is to build a 12 man rotation while not spending more than $10 on any 1 pitcher. What kind of a rotation would you end up with and would it be competitive? I'll use the Average Yahoo Price as my cost and last year's stat line as my results just to keep it quick and dirty.

1. Brandon Beachy, ATL. $8.7 141.2 IP, 7 W, 169 K, 3.68 ERA, 1.21 WHIP Should be a starter all year which would add to the K and W totals.

2. Jordan Zimmerman, Wash. $6.9. 161.1 IP, 8 W, 124 K, 3.18 ERA, 1.15 WHIP. No innings limit this year.

3 Cory Luebke, SD. $6.4. 139.2 IP, 6 W, 154 K's, 3.29 ERA, 1.07 WHIP. Innings should rise here too.

4. Ubaldo Jimenez, Cle. $5.4. 188.1 IP, 10 W, 180 K, 4.68 ERA, 1.40 WHIP. Ubaldo's velocity is reportedly looking good. Still has the strong K/9. Good candidate for bounceback and a great risk at this price.

5. Ervin Santana, LAA. $3.3. 228.2 IP, 11 W, 178 K, 3.38 ERA, 1.22 WHIP. Very underrated fantasy pitcher. I got him late in last year's draft and he was solid all year. Even gave me a no-no one week! At $3.3 he's a huge bargain.

6. Derek Holland, Tex. $2.2. 198 IP, 16 W, 162 K, 3.95 ERA, 1.35 WHIP. I don't usually chase Wins, but at $2.2, it's worth the risk and he can be tremendous in any given week.

7. Bud Norris, HOU. $1.3. 186 IP, 176 K, 3.77 ERA, 1.33 WHIP. Great source of K's and learning to control his great stuff.

8. Scott Baker, Min. $1.2. 134.2 IP, 8 W, 123 K, 3.14 ERA, 1.17 WHIP. Very solid numbers from an established pitcher. Appears to be healthy and should be good for more IP.

9. Henderson Alvarez, TOR. $1.2. 63.2 IP, 1 W, 40 K, 3.53 ERA, 1.13 WHIP. There was a very convincing article in Fangraphs about a month ago on how high velocity + low walk rates = pitching success. Alvarez has extreme groundball rates to boot. He won't be a K stud, but but when you carry 12 starters, you don't necessarily need every one to have a high K rate. Based on that article, I'll take a chance on a $1-2 investment for my 9'th starter.

10. Juan Nicasio, Col. $-. 71.2 IP, 4 W, 58 K, 4.14 ERA, 1.27 WHIP. Nicasio was the other guy mentioned in the Fangraphs article. He suffered a fearsome injury on a comebacker last year, but appears to be fully recovered this spring. Isn't even being drafted in most leagues.

11. Eric Bedard, Pit. $1.1. 129.1 IP, 5 W, 125 K's, 3.62 ERA, 1.28 WHIP. Bedard is a poor bet to stay healthy, but if he does, he'll likely put up very good numbers. If he gets injured again, so what? I didn't spend much on him and can replace him from the FA market.

12. Hector Noesi, Sea. $-. 56.1 IP, 2 W, 45 K's, 4.47 ERA, 1.51 WHIP. The forgotten man in the Jesus Montero/Michael Pineda trade. Had pretty good peripheral numbers in NY and the ERA should drop by close to a full run with the move to Seattle. Don't be at all surprised if he puts up better numbers than Pineda this year.

Rounding up to the closest $, I've spent a total of $43 on a 12 man starting rotation that should win K's most weeks and be competitive in the other SP categories. I can afford to go higher on some of the bids. I might even be able to splurge on a couple of higher priced pitchers in the $15 range like MadBum. This frees up substantial $$ to spend on closers and offense. Hey, I might even try to outbid somebody for Matt Kemp!

What do you think of my budget rotation?

4 comments:

  1. Ha, looking mighty similar to my "wing and a prayer" 16 manager snake-draft team. Beyond a starter of CJ Wilson, I'm going with a rotation of solely high upside guys including: Luebke, Beachy, Morrow, Minor, and Nicasio. Either going to be very successful if they can pitch to their projections, or very very ugly.

    I think you got a steal on Ubaldo and Santana as well.

    Nice job on the draft, but we're in this boat together!

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    1. Just to be clear, I haven't had my draft yet. I'm just playing around with scenarios. It remains to be seen whether I could get these pitchers at these prices. These prices are based on average price on Yahoo right now.

      For a 16 team league, I think you have a very nice rotation as long as you were able to get better offensive players as a result.

      As for mine, it might be a bit hopeful for a 10 team league, but it tells me what I might end up with in a "worst case scenario." I can upgrade my SP budget from here. Based on this, though, there is no way I'm paying $30+ for Tim Lincecum!

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    2. Ah, I see. I haven't dabbled into the auction format, but I think your strategy of building on high upside pitching should hopefully work. Worst comes to worse you grab a Nicasio or Mike Minor at $1 and you end up flipping them early / mid-season to fill some other holes in your line-up (provided you have the bench space).

      Also, if you're looking for a cheap(er) ace, Bumgarner for $13 seems like a steal.

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    3. Looks like Scott Baker has elbow issues again so I'll put him on my no-draft list.

      Another total sleeper to look for is Garrett Richards of the Angels. He's another high velocity-low walks guy who could win the 5'th starter job with the Angels. With their offense, that could result in a nice number in the win column as well as a good WHIP and strong K's.

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