Elite AL starters let fantasy owners down this season
With pitchers on pace to set a record for strikeouts for the ninth consecutive season, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred last week announced that he was looking into making major rules changes to swing the balance of power back toward hitters.
Knowing how things have been trending, fantasy owners have had ample time to adjust their strategies to this new reality.
This spring, 13 starting pitchers made their way into the consensus top 40 in average draft position. There were plenty of aces out there, it seemed, and every team needed at least one.
In auction leagues, $20-plus pitchers were everywhere. The League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR) had 11 starters in both the American League and National League go for at least $22.
How have those investments played out? Just three of the high-priced AL starters (Corey Kluber, Chris Sale and Cole Hamels) have returned close to full value.
The struggles of some of the best AL pitchers might be one of the top fantasy story lines in 2016.
Rather than try to predict what will happen over the final five weeks of the season, it might be more helpful to examine what has happened and see if we can draw conclusions.
David Price looked like a sure thing, even though he had to adjust to Fenway Park after joining the Boston Red Sox. Although his strikeout and walk rates have been almost identical to what they were last season (when he went 18-5 with a 2.45 ERA), opponents have hit .269 against him, 32 points above his career average. Price is allowing a career-high 35.3% hard contact rate and has been victimized by the long ball. His 13.8% home run-to-fly ball rate is by far the worst of his career. As a result, his ERA has jumped to 4.19.
It has been strange to see Cy Young Award winners such as Price ($13), Felix Hernandez ($10) and Dallas Keuchel ($6) pitch as poorly as they have at times this season. Ditto for my preseason AL Cy Young pick — Chris Archer ($11) — who, despite leading the league in strikeouts, has gone 7-16 with a 4.18 ERA.
Time for fantasy owners to bail on underperforming players
Even stranger, look at some of the AL starters who have had the most success.
A year after signing what looked like a ridiculously overpriced four-year, $82 million extension, Boston’s Rick Porcello has outpitched Price — and everyone else in the league. At $28 in Roto value, Porcello has been the AL’s best fantasy pitcher. And he has done it without the elevated strikeout rate we expect from our aces.
Porcello averages 90 mph on his fastball and has a career mark of six strikeouts per nine innings. Yet he has managed to go 17-3 with a 3.22 ERA, largely on the strength of his excellent control (1.5 BB/9).
The only other pitcher in the majors to match Porcello’s 17 wins is J.A. Happ ($25) of the Toronto Blue Jays. Also not an overpowering presence, the left-hander averages 91.6 mph with his fastball and strikes out eight batters per nine innings.
Yet he has been almost untouchable over the past two months, going 11-0 with a 2.53 ERA in his last 12 starts.
How are these seemingly underwhelming pitchers outperforming almost everyone else? It has less to do with them and more to do with their teammates. Porcello and Happ rank first and second in the AL in run support — getting roughly 6 1/2 runs a game in their starts. As much as sabermetrics tells us how flawed a statistic it is, wins matter in the overwhelming majority of fantasy leagues. And they provide a huge chunk of pitchers’ fantasy value.
The same principle can apply to Steven Wright, Michael Fulmer and Aaron Sanchez — all with strikeout rates of under 8.0 K/9 but ERAs around 3.00 and the beneficiaries of at least five runs a game from their offenses. Their combined won-lost record is 35-11, and their average fantasy value is $20.
So the question remains: Who has been the best starting pitcher in the AL this season?
How about … none of the above.
From a skills and results standpoint, the AL’s best starter has been Danny Duffy of the Kansas City Royals. Although he has made only 19 starts, the 27-year-old lefty has been phenomenal, posting an 11-1 record, 2.66 ERA and 1.01 WHIP — good for $24 in Roto value.
He has been incredibly efficient — averaging an AL-low 14.5 pitches per inning — but has been able to rack up strikeouts with 126 in 1202/3 innings as a starter (9.4 K/9). It’s hard to say why the Royals waited until May 15 to put Duffy in the rotation, but fantasy owners who jumped on board quickly have been richly rewarded.
Closer to normal
Meanwhile, starting pitchers in the NL have done a better job of meeting preseason expectations.
Seven of the 11 starters who sold for more than $20 in LABR have been worth at least that much, with only Jacob deGrom ($17), Zack Greinke ($10), Gerrit Cole ($6) and Matt Harvey ($0) lagging behind.
Clayton Kershaw’s historic run of dominance the past several seasons had him as part of the conversation for the No. 1 overall pick in many fantasy leagues. And he didn’t disappoint over first three months, going 11-2 with a 1.79 ERA and an otherworldly 145/9 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
The only thing to slow him down has been a back injury that has kept him out of action for nearly two months. But he is eligible to come off the disabled list this week.
Transcript: Fantasy baseball chat with Steve Gardner
Fantasy owners who have managed to tread water in Kershaw’s absence and waited patiently for him to return should get a turbo boost in the standings over the season’s final month.
How good has Kershaw been? Despite not pitching since June 26, he has been worth $30 in Roto value to his fantasy owners. As we’ve seen, no AL pitcher has been worth that much this season — and only Madison Bumgarner ($31) and Max Scherzer ($31) have come close to doing in nearly five months what Kershaw did in three.
On the other hand, the stellar season enjoyed by Miami Marlins ace Jose Fernandez could come to a screeching halt if the Marlins fall out of the playoff picture. Returning last year from elbow surgery, Fernandez pitched only 891/3 innings. As a result, the Marlins have been trying to limit his workload this season. He has had some starts skipped or pushed back, yet he’s second in the majors to Scherzer in strikeouts with 204 — and he’s done that in 1412/3 innings.
Fernandez’s whiff rate of 12.96 K/9 is third best in baseball history for a qualified starting pitcher, trailing only Randy Johnson’s 13.41 in 2001 and Pedro Martinez’s 13.20 in 1999.
With a little more help from his offense, Fernandez might have more than 12 wins and be worth more than his $24 in Roto value. The Marlins have averaged 3.9 runs for him in 23 starts.
Stephen Strasburg ($23) and Jake Arrieta ($26) lead the league in wins with 15. While they’re elite talents with high strikeout rates, Strasburg and Arrieta are also No. 1 and No. 4 in the league in run support with an average of 6.6 and 6.2 runs scored a start respectively.
Julio Teheran has an elite 2.90 ERA and 1.00 WHIP, but toiling for the last-place Atlanta Braves, he has a 3-9 record and $15 Roto value.
If some rules end up being changed next season, strikeouts will remain important, but pitchers might need above-average control as well. One thing that won’t change: No matter how skilled pitchers are, it’s hard to be a fantasy ace without a little help from their (hitter) friends.