Exploring the Top 155 Pitchers

Happy Holidays. A new year is almost upon us. Just around the corner, pitchers and catchers will be gearing up to report. Spring-training facilities are prepping for an early start in anticipation of the World Baseball Classic, added excitement for any baseball fan ready to brush the cold off. Every new year brings change. Some more than others. This year, the new CBA was agreed upon. As the real game changes, so too does the fantasy world. Our league is entering its twelfth year, which is mind-blowing to me, considering we now represent six different states in four different time zones. Part of our longevity is attributed to adapting to the ever-changing landscape of baseball. Sabermetrics are slowing creeping into our stat categories — power is relied on less, and relievers more so. All that to say, we have changed again.

Our constant struggle has always been how to reflect the real game as best as possible without drastically changing the landscape of the league during one offseason. Recently there has been a trend toward an arms race. Pitchers were going ridiculously early in drafts and trades were featuring first- and second-round draft picks for non-keeper-eligible starting pitchers. Our solution to reduce the value of starting pitching in our league was to move from strikeouts to K/9 so as to reflect our six stat categories: Wins, K/9, ERA, WHIP, Net Saves, and Quality Starts.

Enough about our incredibly awesome keeper league. With all the talk of the winter meetings, the World Baseball Classic, and a new year, the jump on pitching is long overdue. So, the top 155 pitchers were ranked accordingly.

Method

Steamer has released their 2017 projections. These projections, of some 4000-plus pitchers, were exported to Microsoft Excel. Pitchers were then sorted by WAR: highest to lowest. The top 155 pitchers were then selected. In a 10-team standard league, no team should roster more than 15 pitchers, giving justification for cutting off the sample at 155. Five stat categories were then selected. Steamer does not project quality starts or blown saves. Therefore, to balance the importance of SP vs RP, innings pitched was selected in addition to Wins, K/9, ERA, and WHIP.

A table was then created with the stat categories on the x-axis and the pitching running down the y-axis (if you will). Each pitcher was given a positional value based on where that pitcher ranked within each stat category. For example, Max Scherzer is projected to have an outstanding 10.93 K/9 rate, which ranks sixth in the top 155. Scherzer was therefore given a value of 6 for the K/9 category. Scores were summed for each pitcher. Pitchers were than ranked by final score. Finally, a correlation using the summed scores and pitcher rank was executed to examine the relationship between stat categories and pitcher ranks.

Table 1: Example of Pitching Scores
		Wins	K/9	ERA	Whip	IP	Total
10	Rich Hill	6	10	8	12	98	134
11	Lance McCullers	3	11	18	67	31	130
12	Robbie Ray	5	12	19	39	61	136
13	Tyler Glasnow	7	13	52	130	91	293

Results

A complete list of the top 155 pitchers can be found at the end of this document. Below is a list of the top 20. Of note are Lance McCullers and Robbie Ray, who rank at 17 and 19, respectively. Not surprisingly, Clayton Kershaw is number one.

Table 2: Pitcher Rank
Rank	Pitcher
1	Clayton Kershaw
2	Max Scherzer
3	Noah Syndergaard
4	Corey Kluber
5	Chris Sale
6	Madison Bumgarner
7	Jon Lester
8	Chris Archer
9	David Price
10	Stephen Strasburg
11	Carlos Carrasco
12	Yu Darvish
13	Justin Verlander
14	Jake Arrieta
15	Johnny Cueto
16	Jacob deGrom
17	Lance McCullers
18	Rich Hill
19	Robbie Ray
20	Michael Pineda

 

A correlation was then performed to explore the relationships of stat categories on pitcher total scores. Table 3 highlights K/9, ERA and WHIP as very strong correlations, with ERA being the strongest. Innings pitched had the weakest correlation.

Table 3: Correlation of Stat Categories and Total Scores
	Wins	K/9	ERA	WHIP	IP	Total
Wins	1
K/9	0.122264	1
ERA	0.333911	0.716097	1
WHIP	0.372086	0.589884	0.815055	1
IP	0.909963	-0.04049	0.138322	0.2326	1
Total	0.594921	0.752427	0.891181	0.881576	0.458243	1

 

Discussion

The goal of this exercise was to explore the impact on the changing landscape of pitching stat categories in fantasy baseball. The top 20 pitchers remain starters. However, within the top 20, one can see the impact of the change to K/9 from strikeouts. Both McCullers and Ray rank inside the top-15 projected K/9, according to Steamer. This led to the question, just how much of an impact will K/9 have on total scores?

The correlation revealed a strong relationship, but not the strongest. Therefore, the answer is, it has a strong impact, but in the end not as much as ERA and WHIP. What does strong mean? Statisticians usually agree that a correlation above .75 is considered a very strong relationship. To explore this meaning, let us take a look at an extremely early positional ranking done by ESPN.

Below, we’ll play the guessing game.

Table 4: Player Comparison
	IP	W	K	ERA	WHIP
Player 1	174.1	8	218	4.90	1.47
Player 2	175.1	7	167	4.88	1.27

 

The above numbers appear somewhat similar. In a standard league, you may be inclined to lean toward Player 2. Indeed, according to ESPN, Player 2 is ranked 38^th at his position and Player 1 is ranked 62^nd. However, when scored using the methodology in this study, Player 2 ranks 49^th while Player 1 ranks 19^th. Two things when considering this. Table 4 are stats from 2016. The aforementioned rankings are based on 2017 projections. It could be that Player 1 has more room to grow. However, the change from strikeouts to K/9 is evident. Player 1 (10.11) has a much better K/9 than Player 2 (8.35). Therefore, the K/9 relationship to player ranking is correctly strong, and ranking Player 1 higher than Player 2 is logical. If you were wondering, Player 1 is Robbie Ray, and Player 2 is Drew Smyly.

Limitations

Steamer does not project quality starts or blown saves, therefore the correlation could be skewed toward starters or relievers. These results should only be taken into consideration when these five stat categories are in play. The sample size of starting pitchers is large enough, but not for relief pitchers. Only five relievers were projected in the top 155 pitchers ranked by WAR. Results of the correlation, then, could look different had more relievers been incorporated.

Future research

Future research should then include additional relievers. Expanding the pitcher rankings to the top 300 would include most relevant pitchers according to Steamer. Furthermore, additional stat categories should be explored. Would adding saves and quality starts affect the rankings? Certainly, the more variables added, the more complicated the results become. However, finding a balance between starters and relievers, reflective of the real game, should be further explored.

Conclusion

A great importance is placed on starting pitching, both in the real and fake game. However, relievers seem to have a growing importance. In 2016, three months of Chapman cost the Cubs two of the game’s best prospects, a trade usually reserved for starting pitching. How to value starting pitching compared to relief pitching is left open to interpretation, especially in the world of fantasy. A reduction on starting pitching value was in order for our league and for standard leagues. How to go about this should reflect the real game. For 10 managers, the decision was to move from strikeouts to K/9.

This initial research demonstrates that this change does not swing the pendulum too far toward relievers and away from starting pitching. A correlation demonstrates the strongest relationship to pitcher ranking is ERA. Given a head-to-head matchup, with an innings limit, having multiple starters with a good ERA will still be favorable to deploying strong relievers. The top 155 pitcher rankings further confirm this fact. Initial conclusion is that a move to K/9 is a positive switch that reflects the growing importance of a good reliever, while still favoring starting pitching.

Appendix A

Top 155 Pitchers

	Name
1	Clayton Kershaw
2	Max Scherzer
3	Noah Syndergaard
4	Corey Kluber
5	Chris Sale
6	Madison Bumgarner
7	Jon Lester
8	Chris Archer
9	David Price
10	Stephen Strasburg
11	Carlos Carrasco
12	Yu Darvish
13	Justin Verlander
14	Jake Arrieta
15	Johnny Cueto
16	Jacob deGrom
17	Lance McCullers
18	Rich Hill
19	Robbie Ray
20	Michael Pineda
21	Danny Duffy
22	Steven Matz
23	James Paxton
24	Danny Salazar
25	Carlos Martinez
26	Gerrit Cole
27	Andrew Miller
28	Aroldis Chapman
29	Kenley Jansen
30	Dellin Betances
31	Zack Greinke
32	Aaron Nola
33	Jose Quintana
34	Jameson Taillon
35	Matt Shoemaker
36	Kyle Hendricks
37	Edwin Diaz
38	Dallas Keuchel
39	Cole Hamels
40	Zach Britton
41	Masahiro Tanaka
42	Kenta Maeda
43	Jeff Samardzija
44	Tyler Skaggs
45	John Lackey
46	Vince Velasquez
47	Julio Urias
48	Matt Moore
49	Drew Smyly
50	Julio Teheran
51	Jon Gray
52	Matt Harvey
53	Kevin Gausman
54	Garrett Richards
55	Rick Porcello
56	Gio Gonzalez
57	Alex Reyes
58	Alex Wood
59	Wei-Yin Chen
60	Zack Wheeler
61	Collin McHugh
62	Carlos Rodon
63	Drew Pomeranz
64	Felix Hernandez
65	Tyson Ross
66	Matt Andriese
67	Jerad Eickhoff
68	Sean Manaea
69	Anthony DeSclafani
70	Michael Fulmer
71	Marcus Stroman
72	Blake Snell
73	Taijuan Walker
74	Tyler Glasnow
75	Ian Kennedy
76	Adam Wainwright
77	Jake Odorizzi
78	Jaime Garcia
79	Yordano Ventura
80	Joe Ross
81	J.A. Happ
82	Aaron Sanchez
83	Sonny Gray
84	Jharel Cotton
85	Hisashi Iwakuma
86	Michael Wacha
87	Francisco Liriano
88	Drew Hutchison
89	Mike Foltynewicz
90	Lance Lynn
91	Ricky Nolasco
92	Jeremy Hellickson
93	Archie Bradley
94	Luis Severino
95	Nate Karns
96	Mike Leake
97	Bartolo Colon
98	Mike Montgomery
99	Tyler Anderson
100	Ervin Santana
101	Junior Guerra
102	Ivan Nova
103	Chad Green
104	Tanner Roark
105	Jason Hammel
106	Mike Fiers
107	Dan Straily
108	R.A. Dickey
109	Doug Fister
110	Marco Estrada
111	Homer Bailey
112	Jesse Chavez
113	Ty Blach
114	Jordan Zimmermann
115	Trevor Bauer
116	Brandon Finnegan
117	Edinson Volquez
118	Charlie Morton
119	Daniel Norris
120	Cesar Vargas
121	Zach Davies
122	Adam Conley
123	Eduardo Rodriguez
124	Derek Holland
125	Luis Perdomo
126	Alex Cobb
127	Jose Berrios
128	Josh Tomlin
129	Shelby Miller
130	Chad Bettis
131	Patrick Corbin
132	CC Sabathia
133	Christian Friedrich
134	Hector Santiago
135	Kendall Graveman
136	Anibal Sanchez
137	Steven Brault
138	Tyler Chatwood
139	Wade Miley
140	Chris Tillman
141	Dylan Bundy
142	Andrew Triggs
143	Jason Vargas
144	Matt Garza
145	Phil Hughes
146	Miguel Gonzalez
147	Kyle Gibson
148	Ariel Miranda
149	Tom Koehler
150	Jorge de la Rosa
151	Chase Anderson
152	Martin Perez
153	Chad Kuhl
154	Andrew Cashner
155	Wily Peralta