This week’s query: What do you do about teams with pitching ratios at or near the bottom of the pack?
Ryan Hallam (Fighting Chance Fantasy, @FightingChance): In a way it depends. Do I have pitchers who are off to slow starts but I truly believe in them? If so, I probably ride it out. Healthy pitchers start 30-33 games a year. Elite pitchers win 17-18. There are going to be duds in even the best guy’s game logs. Are there underlying stats good even if the counting stats are poor? Another way to reason to ride it out. But, do I have some lower tier guys that I thought would start well that haven’t? I’m definitely making moves there and the upcoming Memorial Day weekend is an important tentpole in the season for me. Are there injured pitchers on the waiver wire coming back soon? Maybe grab them up early. Prospects who appear close to a call up? Same thing. You also could just churn some transactions in leagues where you don’t have to worry about FAAB or transaction limits and ride some hot hands for a few starts and then churn them for the next hot hand.
Derek Carty (RotoGrinders, @DerekCarty): Assuming you have a staff that you still believe is good, and you’ve just run into some bad BABIP luck or something, it’s way too early for me to hit the panic button. Depending on the format, streaming some elite non-closer relievers can help, but I’m really not too worried at this point. If your pitching has been good and just unlucky, not a whole lot you can do anyway.
Brian Feldman (FantasyBaseballAuctioneer, @FanBBAuctioneer): It’s still early enough that you can go up or down the standings 5+ points in a day, so if it’s just a matter of underachieving (and health is good) then it’s OK to ride it out another few weeks. The rest is mostly dependent upon your league rules…is there a Minimum IP requirement? If not (or if you have at least three healthy quality starters) then there are usually plenty of quality middle relievers who throw an effective five innings a week, which is more valuable than a disastrous five innings from a SP5. What’s your league rules regarding Reserve and IL slots? If you have the room then stash a few quality arms currently on the IL that will be back within a month or so, such as Woodruff, Manae, Kershaw. If allowed, grab a top prospect that you expect to be up within a month, such as Painter, Chandler, Burns. Stay calm, at least until Memorial Day.
Mike Gianella (Baseball Prospectus, @): Try not to throw gasoline on the fire. It’s tempting to run out and pick up a bunch of iffy starters and try to make up for your losses with one big week but unless you’re adding a pitcher via trade all you’re usually doing is using arms that are worse than what you already have – free agent pitchers are usually sitting out there for a reason. This doesn’t mean you should simply leave a slumping SP out there and hope for the best. Consider using 1-2 high end, non-closer pitchers who will make up for some of the strikeouts you’ll lose sitting someone in a slump while protecting and maybe even improving your ERA/WHIP. A common mistake is thinking “I’m going to lose too much ground in strikeouts.” Torching two categories to kind of/sort of protect one is a losing strategy.
Ray Flowers (Fantasy Guru, @TheRayFlowers): Say a prayer to the universe isn’t a bad start. Depending on format and league size you could look to stream in positive matchups. You should also be smart about it and sit guys you just aren’t sure about. We all know those matchups that lead to consternation. Pass on those. You might have to try an whittle away with relievers though that takes a long while and it’s not like they never have a rough inning. Finally, try the trade market. Lot’s of folks forget about the draft day spend on any player they took outside the top 6-8 rounds.
Rick Wolf (SiriusXM Fantasy, @RickWolf1): There are a number of reasons this can happen so when it does, reevaluate. Was it injuries? A bad draft? Bad analysis? Slow starts by good pitchers? Then you act accordingly. You cannot be too rich, too thin or too aggressive, so I get aggressive. Worst thing that happens is that you stay in that spot in those categories. Often times, I take more risks. Trading, adding two-start starters to get more innings and lower ratios since they are so high. In cases where I have injuries or waiting for good pitchers, I will lower the total innings while I wait with high strikeout middle relievers. That 100 percent can work. It depends on how many bad innings you have built up. A game changing set of two starting pitchers with middle relievers can often fix the problem. Don’t panic. Stay smart. Keep working hard.
Bret Sayre (Baseball Prospectus, @BretSayreBP): Nothing yet, but I do want to know where I am in the other pitching categories before I start doing anything drastic. If I’m in the top half of wins and strikeouts, I’m likely going to keep riding with the guys I have since (without knowing who they actually are in this hypothetical) those types of staffs are the ones most likely to revert to quality ratios, so long as I believe in the pitchers themselves. If I’m closer to the top in any of those categories, I might ride it out with an extra middle reliever or two for a few weeks so I can be pickier about which starts make it into my active lineup. If I’m towards the bottom, I’m giving them another 3-4 weeks to turn it around before I start aggressively spamming starters.
Mike Podhorzer (FanGraphs, @MikePodhorzer): I pray to the BABIP Gods that they will be nicer to my pitchers the rest of the way. Assuming I haven’t rostered a pitcher I expect to post an ERA over 4.00, I then do nothing.
Fred Zinkie (Yahoo/Rotowire, @FredZinkieMLB): Overall, I’m not changing anything around the quarter pole. After all, taking a team that is near the bottom in ratios and moving them ot the middle of the pack is a big win. That being said, I would take a hard look at the pitchers who are ruining my ratios. It’s possible that I’ve given too much rope to some pitchers who have an especially high ERA or WHIP.
Brian Walton (CreativeSports2, @B_Walton): At least in AL- and NL-only leagues, we often draft a few marginal starters late, hoping for the best. It might be time to let a few of them go and pick up a setup man or two with good ratios (and perhaps some save opportunities later, too.
Anthony Perri (Fantistics, @Anthony_Perri): Trust your process that you used to evaluate talent in preseason. We are still only about a quarter of the season in, and many times it’s simply having the patience for what should be a regression to the mean. We see this frequently with pitchers that have a high BABIP against, but average hard contact against. That said, there are some pitching indicators that serve as warning signs, such as a loss in fastball velocity. Wait for that pitcher to have a good outing, then put him on the trade market and get some value before the ship sinks.
Corbin Young (Baseball HQ, Rotowire, @corbin_young21): I check the xERA, skills like K-BB%, ball rate, swinging strike rates, and the pitch movement profiles to see if there are any changes in the early sample. If there’s an above-average skill or two to latch onto, then I try to be patient. If I have to find 3-4 or more reasons that it could turn around based on the league size and team context, it’s time to move on. With that, attempting to more careful with streaming pitcher options.
Rudy Gamble (Razzball, @RudyGamble): No drastic steps but the first thing I would suggest is reviewing your weekly start/sit and FAAB process. You should be starting 6-7 pitchers every week that project positive value for that start – either from your cadre of rostered starting pitchers or the handful on waivers that project well for the week. How are you assessing this? There are various rules of thumb (e.g., avoid marginal starters on road starts) but you should consider testing some third-party sources to inform your assessments. One tactical move you can do to improve your chances of having 6+ worthy starters each week is to use an additional bench spot for an SP. Sometimes buying an SP on a bad week and stashing them helps in upcoming weeks. Looking ahead to matchups for the next week or targeting SPs in neutral to pitcher-friendly parks are good strategies for identifying which mediocre SP is worth stashing.
Kelly Kirby (FantasyPros, @thewonkypenguin): As the resident bottom dweller in pitching, at this point, I’m willing to throw them all out and start over. By this, I mean that I will slash underperforming starters whose underlying numbers suggest very little reason for hope in favor of relievers with superb ERA and WHIP ratios to see if I can improve those two numbers before it’s too late. It’d be great to pick up a stray save by doing this, but it often improves my win totals as well. I’d love to exchange a hitter for a decent pitcher if I could spare the hitting, which I cannot at this time. Overall, I do see mid-May as the time to get funky when it comes to pitching if necessary in 15-team roto leagues.
Jeff Boggis (Fantasy Football Empire, @JeffBoggis): It’s still too early to hit the panic button and reset. But if I had picked up a pitcher earlier in the season from waivers that got off to a hot start and is now starting to fade, I would consider dropping that player if I had other immediate needs that need to be addressed. I can always bench the player to see if they turn it around, but they would be on a short leash. Sometimes the best moves that I made were the ones that I didn’t make when under duress.
Jason Collette (Rotowire, ): Drop by drop, a river is formed. It’s important to try to build it back one step at a time. You can’t exactly trade the pieces from your team which created your crappy ratios to quickly fix the situation, so you look for matchups to exploit on FAAB while trying to deal away reclamation projects to address other areas of opportunity on your roster. This is tougher to accomplish in a mono league, which puts more emphasis on building a solid ratio foundation at the draft table.
Michael Govier (Pallazzo Podcast, @mjgovier): Lots of options here. You can get radical with trades for those who think your current pitchers are buy-lows. However, if you think they are buy-lows then you should be patient. Even in H2H leagues you can make up ground by making a few weeks worth of runs. You can also consider going with more SP/RP who are relievers like Hayden Birdsong was doing before he was moved into the rotation. A member of our live chat on the last Pallazzo live stream says he has been using 4 SP with 5 RP. For those in ratio hell, maybe it’s time to try a new approach. Unless you’re certain the pitchers you have on staff now are giving you the worst part of their season first before they level out rest of season. Not all that common though. Pitchers like Sandy Alcantara and Lucas Giolito returning from TJ are struggling because that’s what happens even to vets returning from major surgery. They may improve by July or so, but how much longer can you wait if they are crushing your ratios? In the end, look at your pitchers and other pitchers left on base % (LOB) that are well below career norms. These are pitchers who will reduce the runners on base who score as the season progresses.
Doug Dennis (BaseballHQ, ): My teams typically start at a pitching deficit anyway and I am constantly and ruthlessly trying to add and find new options in-season to replace those initial flyers that are not panning out. The effort to do that doesn’t accelerate or change because of the start I am having. Projections still outweigh hot starts but examining K% and K%-BB% with opponents/ballparks in mind may give you additional flyers. And if a hot new flyer can replace the earlier cold flyer–it isn’t like you are THAT invested in the earlier/cold flyer anyway.
Erik Halterman (Rotowire, @erik_halterman): Some of the problem is probably bad luck, which you can check by comparing your staff’s ERAs to their ERA estimators and that sort of thing, and if you’re merely doing worse than expected and not truly at the bottom of the pack, it’s possible the problem is entirely bad luck. But if you’re all the way down in the bottom spot or two (like I am in ERA and WHIP in NL Tout Wars), it wasn’t all bad luck. You probably misevaluated some pitchers during draft season or have been hit by injuries. That means the problem can’t be solved merely by hoping these guys turn it around. Pitching has to be a priority on the trade market and the waiver wire, which might mean not bidding on the next exciting hitter call-up because you need to save most of your FAAB for fixing your pitching staff.
Patrick Davitt (BaseballHQ, @patrickdavitt): I tend to stick with my top guys barring some news suggesting there’s not much hope. The churn is at the bottom of the roster, where you can try (and often succeed) in generating the kinds of incremental changes that eventually add up to something substantial.
Matt Cederholm (BaseballHQ, @TheBigHurtHQ): Don’t listen to me—I’m in last place. Obviously, you want to just go out and get better pitchers! Okay, for realz: I think you need to stick with the top end of your staff unless there’s a good reason not to (e.g., injury). It’s probably time to cut bait on any speculations/sleepers who haven’t worked out. And start taking chances. Look for pitchers with strong skills who are waiting for an opportunity. Be a week or two early on top prospects due up. Speculate on guys like Hayden Birdsong—long relievers who are an injury (or a Jordan Hicks) away from a rotation spot.
Adam Ronis (SiriusXM Fantasy, @AdamRonis): I have been in this position before and been able to dig out of it. It’s often due to pitchers getting off to slow starts and underperforming their expected stats. Bailey Ober and Hunter Brown from last season are two good examples. Other times the pitchers on the team are just bad and the analysis was wrong or there were was an injury. If this is the case, trades and waiver wire adds are the way to go.
JB Branson (Rotoballer, @RowdyRotoJB): During the first month or two of the season I’m not too focused on my pitching matchups. There’s not a ton of compiled data for the team’s offensive splits, and I’m just trusting my guys I drafted at that point. But after those 2 months, if I notice my pitching stats are in the dump thus far, then I switch to focusing on matchups and splits for my SPs. Typically, that means less SP in the starting lineup per week, which is when I flex in more of the Ratio stud relievers I either drafted late or can pick up for cheap. So, it’s essentially a two-sided attack on my ratios by avoiding tough matchups for my SPs and getting more RP innings. I do this for another two-ish months before re-evaluating again and perhaps switching focus to streaming W and K if they start to falter with the RP-heavy approach.
Phil Hertz (Baseball HQ, @prhz50): It depends on how deep a hole has been dug. Assuming it’s not huge, patience is my mantra along with jettisoning mediocre starters and replacing them with good relievers even if they’re not save sources. If it is huge, I might consider doing the opposite: jettison all non-closer relievers and add starters, hoping to pick up points in wins – did I just say that, ew – and strikeouts.
Dave Adler (Baseball HQ, @daveadler01): Instead of dwelling on a poor ERA or WHIP, check out the underlying skills. Are they sound? Good command and control? If so, perhaps they’ve been affected by bad luck. For those pitchers, stay patient. But if the underlying skills are bad – feel free to cut bait. Try not to fall in love with the latest hot shot up from the minors, though, as newbies often struggle their first few turns through the rotation.
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Chris Torres (Pitcher List, Fantasy Pros, @TorresTakes): I think it’s still too early to panic and do anything drastic if you find yourself near the bottom of the pitching ratio categories. However, it does warrant an honest assessment of what has gone wrong to this point. Is it due to injuries? Underperformance? Or did you just not invest enough draft capital into pitching? I think the way to “fix” the issue is going to be really team-dependent though.
Personally, I try to avoid this situation from day 1 by being super careful about when and where I start my pitchers. For example, If you’re not a top-50-ish pitcher, I’m probably not throwing you in a road start against a top-15 offense. I feel like l see many fantasy managers who are too liberal with where they’re willing to start certain pitchers and I think that can lead to you a digging a ratio hole that’s difficult to climb out of.
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