Never Draft A Starting Pitcher Early

I’ve never been a fan of taking a starting pitcher early in a fantasy baseball draft. Ever. As the years have piled up, I have a little less hair on top, a little more gray in the hair that remains and I still hold the position that taking a starting pitcher early doesn’t make sense. In what follows, I’ll hopefully be able to defend that position to those of you who are in the camp that says taking starting pitchers early is a fine thing to do. Maybe I can change your mind. Maybe.

1 – Starting pitchers only contribute to four of the five primary categories. They do not accrue saves. Seems obvious to me, though apparently, it isn’t to others. As great as Clayton Kershaw is, he’s only dominating in four categories while offering you nothing for the fifth.

2 – When you take a starting pitcher early, you lose out on the chance to add either (A) an elite hitter or (B) a five-category contributor. Those type of batters are hugely important in the fantasy game.

3 – Each Major League team, and there are 30 of them, has five (sometimes six) starting pitchers, leaving a ton of options to choose at the draft, or to pick up off waivers. There is a conveyor belt of starting pitchers on each team as there is seemingly a new arm making a start every week for most of them. More on that below.

4 – In standard fantasy leagues we start 14 hitters and nine pitchers. This fact alone should tilt you towards hitters early since 61-percent of your starting lineup is made up of them. Second, we need catchers, first baseman, second basemen, third basemen and outfielders to fill out our offense. That’s six different positions to fill. We only need pitchers to fill out our staff, and that’s one position. Even if you have a league that differentiates between starters and relievers by position, that’s still only two for hurlers. Third, though you start nine pitchers, most leagues don’t have a rule which dictates how you break down those pitching slots. Maybe you use nine starters. Maybe it’s eight. Perhaps it is five. The standard breakdown is usually six or seven starters with two or three relievers, but you can, pretty much, do whatever you want in the majority of leagues. That means pitchers, who again make up only 39-percent of your starting lineup, can be a pretty fair percentage of relievers if you wish. This fact further lessens the need to take starting pitchers early in a draft since you need even fewer starters than you might think.

5 – Players are hurt all the time and while anyone can go down for the season on any day, doesn’t it seem logical to admit that pitchers are more volatile than hitters? Think about it. A hitter hurts his hamstring so he stops running. That hurts. But he keeps playing with his bat still in the lineup. A fielder tweaks his finger and has trouble gripping the bat. He loses a bit of power, but he stays in the lineup and just hits doubles while still stealing bases. Flip that to pitchers. If a pitcher hurts a finger it’s almost certain he will miss a start, or worse, be sent to the disabled list. If he hurts his hamstring, same thing (a skipped start is likely). There’s also another key point when it comes to injuries in 2017...

While this hasn’t been talked about a lot yet, you need to understand that with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement the 15-day disabled list stint has now become the 10-day disabled list stint for the first time since 1984. That means teams will be more inclined to disable players they aren’t sure about because, even if they are wrong about the health of a player, said player will still be available to return in 10 days. This new rule is going to be a disaster for hurlers as teams will almost certainly be more inclined to disable a pitcher since it’s merely 10 days. In essence, a starting pitcher could miss one start if the schedule were to include an off day. Think about that before you think pitchers will be pushed to pitch through injury in 2016.

Let’s examine the disabled list a bit more.

Last season there were 36,893 days lost to the disabled list, according to Baseball Heat Maps. That is a ton, ain’t it? There were 571 players who spent time on the disabled list. Here’s how it breaks down.

Two main takeaways.

First, there were more pitchers than hitters placed on the DL last season. Of course, this takes into account starters as well as relievers, but it’s still instructive.

Second, pitchers missed more time, on average, when injured last season. This seems obvious to me, though it’s not always to others. A minor injury can derail a pitcher for a few weeks. A major injury could cost a pitcher half the season rather easily.

6 – History is suggestive of pitcher failure because of injury. I just talked about this situation, but here are some prime examples of hurlers whose value was crushed last season (note: this is not a one-off as pitcher injuries happen every single year): Clayton Kershaw (was still completely dominant but didn’t qualify for the ERA title), Matt Harvey, Gerrit Cole, Dallas Keuchel, Carlos Carrasco, Sonny Gray, Tyson Ross, Michael Wacha, Garrett Richards, Steven Matz, Jordan Zimmermann, Lance McCullers and Taijuan Walker. All were selected in the top-50 last season at starting pitcher. In terms of early-round cost, Harvey, Cole, Keuchel and Carrasco were all top-50 overall pitchers taken (NFBC).

7 – History is suggestive of pitcher failure because of poor performance. Anyone who drafted Zack Greinke, Sonny Gray, Adam Wainwright, etc. knows the pain of getting burned by early selections on the bump.

8 – Pitchers throw harder than ever before. They are prepared to succeed as rookies at a greater rate than ever before. They are used more heavily than ever before. Every week there seems to be some minor league gunslinger who throws 95 mph being called up. More young pitching able to contribute immediately increases the pitcher pool. This also lessens the need to roster pitchers early in a draft.

9 – A final note. You have to play your draft. In a vacuum, I’m not drafting any pitcher early. That said, if everyone else in my draft starts grabbing pitchers, and they keep grabbing pitchers, I may have to change my initial plan. I am still, under no circumstance, ever going to take a starter in the first three rounds, but you do have to play your draft thereafter. That’s why we push the tiering model so heavily at Fantasy Alarm as that draft strategy really helps you to understand what is happening at the draft table (make sure to read Have Tiers, Never Fear).

Take that starter early if you want. Just know that yours truly doesn’t support that position, and truthfully, I don’t believe the data does either.