Rankings: Starting Pitchers
In order to find our tiers, we must first figure out what a marginal pitcher is. In a standard 21-pick Yahoo! Default League, with ten players (anything less is outside the scope of this analysis), the total number of players selected is 210. The largest pool of players this site will concern itself with is 276, which is the number of players selected is a twelve team, 23 pick draft. Players after the first 210 picks will be in italics, up until the first 276.
In a ten team Yahoo! League, 54 pitchers will be kept; In a twelve team league, we are looking at twelve more for a total of 66. Players are listed within their tier by how I'd rank them, although by definition such differences aren't very important.
Tier 1: Johan Santana (14), Jake Peavy (19)
Tier 2: Brandon Webb (37), C.C. Sabathia (48), Josh Beckett (43), Cole Hamels (56), Erik Bedard (38), John Lackey (49)
Tier 3: Carlos Zambrano (58), Dan Haren (59), Justin Verlander (65), Scott Kazmir (68), Roy Halladay (94), Aaron Harang (73)
Tier 4: John Smoltz (80), Roy Oswalt (74), Felix Hernandez (85), Daisuke Matsuzaka, Chris Young (88), Ben Sheets, Fausto Carmona (100), Javier Vazquez, Kelvim Escobar, Rich Hill, Jered Weaver
Tier 5: Pedro Martinez, Brad Penny, Matt Cain, Brett Myers, Tim Lincecum, Francisco Liriano, Chad Billingsley, Chien-Ming Wang, Yovani Gallardo, A.J. Burnett, John Maine, Phillip Hughes, Jeremy Bonderman, Dustin McGowan, Dontrelle Willis, Oliver Perez, John Garland, Tim Hudson, Jeff Francis, Ted Lilly, Adam Wainwright, Rich Harden, Ian Snell
Bottom Tier (these are the marginal pitchers - In order to get to the second tier a pitcher would have to be worth two of these, and hence this tier is larger than most)...
Clay Bucholz, Micah Owings, Greg Maddux, Derek Lowe, Zack Greinke, Hiroki Kuroda, Joe Blanton, Jason Schmidt, Curt Schilling, Gil Meche, Bronson Arroyo, Jon Lester, Noah Lowry, Barry Zito, Shaun Marcum, Hiroki Kuroda, Mark Buerhrle
Clay Bucholz, Micah Owings, Greg Maddux, Derek Lowe, Zack Greinke, Hiroki Kuroda, Joe Blanton, Jason Schmidt, Curt Schilling, Gil Meche, Bronson Arroyo, Jon Lester, Noah Lowry, Barry Zito, Shaun Marcum, Hiroki Kuroda, Mark Buerhrle
So, there are the marginal pitchers that the whole tier system should be based on. The numbers in parenthesis are the average draft position, used for the top twenty guys. Before I talk about who is overrated and underrated, what is your take on the order?
Labels: Position Rankings
posted by Zachary Piso at
8:32 PM
4 Comments:
I had to look up the numbers on John Lackey, but his season last year definitely merits him being in the conversation at second tier. Having Halladay a tier above Smoltz is a gutsy call and I'm not sure I agree. Rich Hill is a good value in tier 4. I'm assuming your second Tier 4 is really Tier 5.
Where is Tom Gorzelanny? I know he's a Pirate so he doesn't get to face them, but he still belongs somewhere in this conversation. Randy Johnson comes to my mind as someone we ought to give a "marginal" ranking - he's a guy that knows how to pitch, and is actually going to be ahead of Haren in the D-Back rotation.
I used Mock Draft Central for the pitchers, and while I did change the order, I specifically left out the players that have been going undrafted. A guy like Randy Johnson and Gorzo that I think could put up a good season is Shawn Hill for the Nats.
Smoltz was "old" a couple years ago and has the kind of injury risk that Halladay = Smoltz plus a marginal pitcher. The interesting thing here is that you would be giving up a marginal pitcher to minimize risk, but i think it's worth it. The free agency would be used to cover injuries, this would just be a case of doing it "ahead of time".
What are you thinking is goint to be the final numbers for jered weaver next year? To me it seems you got him a little high..
I'm still convinced Weaver has something we didn't see last year. In his rookie campaign he was brilliant, and last season he showed good control with only 45 BB in 161 innings. I think his WHIP will return to a more manageable 1.25-1.29, and his win total on a potent Angels offense will be around 17. Throw in respectable strikeout numbers and you have a guy with good upside with a ceiling of 2006.
He's 27, and in his third year, so if he is going to break out, it should be now.
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