First Half Performance - Pitchers
Can pitchers make the difference in your roto team’s performance? Sure. Just look at Mike Mussina’s line from July 12 – 2 ip, 14 base runners, 8 earned runs. Ouch. The problem is that good performances don’t move you up in the standings nearly as quickly as bad performances can move you down. After 700 innings pitched for a staff, throwing a shutout may only tweak up your team’s ERA by .05 or so. But lay an egg and give up 10 or 11 earned runs over 2 or 3 innings, and your team ERA can balloon by twice that amount – more than a full tenth (0.1) of an earned run per game. How significant is that? Well, at this point in my league (16 owners), if my team’s ERA were one tenth of a run higher, I’d drop two places in the ERA standings – from second to fourth. That’s two full points on the overall standings, and that’s BEFORE I factor in the effect on my team’s WHIP.
OK, so pitching is important. How do you do anything about it at this stage of the season? You can try to pick up as a Free Agent some AAA pitcher who is getting called up, and hope that his first few starts in the majors are successful, like Tim Redding of Houston, or Brian Lawrence of San Diego. You might catch a Roy Oswalt or a Troy Mattes, or maybe even this year’s Barry Zito. Of course, there is great risk associated with putting unknown kids into your starting lineup, since they are as likely to bomb as to shine in their big league debuts, or after (e.g., Mattes, who shined his first few starts, but then has fallen back to reality since).
Risk averse? Well, there are a few other things you can try.
If your league doesn’t impose a requirement that you have a set number of starters and relievers, you can think about changing your mix. If you are doing well in the ERA and WHIP categories, and can live with a slight reduction in strikeouts, you may consider replacing starters with relievers. (Check your league’s rules about total innings pitched and make sure that you won’t put yourself at risk of falling short of the season requirement.) Although relievers sometimes get bombed, in general a “set-up” man or a late inning “specialist” won’t be left in the game long enough to do terrible damage to your team ERA or WHIP, even if he’s pitching poorly. In general, those same guys tend to have very good ERA and WHIP numbers. They can also steal wins for you, get the occasional save, and some of them strike out almost as many batters as the average starter.
Now, acquiring the best of those guys may be tough, although owners tend to under-value them, and might be willing to part with a middle reliever in exchange for a starting offensive player, or even a middle-of-the-road starting pitcher. In some leagues, these guys may even be Free Agents. If you’re looking for relief pitchers, here’s my analysis of first half performance by relievers with a minimum of 30 IP and whose score on my scale was above –10. (This is NOT intended to be a “dollar value” – merely a formula that I put together as a quick evaluator of performance. If you want to know the secret formula, send me an email and I’ll tell you.) Note two big caveats. First, recently called up kids, or specialists who only come in to face one or two batters and therefore who don’t get enough innings to make this list aren’t here. Second, be very careful with relievers who have already pitched 50 or more innings. Historically, overwork of a reliever can show up in either decreased second half performance, or often in poor performance the next year. Think about whether the team is going to give your potential acquisition enough time off in the second half to keep his performance up.
Here is my evaluation of first half performance for relief pitchers – stats assume a strikeout league:
Relievers
Innings
ERA
W-L
WHIP
K
S
Score
Percival, Troy
32.1
0.835
2
0.649
35
22
92
Rivera, Mariano
47.1
2.662
-2
0.845
50
29
62
Sasaki, Kazuhiro
40
2.925
-3
0.75
40
29
59
Rhodes, Arthur
37.2
1.912
6
0.982
47
2
59
Nen, Robb
45.2
3.153
0
0.985
54
26
54
Karsay, Steve
52.2
1.367
0
0.892
50
3
52
Rodriguez, Felix
44
1.841
3
0.977
59
0
51
Shaw, Jeff
41
3.073
1
1
36
24
51
Cabrera, Jose
32.2
1.102
3
1.041
27
2
51
Wickman, Bob
36
2.75
3
1.028
39
15
50
Lloyd, Graeme
42.1
2.339
6
0.969
22
1
49
Quantrill, Paul
51.2
2.09
5
1.065
37
1
47
File, Bob
42
1.714
2
0.929
24
0
45
Nelson, Jeff
37
2.189
2
1.081
58
4
43
Isringhausen, Jason
37.2
2.628
0
1.088
45
17
43
Fassero, Jeff
41.1
2.395
0
1.089
47
11
40
Witasick, Jay
46
2.152
4
1.261
66
1
39
Stanton, Mike
48.2
1.849
4
1.274
52
0
38
Mesa, Jose
39
3
0
1.231
36
24
37
Foulke, Keith
44.1
2.639
-2
1.083
37
18
36
Kim, Byung-Hyun
58.1
3.086
1
1.097
78
5
35
Wagner, Billy
33
3
-1
1.152
46
19
35
Weathers, David
48.1
1.862
0
1.097
35
4
35
Zimmerman, Jeff
43.2
3.298
-1
0.985
48
13
35
Remlinger, Mike
50
2.88
2
1.08
68
0
34
Lowe, Sean
53.2
2.516
3
1.099
24
2
33
Levine, Al
46
2.152
0
1
31
0
32
Rocker, John
39
3.231
0
1.282
47
21
31
Alfonseca, Antonio
36.2
2.455
1
1.364
27
17
30
Benitez, Armando
40.2
3.32
0
1.254
47
19
30
Fox, Chad
35
1.8
1
1.229
42
0
29
Beck, Rod
49
2.755
1
1.122
39
4