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February 22, 2007

Positional Health Reports

Starting Pitchers, Part One

by Will Carroll

Even the least risky pitcher is risky compared to a position player, making the fantasy draft even that much more important as far as who you pick and when. Worse, the replacement level for pitchers is a steep slope; it's not so bad when a team is forced to replace its fifth starter, but there are no aces in reserve. The ability to keep the aces and big-dollar pitchers healthy is non-democratic, and means that more than a few fantasy GMs will be taxed by throwing big dollars at non-aces. It makes pitcher development once a pitcher makes the majors even more important, a factor that's often overlooked by teams and fantasy owners alike. We also know that players like roles, so noting new roles for players is important, though from the outside it's often tough to tell exactly who's where. These factors are often the difference between winning and losing, so it’s worth taking some time to check all of these things out.

One other note: risk is not the same thing as certainty. It’s the chance that an event--in this case, an injury that lands a pitcher on the DL–-will occur within a pretty small population. If half the red pitchers end up on the DL, remember that also means that half of them didn’t.

Normal risk is , elevated risk is , and high risk is . For more on the system, please check out the introduction.

Josh Beckett : He pitched past blisters, and apparently forgot that keeping the ball in play helps. Something as simple as band aids on his fingertips during warm-ups kept him healthy, which tips the fact that much of his time on the DL was calculated. A key to his season is new pitching coach John Farrell; Beckett can lose interest if he doesn’t click with a coach.

Chien-Ming Wang : He's as good as his run support, so he’s not too much of a concern aside from workload. Between Wang and Webb, scouts are wondering if this is an era of sinkerball dominance.