Rays righty Alex Cobb has been collecting a bit of fantasy helium in recent weeks. He went for $9 and $11 in recent expert league auctions, and some sites are suggesting that compare him to veterans like Hiroki Kuroda. Moreover, three members of the ESPN fantasy analyst panel recently pegged Cobb as their fantasy starting-pitcher sleeper.  

Last week, we reviewed how the experts split their money in the LABR and ToutWars auctions in 2012. While the winners each spent at least 30 percent of their budget on pitching, other teams that spent even more did much worse while some who spent less nearly won the league.

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Paul Sporer and I have a special email address, fantasyhour@baseballprospectus.com, through which listeners send us emails that they would like us to either respond to privately or address on the weekly Towers of Power Fantasy Hour (or 2) podcast. That inbox was very busy when we first opened it in mid-2012, but business tapered off to a trickle as the baseball season ended and was nearly extinct through the winter holidays. Once the calendar flipped to 2013, people re-discovered the mailbox, and the two of us were flooded with trade and keeper advice requests. Recently, we’ve received several inquiries from people that are starting up auction leagues and wondering how to best allocate their fantasy dollars at the bidding table.

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One of the first pieces I wrote for Baseball Prospectus outlined my strategy for identifying closers, and the article was so well received that I repeated it with a couple of tweaks last season. After I read the comments from one user who utilized the strategy and won his league’s saves category, it was a given that the piece would come back again in 2013. Some of the pitcher notes I made in the 2012 closer matrix included:

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On the most recent episode of the Towers of Power Fantasy Hour (or 2), Paul Sporer and I had the opportunity to interview Greg Ambrosius of STATS LLC. Ambrosius runs their National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) events, which feature the all-stars of high-stakes fantasy baseball. While the industry may not be as lucrative as the World Series of Poker, NFBC’s top players have made a rather nice living though the competition. The most famous of the players may be Lindy Hinkleman, a pig farmer from rural Idaho who was featured in a USA Today article last season. A few years ago, he pulled off an improbable sweep of both the live and online events, and earned a check for $241,500 from NFBC.

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There is not an official set of commandments for fantasy players to follow when participating in an auction. If there were, it is almost certain that “thou shalt not leave any dollars on the table” would be one of them. The concept is simple: you have X fantasy dollars to spend in an auction, and it is your task to spend every last one of those dollars to fill your starting roster.

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Robinson Cano had a rather amazing 2012 season. In terms of his WARP, his 6.4 score was the best of his career. In fantasy dollars, it was his third consecutive season of earning $30 or more in AL-only leagues, further cementing his status as a first round pick in either AL-only or mixed-league formats.

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When a pitcher throws in the mid-to-upper 90s, teams tend to give that player every chance to succeed. In the case of Esmil Rogers, the Rockies gave him 184 2/3 innings before deciding it was better to accept cash from the Cleveland Indians for the services of the out-of-options flamethrower.  The issue for Rogers in Colorado tended to be his inability to find the strike zone on a consistent basis. He had a 20 percent strikeout rate and just an 8 percent walk rate in 2010 but then went 16 and 12 in 2011 and 22 and 14 in 2012 before the Rockies pulled the plug on the live-armed hurler in early June. 

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One of my favorite things to do with baseball statistics is to pick two of them and see what kind of relationship they have.  Many pitchers have changed locations this off-season and will have to get accustomed to the new team defense behind them. Some have made the move to strong defensive teams while others have moved into situations that are a step down from what they have been accustomed to having around them.

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Ryan Franklin was a starting pitcher for just three full seasons in the major leagues. In 2002, he worked in a swing role for the Seattle Mariners. In 2003, he surprised many by posting a 3.57 ERA during a season in which he struck out just 99 hitters and walked 61 more over 212 innings pitched while allowing 34 home runs. His FIP that season was a staggering 5.24, and that 1.67 run difference is the largest difference for any starting pitcher with at least 150 innings of work since the 2000 season.

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Nearly two months ago to the day, I wrote an article about Max Scherzer’s rather unique season. At that point, he was striking out 11.0 per nine innings and had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.6. Despite that, his 4.84 ERA and mere eight wins were driving fantasy owners crazy.

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I can’t remember the last time a rookie starting pitcher entered the season with as much (or more) hype than Matt Moore this past spring. Even back in 2010, it was clear that Stephen Strasburg was going to start the season in the minors, so paying a premium for him didn’t make sense. Moore slow-roasted his way through the minors, as Rays prospects are wont to do, culminating with last year’s breakout season. He spent two-thirds of his season at Double-A (102 innings) and another third at Triple-A (53 innings), posting a ridiculous 1.92 ERA (powered by a 1.37 mark in nine Triple-A starts), 0.95 WHIP, 12.2 K/9, and 4.6 K/BB. The only number that could remotely be considered a blemish was his 2.7 BB/9 in the 155 innings. Otherwise, he was flawless.

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