skyking162

I originally wrote this article for Rotojunkie a few months ago. Now that I’ve (mostly) figured out the cool table formatting, I’m posting it here.

There’s nothing more satisfying in fantasy baseball than having a tenth round draft pick turn into an ace. But there’s also nothing more frustrating than killing your chances of tasting the Yahoo by watching your early picks crash and burn. Therefore, it’s important to know which starters are overrated so you can let the other guys waste the big bucks.

It’s folly to base 2008 expectations solely on 2007 numbers, but many people do. So let’s take a look at which starters will be most overrated based on their 2007 ERA.

A pitcher’s main goal is to prevent runs, which is why ERA is such a great stat. Sure, there are other fantasy categories, but ERA, WHIP, and Wins all depend to a certain extent on being a good pitcher. Unfortunately, ERA isn’t a perfect reflection of pitcher skill — it’s influenced by many things outside a pitcher’s control. Enter xFIP, which does a pretty good job of measuring a pitcher’s skill on the ERA scale without falling prey to outside influences. I could simply throw out a list of pitchers who posted xFIPs much high than their actual ERAs and call them overrated, but sometimes it’s better to understand WHY these pitchers are primed to move down a notch or two in 2008. So I present four ways to find overrated pitchers:

BABIP

This one’s been beaten to death over the past few years. Once pitchers allow the batter to put the ball in play, they don’t show much of a difference in skill of allowing those balls to turn into outs. Fielders, ballpark, and luck play much bigger roles. Luck should even out in the long run, but fielding and ballpark can often remain constant from year to year. Pitchers who post an unusually low BABIP are likely candidates to allow more baserunners, and therefore more runs the following year. League-average BABIP is .300, and anything outside the .290 to .310 range needs an explanation.

HR/FB

The cliche here is that pitchers can control what percentage of batted balls are flyballs, but they don’t control what percentage of flyballs turn into homeruns. That’s not exactly true, but the range in talent of HR/FB ratio is much narrower than what you’ll see in any given season. League-average rate is about 11%, and ballparks can affect that percentage big time. Also, groundball pitchers tend to have slightly higher HR/FB rates than flyball pitchers. Anything outside the 10-12% range catches my eye if there aren’t extenuating circumstances.

URA

ERA is a strange stat because it doesn’t count unearned runs. Sure, it’s nice that errors made by fielders are removed from the pitcher’s responsibility, but often times too much is removed. For example, if a two-out error puts a runner on base and the pitcher follows up by allowing a homerun, neither run is earned. But if the first batter made an out and the second hitter led off the next inning with a homerun, it would count as earned. Unearned Run Average is simply the number of unearned runs a pitcher allows per nine innings. League-average is about .3. Anything over that should be considered a fluke. If a pitcher’s URA comes down and he allows a similar number of runs to score, that means his ERA will go up.

LOB%

Good pitchers tend to strand more runners than bad pitchers, because they don’t allow as many baserunners in the first place. However, some aspects of LOB% are outside a pitcher’s control. For example, there’s no skill to spreading out baserunners over multiple innings instead of bunching them together. That being said, the first three result in more baserunners and/or more baserunners scoring. So I like to look at LOB% last, after I’ve accounted for the other three. League-average LOB% is about 71% — once that goes above 74% I start to be suspicious.

Ok, let’s roll. I took all the starters who threw at least 100 IP in 2007 and calculated the difference between their actual ERA and their expected ERA (xFIP). Listed below are the pitchers whose ERAs least matched their skills. I’ve added commentary to highlight why each pitcher might have been lucky in 2007 and what you can expect in 2008. The simple solution is to let other teams have at these guys and save your money for better bets. You can peruse the full list of xFIPs at The Hardball Times.

Top Sixteen Most Overrated Starters

Steve Trachsel BAL

I doubt Trachsel’s on your radar, but hopefully that 6.21 xFIP motivates you to erase his name completely from your cheat sheets. Seriously, his 2.8 K/9 rate is worse than Carlos Silva’s. On the plus side, winning “2007’s Most Flukiest Starter Award” comes with a cash bonus.

Chris Young SDP

Young’s a great example of a pitcher who’s nowhere near as good as his ERA shows but will benefit from many of the same advantages again in 2008. PETCO will continue to keep his insane number of flyballs in the park and the Padres’ defense should keep the BABIP on the low side. But a 5% HR/FB rate and a .240 BABIP? No way. If you split the difference between Young’s 2007 ERA and his xFIP, you get 3.91. That seems like a reasonable ERA projection for 2008.

Noah Lowry SFG

Maybe Brian Sabean does know something here — he’s been shopping Lowry around all winter. You can’t look at any one stat to prove his overratedness, but if you put all four together, you get a pitcher to avoid next year. Plus, that 1:1 K/BB ratio is just frightening.

Jesse Litsch TOR

Blue Jay fans enjoyed Litsch’s major league debut in 2007. But look at how many unearned runs he gave up. His ERA should jump half a run in 2008 based on that figure alone. Toronto had the best fielding team last season, so I don’t expect his BABIP to rise much in 2008. An ERA in the mid to high 4.00s sounds reasonable.

Brad Penny LAD

Penny was stingy with the homeruns in 2007, allowing only nine. Dodger Stadium actually encourages homeruns slightly, so that 5% HR/FB ratio is bound to rise. However, because he doesn’t allow very many flyballs, regression won’t completely kill him. Expect an ERA around 4.00 instead of 3.00.

Brian Bannister KCR

Here’s a sell-high candidate, if I ever saw one — both in your keeper league and for the Royals. With the demand for quality young pitching as high as it is, wouldn’t it be nice to trade a pitcher whose skills project to an ERA over 5.00 to a team who will pay like it will be under 4.00? Sure, the Kansas City defense was pretty good in 2007, but without Ryan Shealy, Joey Gathright, and Emil Brown in the plan for 2008, there’s no way Bannister maintains anything near that .261 BABIP. Expect some more homeruns, too.

Oliver Perez NYN

How’s this for a crazy stat — Perez yielded over one unearned run per game last year. Maybe he completely loses focus when his fielders make an error? Or, more likely, he was just really lucky. Either way, there’s no way Perez will have so many of his runs disqualified by errors, or a BABIP so low again. I’m as big of an Ollie fan as there is, but I doubt I’ll own him in any leagues next year.

Matt Chico WAS

Honestly, none of the four flukiness factors scream “I was a lucky SOB in 2007″, but stranding 74% of your baserunners is tough to do when striking out only 4.9 hitters per nine innings. Then add a few more tenths on to his ERA because of the unearned runs. Chico’s actual ERA was the highest of anybody on the list so far, so it’s not like he was a target for many of you anyway. Stick with that gut feeling.

John Lackey LAA

Lackey was a darkhorse Cy Young candidate last year thanks to his league-leading 3.01 ERA. Nobody mentioned all the unearned runs he gave up. In 2008, expect a few more homers, a few less Cy Young votes, and an ERA in the high 3.00’s. Of course, you know not to pay top dollar for a player the year after a breakout season, right?

Orlando Hernandez NYN

El Duque and Oliver Perez are quite the wacky duo. Hernandez posted a ridiculously low .222 BABIP in 147 innings, yet was unlucky in the homerun department. A return to normalcy (can he do anything normal?) might push him out of the rotation come mid-season. And that’s if he can stay healthy.

Matt Cain SFG

Cain earned the reputation as a hard luck loser in 2007, posting a 7-16 record with a 3.65 ERA. I’m sure this guy’s on many sleeper lists, but my advice is to take an extra No-Doze. Cain’s a flyball pitcher who had a very low percentage of flyballs turn into homeruns. As that changes, so will his ERA. Of course, Cain’s young enough that his raw skills may continue to improve, preventing his 2008 from being a complete disappointment. I’m thinking of an ERA around 4.00.

Kevin Correia SFG

Interesting, another Giant with a low HR/FB ratio. Some of that can be chalked up to AT&T’s deep fences. But the stadium can’t explain the fact that Correia stranded 79% of his baserunners. On the plus side, he didn’t allow a single unearned run last year. Oh, and there’s that whole “young enough to significantly improve” advantage.

Brandon McCarthy TEX

Many people might look at McCarthy and see an ex-prospect who finally fulfilled his potential. But I see a Ranger pitcher who somehow was stingy with the homerun ball and allowed an excessive number of unearned runs. That K/BB ratio is nothing to write home about, either. Please, back away from the McCarthy.

Tom Gorzelanny PIT

This one hurts, actually. How can you not love this guy? Allowing a few more homeruns will bring that LOB% back down and his ERA up into the mid-4.00s. The good news is that he’s probably easy to trade if you’ve got him in a keeper league, as everyone loves him. He and Ian Snell aren’t a bad start towards building a Pirates staff that’s above league-average.

Jarrod Washburn SEA

I’m no Washburn fan, but I’m actually not too worried about his lowish HR/FB rate. Safeco is murder on right-handed power hitters, which plays right into Washburn’s hands. And unless the Mariners do something crazy like trade Adam Jones, the outfield defense should be quite good next year, critical for a flyball pitcher like Washburn.

Mark Buehrle CHA

Buehrle’s ERA has been up and down his whole career, without his core skills changing all that much. Sure seems like his true talent lies somewhere in the low- to mid-4.00’s than the mid 3.00’s, and I’d rather play roulette with a player coming off an unlucky season than a lucky one.

You can check out the , but here are the names from the next twenty on the list of flukiest starters I’d be most cautious about in 2008. Not because they have the biggest chance to bomb, but because the hype is especially strong: Kelvim Escobar, Adam Wainright, Chad Billingsley, Kyle Kendrick, John Garland, Justin Verlander, Jeremy Guthrie, Gil Meche, Ted Lilly, Curt Schilling, Zach Greinke, and John Maine.

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