Offseason blog Number Dos: Giving the People What They Want

A number of us were able to get together this offseason (it helped that ZIKA left Florida and Michael was able to travel down there)

The Floored Fantasy Baseball League Blog has had a slow offseason. Much like it’s real life counterpart, there hasn’t been much action to talk about around these parts. BUT THAT ALL ENDS TONIGHT.

I’ve tried to write a few blogs this offseason. Sometimes I was traveling for work and had a few brewskies, sometimes I was at work and there was no good news to read at lunch, sometimes I just missed you guys and wanted to re-connect; it just never panned out. I would write a few paragraphs and it just wasn’t any good. The FFBLB would not be sullied by boring banter or uninsightful ubiquities. THAT ALL CHANGES TONIGHT!

OK I must really be missing you guys to be impersonating that guy in our league by yelling at you…

Tonight’s blog is about the declining value of starting pitching. This concept goes beyond the absence of a free agent market for once-elite starting pitchers Jake Arrietta and Yu Darvish. This is an MLB wide dilemma.

2017 marked the lowest totals of innings pitched by starting pitchers in MLB history. To this end, the league leader in innings pitched in the National League was *21 innings* fewer than the year before (207 IP vs 228 IP the year before vs the average leader of 240 IP over the previous 2 decades), an over 9% drop in innings from the previous minimum IP leader. It is also noteworthy because 228 IP had been the lowest IP total to lead a league in the MLB modern era.

All this is to say that Major League teams are relying on starting pitchers less than ever…but this is not by mistake or because starting pitchers aren’t any good anymore. Clubs are relying more on analytics every year, and the analytics show that pitchers do not fare well the third time through the batting order. From an MLB.com story earlier this offseason (OPS: On base plus slugging percentage):

SP first time through order: .705 OPS
SP second time through order: .731 OPS
SP third time through order: .771 OPS
RP first time through order: .699 OPS

The numbers show that starting pitchers aren’t the best option for teams after two times through the order. This leads to Andrew Miller getting $11 million a year on a multi-year deal, the Yankees trading for 3 elite bullpen arms at the trade deadline last year, and the evolution of super-bullpens like the one that Rockies have tried to put together this offseason by assembling the most expensive bullpen of all time.

What does this all mean? You ask…

Well for one, that elite Relief Pitching strategy this blog publicized last year is a pretty good bet.

For two, minimizing innings pitched to limit the amount of time your pitchers can be exposed is another good bet.

There are only so many starters that are going to throw even 180 innings next year. Therefore, wins are going to be hard to come by (there is an extreme correlation between the number of innings pitched in a game and the probability of registering a win). This emphasizes the value of ERA and WHIP as well as strikeouts per nine innings such that you keep you can get as many strikeouts as possible while keeping your squad’s Earned Runs total down.

Does this mean you can pull a 2017-Dean and punt starting pitching until the 15^th round? No. There is still value in securing a ‘fantasy ace’ or two such that you can minimize your number of starts your pitchers throw and still be competitive in all of the pitching categories. How each fantasy manager folds this data into their own strategy is part of the thrill of the game.

Onto some business:

Yahoo is likely going to open up the fantasy game sometime in the next few weeks. Yahoo has already announced that they are going to open up the playoff customization such that we can get out the silly 2 week, 4 team playoff format. I call it silly because this was the only option they had for a 4 team playoff (the proper number of teams for a 10 team league).  A 3-week or 4-week playoff is far more fair to all teams involved and would lead to a more legitimate champion. Yahoo has said that the delay in opening up their game this season (normally they open up the week after the NFL Conference Championship games) is because they are incorporating Shohei Ohtani into the fantasy game. We’ll see how that ends up.

Keeper trading is open. Paul, Matt, Keith, and Dean have the most ground to gain via a keeper trade. So be sure to send some offers their way. We’ll do any keeper trade bidding wars in March.

Finally, the fantasy draft is going to be either Sunday, March 11^th or  March 18^th. MLB is starting their season a weekend early and I have major plans to celebrate my 30^th birthday the weekend of the 25^th so we can’t do the draft the last two weekends in March. We’ll pick an exact date later.

That said, I can’t wait for the year. I can’t wait to reconnect. Let me know how you’re doing and we’ll do some biographical updates from the last 12 months. Cheers