2012 AL Most Valuable Pitcher

OnĀ Saturday I posted the RotoValue top AL batters for both a 4×4 and 5×5 league, and noted that no pitchers ranked in the top 10. Today’s post lists the top prices for pitchers. As before, this is a 10 team 4×4 league with a $30 salary cap for 28 players (10 active pitchers, plus a 4 person bench).

Justin Verlander edged out David Price for the top spot, but the $0.01 difference is negligible. Indeed even #3 Jered Weaver was basically as good. Price and Weaver are the easiest to compare, because each had 20 wins. Weaver had a lower WHIP, but also a higher ERA, which mostly offset. But Price pitched an extra 22.3 innings with excellent percentages, which left him $0.07 ahead in my model.
Compared to Price, Verlander had 3 fewer wins, but a better WHIP, and also was worth more in ERA. Although Price’s 2.56 was a bit lower than Verlander’s 2.65, Verlander pitched more, giving up 10 more ER. So it’s as if he matched Price in ERA, and then posted a 3.29 ERA over an extra 27.3 innings, a plus when the league’s aggregate ERA is over 4. These two edges barely leave Verlander with higher overall value. Which would have been better for your team would depend on where you stood relative to others in the standings – could you use the extra wins more, or the better percentages?
Tigers closer Fernando Rodney came close to the big 3 starters, on the strength of a record 0.60 ERA, 0.763 WHIP, and 48 saves. Closers don’t pitch many innings, but when they post numbers like Rodney did, they can still make a big difference for your team. Verlander was still better in percentage categories than Rodney, (subtracting Rodney’s totals from Verlander’s works out to 163.7 innings of a 1.19 WHIP and 3.57 ERA). Comparing the ERA and WHIP of the difference between two players’ stats is similar to how RotoValue ranks players in percentages, as what matters is not just the ERA a player posts, but over how many innings. Rodney’s amazing year was more valuable in ERA/WHIP than most starters, including Felix Hernandez and C.C. Sabathia. So Rodney provided outstanding value in three categories, just with a gaudy save total instead of the wins the top starters had.
Jim Johnson and Chris Sale rank next, but much further behind the top tier. Sale’s percentages were a bit better than Johnson’s due to pitching more innings, but Johnson’s league-leading save total was worth more than Sale’s 17 wins.
While just 2 closers made the top 10 (few innings make it difficult to rank very high in ERA/WHIP), 6 out of the next 10 were relievers, because high save totals can offset solid win totals, and strong closers can provide similar value in ratios as good, but not elite, starters. The difference between a 3.5 ERA and 1.2 WHIP over 180 innings and a 2.5 ERA and 1.05 WHIP over 70 innings is close to the league average WHIP and ERA, so both wind up helping a fantasy team about the same amount.
Switching to a 5×5 analysis, counting strikeouts as a category, lowers relievers’ values quite a bit:

Now Verlander is a clear #1 over Price, and Price has an even bigger gap ahead of Jered Weaver, all explained by differences in strikeouts. And while Fernando Rodney was 4th in the 4×4 rankings, now that slot goes to Felix Hernandez, with Rodney falling to 7th, a $0.72 drop from his 4×4 RotoValue. Where before 8 relievers were in the top 20, now it’s just three, with saves leader Jim Johnson and Rafael Soriano hanging on.
Max Scherzer (231 K, $0.68 RotoValue increase) and Yu Darvish (221 K, $0.61) were helped the most by adding strikeouts, about a 50% increase in value.
Why are top pitchers worth less than top batters? Because it’s harder to replace what top batters can do. Pitchers have one category where they basically do nothing: starters don’t get saves, and closers don’t get many wins (and their low innings reduces their ratio/strikeout impact), whereas batters like Mike Trout can be far above average in all offensive categories. Also, because there’s one more cumulative category on offense, the replacement value of a batter is lower, making their overall value higher . If you had to start a player who never played at all on offense, that would hurt you everywhere but batting average. But if you had to start a pitcher who never pitched, you wouldn’t get wins, saves, or strikeouts, but at least he wouldn’t hurt your ERA or WHIP.
While Justin Verlander probably won’t repeat as Cy Young Award winner, he was as good as or better than any other AL pitcher in most fantasy formats.

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