Why the Zero SP draft strategy continues to be the right approach in fantasy baseball

New York Times

19 hours ago

Let's revisit the Zero SP approach I recommended in February. The strategy suggests not drafting a starting pitcher in at least the first five rounds and ideally abstaining through the seventh round. So, in the most extreme adherence to the strategy, it means no starting pitchers before pick 100.
Looking at just the high-stakes drafts during the final week of the draft season, on average, that's either after 17 starting pitchers are drafted (starting in Round 6) or after 24 are off the board (starting with pick 100). These numbers are down from 19 and 31, respectively, last year, so more people are passing on pitchers early.
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Let's see where the top-30 fantasy baseball starters selected in March were as of July 1. I'm ranking the top pitchers now using auction values calculated by TGFantasyBaseball based on 12-team mixed leagues with 30% of a $260 budget spent on pitching. ADP is from high-stakes NFFC leagues over the final three weeks of the draft season.
We have 32 pitchers because of a tie for 30th place. Of those, 23 were drafted after pick 100, or not drafted at all, including Hunter Brown (No. 2), Max Fried (No. 3), Logan Webb (No. 8), Andrew Abbott (No. 10) and Kris Bubic (No. 11). Abbott and Bubic were not even drafted. Last year, it was 20 out of 35. And the number of late-drafted starting pitchers hits is higher this year, despite people waiting longer on pitching.
If you didn't draft a single starting pitcher before pick 100 (on average), you still had a shot at 72% of the top SPs (through the first half of the season). The list is weighted heavily towards wins, which are largely unpredictable, but that's all the more reason not to invest heavily in starters.
Let's look at the early-drafted busts who have destroyed their managers. Logan Gilbert (ADP 31), Corbin Burnes (40), Cole Ragans (47), Dylan Cease (50), Blake Snell (54), Michael King (69), Pablo Lopez (78), Tyler Glasnow (95), Bailey Ober (96) and Aaron Nola (97). Roki Sasaki (101) just misses the ADP 100 cutoff. Not including Sasaki, that's 10 busts of the 24 starters drafted (on average) in the top 100, which is a bust rate of 42%.
So, 72% of the top-30 starters were picked after pick 100, and 42% of the starters picked before pick 100 are disasters.
'But Mike,' you say, 'most of these are injuries, and injuries are unpredictable!' To which I say, 'Exactly!' The point is injuries are completely unpredictable, so why tie up premium draft capital in them? I understand that the increasingly popular Head-to-Head formats are starting to become pitching dominant because you typically have 10 pitchers active compared to just nine hitters. So the format is forcing you to prioritize starters. Basically, you're being forced to drive into a brick wall.
The other issue in today's games with starters is innings. Starters are worth less than ever because they are throwing fewer innings than ever. The average number of innings of this year's top-32 pitchers (listed above) is a relatively robust 96, about a 200-inning pace. But a bunch of these guys are injuries waiting to happen. With most of them, who cares, since they cost nothing and the profits are locked in. But today, 200 innings is something achieved by a handful (less than five, on average) of pitchers, and 175 is solid, meaning we would sign for that. This is a 15-to-20% hit in expected value just since the 2010s.
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The three pillars to a Zero SP strategy: (1) Injuries don't hurt you as much as they hurt SP-heavy teams; (2) Starters are pitching fewer innings when healthy and are thus less valuable; (3) The top pitchers are much harder to predict than the top hitters and are about twice as likely to be found on waivers. This is validated year after year, yet we still persist in drafting pitchers early. Heck, I do it sometimes because we think the No. 25 pitcher in the draft is really No. 15 (it's a trap!). It's because we want to like our team after the draft and not enter the season with a mockable staff. We want the projected standings and draft grades to like us, dammit!
The other benefit of no premium on starting pitching is no loyalty to any pitcher on your roster. There is no such thing as a sunk cost. So you are not stuck with the dregs of the world because you paid for them. All the starters you have on your team are churnable from the minute the season starts. It's 'put up or get out!' You're always searching the waiver wire for upgrades.
Right now, in my top Head-to-Head league, which is very pitching heavy, some names on waivers include Jeffrey Springs (2.97/0.99 the past month), Brayan Bello (2.87/1.21) and Michael Soroka (3.49/0.81 with 36 Ks in 28.1 IP). Mike Burrows (2.73/1.22 with 30 Ks in 26.1 IP) and Justin Wrobleski (2.73/1.06 with 26 Ks in 26.1 IP) are generally available in Yahoo leagues. Pitchers who can actually help your team are always available, while free-agent hitters more often facilitate treading water.
(Photo of Hunter Brown: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)