Patience, Pitching, and Your 2015 Fantasy Baseball Draft.

Patience, Pitching, And Your 2015 Fantasy Baseball Draft.

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet”(Jean-Jacques Rousseau). Patience is preached to you in school, on your local sports team, and from your parents. It is fundamentally rooted in the core of sound decision-making. What, you probably are asking yourselves, qualifies me to preach about patience? I mean take one drive with me around town and you would think I was the poster boy for “Road Rage America”. Seriously though how hard is it to use a blinker? It reminds me of that part from the movie Shoot ‘Em Up with Clive Owen where he runs a guy off the road because the guy was careless enough not to use his blinker when changing lanes. Sometimes you just got to learn the hard way. Anyways, its important to be patient when it comes to your draft picks, especially pitchers, for this upcoming season.

First off in case you haven’t noticed, offense in the game has been declining.

**Note: wOBA (weighted on base average) is an advanced stat that weighs a batters overall offensive value, corresponding to each individual event.

As you can see from the table, the decrease in offense since 2006 is pretty substantial. Baseball has a history of trends with valleys and peaks so this will not continue. MLB officials will at some point step in and make changes but that’s another story. What’s important is that offense is at its lowest since 1972.

Why is this important? During the first couple rounds of your draft, names like Clayton Kershaw, Felix Hernandez, Chris Sale, and Max Scherzer will be waiting to be picked. While all of these players will no doubt bring a ton of value to any team, you don’t necessarily have to feel the need to take one. Now before you call up the local insane asylum to fit me for a straight jacket (do those things even exist anymore?), please let me explain.

Last year, a 28-year-old named Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians won his first A.L. Cy Young Award. Really, nobody in the fantasy world saw this kid coming. I looked at ESPN’s 2014 live draft results and wanted to see his average draft position for ESPN fantasy drafts. What do you know; players in standard leagues did not feel comfortable taking him until late in the draft (pick #234.5) or even sometimes not even drafting him at all.

Switching over to the end of the year player rater, Kluber finished 14^th among all MLB players and 4^th among pitchers. That puts him right in-between heavyweights Jose Bautista and Miguel Cabrera, as far as fantasy production went last year. If you were lucky enough to snatch Kluber at the end of your draft or on the waiver wire last year, then kudos! You got 1^st-2^nd round production in exchange for practically nothing.

You know, looking at the 2014 draft results I see a few other names that were either drafted late or not at all but still provided plenty of value. Phil Hughes, for instance, went completely un-drafted yet still finished 98^th among all players and 23^rd among pitchers. Tanner Roark went un-drafted and finished 80^th among players and 18^th among pitchers. Collin McHugh as well did not find space on any roster at the end of draft day yet finished 88^th among all players and 21^st among pitchers. There are more examples but I think you get my point.

Draft offense early and often. You want multi-category stat fillers the first couple of picks who will play almost every day and with low injury risk (i.e. minimum past injuries). The pool for pitchers is deep and you might be surprised at how many fantasy studs are waiting at the bottom.

**All offensive stats courtesy of Fangraphs.

CLEVELAND, OH – SEPTEMBER 26: Starting pitcher Corey Kluber #28 of the Cleveland Indians pitches during the first inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Progressive Field on September 26, 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)