Baseball Draft Kit: The Arms Race

Many leagues have adopted holds to add relevancy to setup men. This is unnecessary as there are already far more undrafted middle relievers ultimately proving to be assets. You can count the number of middle relievers not thought to be in the mix for saves drafted onto an active roster spot in 15-team mixed leagues on one hand. Admittedly, some drafted as speculative closers double as useful middle relievers regardless of role, but there is still a huge inefficiency.

The following data is for 15-team mixed leagues, but the pattern transcends all leagues using standard 5x5 rotisserie scoring. The table shows the number of pitchers with season-ending positive value, first the number of starters, then the relievers broken down by number of saves.

It's fair to point out that season-ending values incorporate saves, which adds to earnings. To that end, re-running values without counting saves reveals 76 positive starters in 2017, 86 in 2016 and 83 in 2015. That is, at least 49 relievers contribute to ratios, and to a lesser extent, strikeouts and wins. In a 15-team league, this portends a staff with six starters, two closers and a middle reliever.

The problem is, there are two big flaws with this analysis. One is practical, the other is theoretical. In fact, one feeds the other.

The theoretical flaw is conventional valuation assigns positive value to exactly enough players to populate everyone's active roster. In a 15-team league, this is 135 hurlers. Proper valuation would assign value to 135 roster spots, not individual players. There are two primary examples exposing this shortcoming. Think about an injury-prone arm like Rich Hill. His owners can activate someone else while Hill convalesces on reserve. Hill shares the contribution of a roster spot, yet all methodology assumes he occupies the spot all season. The second instance is the ability to stream pitchers in leagues with reserve lists. Lesser arms are only active for perceived favorable matchups, yet all of their stats get plugged into the value calculator.

The practical flaw is most fantasy owners begin the season intending to spot-start fringy pitchers as discussed, and the standings reflect that. It's one thing to say Pedro Strop is more valuable than a back-end starter, it's another to draft Strop and have him active for 26 weeks.

It's about balance. Starters accrue strikeouts while offering a chance at a win. Relievers keep ratios in check. It comes down to how many points in strikeouts and wins are gained versus how many are lost in ratios.

The pathway to maximum points entails using all starters and closers. It's our competitive nature to strive for the most points possible, in tandem with the confidence we can successfully traverse the minefield of volatile starting pitchers.

Part of this is strategizing based on previous results, aiming for targets based on the previous season's standings. Streaming is necessary to accumulate the wins and whiffs of previous seasons.

Should this be the strategy? Maybe it's time to exploit the supply of high strikeout middle relievers while the demand is low. Economics teaches us the cost of this commodity should be minimal, allowing us to funnel assets elsewhere, while in theory not sacrificing rotisserie points.

It helps to have a reference point. Sparing the algebra, in a 15-team mixed league, the fulcrum is a roster spot dedicated to streaming, recording 150 innings with a 4.50 ERA, 1.40 WHIP with 130 strikeouts versus 60 innings with a 3.00 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 75 punchouts from a reliever. Of course, it depends on where you are in the standings, but on average, this is the break-even spot. Identical standings points are earned from this starter and reliever.

At first blush, it may seem like a piece of cake to stream matchups better than a 4.50 ERA and 1.40 WHIP. However, in 2017, there were 91 pitchers starting at least 10 games besting both filters. That's six per fantasy team. Practically speaking, 10 games accounts for about one-third of the season. Someone else was active on this roster spot the other two-thirds. Increasing the filter to 20 starts, now only 72 pitchers satisfied both criteria. That's five per fantasy rotation.

This isn't to say it's not possible to cherry-pick the rest of the pitchers to piece together a starter with 150 frames of a 4.50 ERA and 1.40 WHIP, just that the available inventory consists mostly of pitchers with lesser stats, so you need to be extremely adept, if not lucky, to pull it off. Completing the story, there were 99 pitchers with at least 10 starts with either an ERA or WHIP worse than the cutoff.

On the flip side, there were 19 middle relievers meeting the criteria. This may not seem like much, especially since some were on rosters last season. However, most were picked up in season and not at the draft or auction. Several were there for the taking in the endgame or even the reserve rounds, for minimal investment.

Keep in mind, there's an opposite effect as each group separates from the threshold. That is, as the starter's ERA increases from 4.50, more category points are lost. As each reliever's ERA decreases from 3.00, more ERA points are gained. This furthers the benefit of jumping on the relievers since you can draft the best, giving you an advantage from the beginning.

Another consideration is the changing landscape of starting pitching, not just in terms of rising ratios, but also length of starts. Here's some data from the past four seasons:

Note, the concurrent increase in strikeouts has maintained the number of strikeouts in fantasy standings, despite starters throwing fewer innings. For what it's worth, reliever whiffs are on the rise as well.

The current trend of fewer innings per start tilts the balance even more toward middle relievers. Fewer innings means fewer wins, which is demonstrated in the table. These wins must go somewhere, obviously to relievers. This lessens the effect starters have on the wins category, meaning they account for fewer points in the category. While the raw strikeouts have remained consistent the past few years, more reliever innings means more reliever strikeouts, again mitigating some of the advantage of using a streaming starter. In many cases, you'll actually get more whiffs from a dominant reliever, if they toss three innings that week.

Those playing in other size leagues are likely curious how this translates. Again, not showing the work, the deeper the league, the more impact exhibited by relievers. Middle relievers are already vital to AL/NL-only formats. Instead of replacing a streamer as you would in mixed formats, deep-league enthusiasts should replace a starter outright by designing a staff with four or five starters. The influence a lesser starter has on ratios is far more damaging than the benefit they offer from strikeouts and wins.

In 10- and 12-team mixed leagues, the math still favors streaming starters. This could change if the current trend of starting pitchers leaving games earlier persists, or if they are lifted even earlier. But, at least for now, the sage play is to spend the time identifying strong spot starters.

There's another consideration tied into the Moneyball aspect of this notion. The market price of these middle relievers is minimal, allowing assets to be diverted elsewhere, likely fortifying hitting, though simply redirecting the savings to better frontline starters or a more reliable closer is in play too. That is, if you opt to use a middle reliever in lieu of a spot starter and only end up breaking even on the pitching ledger, the cost of the pitching assets is less, freeing up assets to gain points elsewhere.

It's worth reiterating one more time what's practical and what looks best on paper may not sync up.

Perhaps the best approach is to be flexible. Go into your draft or auction intending to successfully take advantage of strong pitching matchups by drafting multiple back-end starters as you typically would. From there, consider drafting one fewer starter than usual, instead stashing one additional dominant setup man. Then, to make up for having one less streaming option available on your roster, be more active in free agency or the waiver wire, using your middle reliever during the transaction periods when you are unable to identify a viable streamer.

This article appears in the 2018 RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Guide. You can order a copy here.