It's Super Bowl Sunday, and thus a very slow news day in the baseball world. So instead of making this a news-based daily entry, instead let's talk about some recent projection additions to the site. In the last week we've added projections for approximately 60 pitchers, while revamping the projections for others. These are pitchers that we didn't deem essential for the magazine (we initially had over 350 pitchers with projections), but they'll be of interest in deeper leagues at least, and naturally some pitchers will slip through our expectations and have good seasons. If you want to keep track of who got changed, check out our revisions page.
Here are the general categories under which most of these pitchers fall:
Returning From Major Injury
(Some examples: Martin Perez, Bobby Parnell, Luke Hochevar, Josh Johnson, Cory Luebke)
The most common bind between these pitchers is that they had Tommy John surgery last year, and are projected to come back at some undetermined point in 2015. Not only is the return date uncertain, but so is the role they'll have when they come back for the most part. Perez probably has a rotation slot waiting for him, but his return date is less stable than most because he got hurt midseason.
Parnell is a particularly troublesome - he had barely just acquired the job as the Mets closer and spent the second half of 2013 battling various injuries, then pitched in just one game last year. But neither Jeurys Familiar nor Jenrry Mejia are set in the role and both had hernia surgeries in October, so it's feasible that Parnell could regain the job. But the smart money is still against Parnell doing so.
Prospects
(A.J. Cole, Mark Appel, Jose Berrios, Aaron Nola, etc...)
Prospects, and starting pitching prospects especially, are thorny to project. They have to escape the injury nexus, pitch well at their respective minor league stops, and then have an opening with the parent club to get promoted to. Certainly someone like Jose Berrios or Aaron Nola will have less competition for the job than Cole, for instance, but they are less experienced and typically more volatile in their performance. Plus there's the battle between having open spots to fill and the organizational desire to save money, either in terms of arbitration-eligibility or even having an extra year before they are free agent. Occasionally Jose Fernandez dominates so much that his Marlins team defies the traditional Super 2 mindset and promotes him right away, but that's more the exception than the rule. So deciding which of these prospects is going to get called up and pitch well is less science than it is art.
Non-Closing Relievers
(Javier Lopez, Kevin Siegrist, Shae Simmons, Brandon Maurer)
I hate holds as a stat*, let alone using them for a fantasy league, but the fact is some leagues use them and we have to project them. Moreover, while roto leagues are our first consideration, we want to try to be helpful in other formats like Scoresheet and Strat as well, and the leagues where I play in those formats we dig really deep to build our rosters. Scoresheet drafts are 36 rounds deep, and come in various sizes and player pools. I have a 30-team Strat league where virtually everyone that compiled a certain minimum number of stats in a given year will get selected. Finally, doing so helps identify who the next great relievers might be - closers come from various paths, but the most common one is from a manager inserting another reliever who is getting the job done when the previous closer falters.
*I support the idea of highlighting the top set-up men, as traditionally their role has been undervalued in the public eye. But "holds" are a lousy stat, even worse than the save. A pitcher can be really awful, but so long as he doesn't actively give up the lead out there and gets one batter out, he gets that hold. Meanwhile, a pitcher that is great in a tied game gets nothing and likes it. Blech.
Sometimes It Gets Better
(Ernesto Frieri, Erik Johnson)
The Rays turned around Fernando Rodney's career, maybe they can do the same with Frieri? Erik Johnson was truly dreadful in 2014 after entering the season as a trendy sleeper in some circles.
In going through this process, I found that between job battles and pitchers returning from injuries, the Padres were the most difficult to project. Josh Johnson, Casey Kelly and Cory Luebke have all had multiple seasons scuttled by injury, yet they're in a favorable park on what appears to be an improved team, at least offensively. So we ignore them at our peril, potentially passing up a good bargain for the season and giving someone else a great bargain.
We'll undergo the same process with the hitters this week, but in the meantime, keep suggesting to us who else you'd like to see us add to our projection database. Just hit me up on Twitter, or e-mail us at [email protected] and we'll jump on it.