Dumping Wins and Whiffs (5x5) Revisited

Back in early May, Birdwatcher took issue with my suggestion that you might be able to dump strikeouts and wins and still win.

You are proposing to spend enough pitching money to land a Roy Halladay and a couple of closers. Even assuming Doc stays healthy and the closers perform as expected (probably no better than a 50% chance), you still have to dominate all 5 hitting categories - but you couldn't possibly have enough money left to achieve that objective.

I'm going to ignore the second part of this statement (for now) and focus on the first part.

First, I'm going to go back to what I said verbatim on money allocation if you were going to pursue this strategy:

If I were going to try this in a 5x5, I'd try to buy an ace for $25 who contributed more in ERA/WHIP and not so much in strikeouts. Roy Halladay would be ideal in the A.L.; I can't think of someone who jumps out in the N.L. I'd then buy my two closers for a combined $25-30 and go dollar derby on the rest of my pitching staff. That would leave me with $200 to spend on offense.

The first assumption to look at is if I can grab a good starter for $25 or less:

Major League Starters @ $20-$25 2009 YTD
(through July 20)

#	Pitcher	$	Sal	+/-	'07
1	James Shields	$17	$23	-6	$23
2	Josh Beckett	$30	$23	+7	$19
3	Zach Greinke	$41	$21	+20	$20
4	Felix Hernandez	$37	$21	+16	$15
5	Francisco Liriano	$2	$20	-18	$6
6	John Lackey	$9	$20	-11	$16
7	Scott Kazmir	-$7	$20	-27	$18
8	Roy Oswalt	$22	$23	-1	$24
9	Javier Vazquez	$35	$22	+13	$14
10	Chad Billingsley	$22	$21	+1	$23
11	Yovani Gallardo	$25	$20	+5	$16
	Average	$21	$21	-0	$18

One thing Birdwatcher and I can agree on is that you can kiss Roy Halladay goodbye. He went for an average salary of $28.

But that's about it; the only other American League starter who sailed past $25 was CC Sabathia ($31). The National League is a different story. Six pitchers went for more than $25: Tim Lincecum ($34), Johan Santana ($34), Cole Hamels ($30), Brandon Webb ($30), Dan Haren ($27), and Jake Peavy ($26). You can argue that you going to $27 might not make or break your strategy, but it would probably be tight.

As far as the starters who went in the $20-25 range...

Anytime you look at one of these lists there are going to be some players who totally crash and burn. If you built your staff around Kazmir, Lackey, or Liriano, you're probably playing for 2010.

The real question about the strategy, though, isn't whether or not the outliers on one end (Kazmir) or the other (Greinke) would work. Clearly, if you bought Greinke, any team you plugged him in to would do well, regardless of whether or not it was employing a strategy. The same thing works the other way; Kazmir would hurt a team playing across eight, nine, or 10 categories.

Roy Oswalt is on his way to earning $22. That would have been good for 14th in the National League last year. That hardly sounds like a starting pitcher you'd hang your hat on.

However, Oswalt's 3.65 ERA and 1.18 WHIP would put you first in ERA/WHIP in the CBS Sportsline Analysts League. It would put you second in ERA and first in WHIP in Tout Wars N.L.

I know, I know. You still need at least two other starting pitchers to make innings.

The point, though, is that a $20-25 starter establishes a good framework - on average.

Next, I'll look at the cheap closers that were purchased this spring and see how they're doing.