Some of the pitchers in these charts are earning more in 5x5 than in 4x4. Alex Patton once called 5x5 "the great equalizer", suggesting that the values at the top get flattened. However, that's not quite right.
In 4x4, the average nine man Roto staff is worth $78; the average 12-team A.L. league churns out $936 worth of stats. In 5x5, 12-team A.L., that same team earns $1,020.
The short explanation is that since you're adding a quantitative pitching category that you're making pitchers somewhat more predictable and, thus, somewhat more valuable. That value is coming in strikeouts. Closers - as you will see - take a pretty big pay cut because while $84 of value is stolen from the hitters, most of the strikeout moolah gets taken from wins and saves. Starting pitchers make some, most, or even all of their money back with whiffs, but closers simply put up enough innings and whiffs pull this trick.
The long and short of it all is that the 10 pitchers in this chart below earned more in 2009 than you might have expected otherwise.
Ten Most Expensive A.L. Starting Pitchers 2009
| # | Player | $ | Sal | +/- | AP | SW | '08 |
| 1 | CC Sabathia | $34 | $31 | +3 | $32 | $28 | $40 |
| 2 | Roy Halladay | $37 | $28 | +9 | $33 | $30 | $40 |
| 3 | Josh Beckett | $28 | $23 | +5 | $23 | $24 | $20 |
| 4 | James Shields | $18 | $23 | -5 | $24 | $18 | $25 |
| 5 | Zack Greinke | $44 | $21 | +23 | $24 | $15 | $22 |
| 6 | Felix Hernandez | $40 | $21 | +20 | $17 | $20 | $17 |
| 7 | Francisco Liriano | $1 | $20 | -19 | $24 | $22 | $6 |
| 8 | John Lackey | $18 | $20 | -1 | $18 | $21 | $18 |
| 9 | Scott Kazmir | $9 | $20 | -11 | $18 | $16 | $20 |
| 10 | A.J. Burnett | $19 | $19 | 0 | $16 | $12 | $23 |
| Average | $25 | $23 | +2 | $23 | $21 | $23 |
They blew the same group from 2008 away, earning a whopping $7 more per pitcher than their 2008 counterparts.
No, that's not quite correct. Last year's charts were using 4x4 values. Inserting 5x5 values instead, the 10 most expensive pitchers earned $20 per pitcher, not $18.
Nevertheless, this was much better place to put your money in 2009 than it was in 2008. There were six pitchers who cracked $30 in earnings in 2009, and four of the six made this list. That's fairly predictable. There were really only two big busts (Kazmir and Liriano). While you obviously would rather have had Greinke or Felix than Lackey or Burnett, breaking even on a $19 or $20 pitcher in Roto isn't a bad deal at all.
After squeezing the top hitters, Patton takes a different approach here and goes after the top pitchers with gusto. In a three-way battle with the market and Sports Weekly, he gets Sabathia, Halladay, Shields, Greinke and Liriano. The market gets Felix, Kazmir, and Burnett, while SW takes home Beckett and Lackey.
While the top pitchers were fairly predictable, the 10 most expensive pitchers only had five pitchers make the next list.
Top Ten A.L. Starting Pitchers 2009
| # | Player | $ | Sal | +/- | AP | SW | '08 |
| 1 | Zack Greinke | $44 | $21 | +23 | $24 | $15 | $22 |
| 2 | Felix Hernandez | $40 | $21 | +20 | $17 | $20 | $17 |
| 3 | Roy Halladay | $37 | $28 | +9 | $33 | $30 | $40 |
| 4 | Justin Verlander | $37 | $15 | +22 | $18 | $18 | $10 |
| 5 | CC Sabathia | $34 | $31 | +3 | $32 | $28 | $40 |
| 6 | Jon Lester | $30 | $16 | +13 | $26 | $21 | $24 |
| 7 | Josh Beckett | $28 | $23 | +5 | $23 | $24 | $20 |
| 8 | Jered Weaver | $25 | $14 | +11 | $12 | $12 | $15 |
| 9 | Edwin Jackson | $23 | $4 | +19 | $4 | $7 | |
| 10 | Scott Baker | $22 | $16 | +6 | $11 | $13 | $21 |
| Average | $32 | $19 | +13 | $20 | $18 | $22 |
Verlander, Lester, Weaver, Jackson and Baker join this group.
Just like in the N.L., though, this isn't a very surprising group at all. Jackson is the big surprise, but it cost at least $14 to take a ride with any of these other pitchers.
Obviously, the return here is tremendous. But $19 isn't a cheap price for what's typically an unpredictable commodity.
Top 10 A.L. Starting Pitchers 2008
(readjusted for 5x5 in 2008)
| # | Player | $ | Sal | +/- | AP | SW | '07 (4x4) |
| 1 | Roy Halladay | $40 | $21 | +19 | $29 | $22 | $23 |
| 2 | Cliff Lee | $37 | $1 | +36 | $3 | -$7 | |
| 3 | Ervin Santana | $31 | $6 | +25 | $11 | $2 | -$9 |
| 4 | Mike Mussina | $26 | $4 | +22 | $6 | $3 | $1 |
| 5 | James Shields | $25 | $21 | +4 | $17 | $13 | $24 |
| 6 | Daisuke Matsuzaka | $24 | $23 | 0 | $21 | $18 | $13 |
| 7 | Jon Lester | $24 | $7 | +17 | $9 | $5 | $1 |
| 8 | Justin Duchscherer | $23 | $6 | +18 | $3 | $1 | $1 |
| 9 | A.J. Burnett | $23 | $16 | +7 | $17 | $16 | $18 |
| 10 | Zack Greinke | $22 | $11 | +11 | $11 | $7 | $11 |
| Average | $28 | $12 | +16 | $13 | $9 | $8 |
This is last year's Top 10 with 5x5 values instead of 4x4. The list changes from what I had posted last year. Here, you can see the impact of 5x5 on high quality, low strikeout pitchers. Mussina lost $2 in 5x5. Duchscherer lost $5 in the 5x5 format and Joe Saunders disappears from the Top 10 entirely.
But even with the adjusted Top 10, there are a lot of surprises here. Half the pitchers in 2008 cost $7 or less; the point I made about buying your staff on the cheap in '08 still applied. You didn't even need every one of these pitchers; you could have got lucky/struck gold with Lester and Duchscherer and turned a tidy profit.
You would have had a harder time doing that in 2009. Spending $45 on Verlander, Lester, and Weaver obviously would have bought you a golden ticket. However, there were a lot of pitchers in the $13-17 range who didn't pan out. In my next post, I'll look at these pitchers and see how they did compared to the most expensive ones.
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