Last time out, I asserted that spending $24 per pitcher and getting back $18 per pitcher was a good investment. Is that really the case?
Next Ten Most Expensive (11-20) A.L. Starting Pitchers 2010
# | Player | $ | Sal | +/- | PK | CBS | '09 |
11 | James Shields | $5 | $17 | -12 | $19 | $17 | $18 |
12 | Scott Baker | $10 | $16 | -7 | $17 | $16 | $22 |
13 | A.J. Burnett | $0 | $16 | -15 | $12 | $16 | $19 |
14 | Matt Garza | $16 | $16 | +1 | $15 | $16 | $20 |
15 | John Lackey | $9 | $15 | -7 | $19 | $18 | $18 |
16 | Jered Weaver | $29 | $15 | +14 | $17 | $19 | $25 |
17 | Max Scherzer | $18 | $13 | +5 | $10 | $15 | $13 |
18 | Gavin Floyd | $10 | $13 | -3 | $13 | $16 | $20 |
19 | Francisco Liriano | $19 | $12 | +7 | $10 | $11 | $1 |
20 | John Danks | $19 | $12 | +7 | $10 | $16 | $20 |
Average | $13 | $14 | -1 | $14 | $16 | $18 |
In terms of what you would have bought statistically, yes. The most expensive pitchers earned $5 more per pitcher than this group and even if you scroll down and peek ahead, no other group is going to earn $18 per pitcher.
The good news here is that you nearly broke even on your $14 investment. Burnett and Shields were the only double-digit busts, while half of the pitchers here made money for their owners.
Once again, PK is out in front of the market. The money he was hanging on to for the hitters he's now willingly spending here, coming out in front on Shields, Baker, Lackey and Weaver. Yes, he ties the market on the whole, but this is a different Rotoman than the one I looked at on the hitting side.
For the second year in a row, the pitchers in the 11-20 bracket are the guys the market doesn't trust. In 2009, these guys took a $5 pay cut per pitcher; now in 2010 they get dinged $4 apiece. These are the $20 pitchers the market doesn't trust, and with the exception of Weaver, their mistrust pays off to varying degrees.
I talked about this phenomenon last year, but it's worth mentioning again. The market is downgrading these guys not because they're bums, but because they know that pitchers fluctuate wildly from season to season. They don't want to get caught paying 2009 par for Baker and take a $12 loss. The market would rather live with someone else making a big profit on Weaver than take a big loss on him if he does fall flat on his face.
Looking at the next group, maybe the market should have gambled.
Next Ten (21-30) Most Expensive A.L. Starting Pitchers 2010
# | Player | $ | Sal | +/- | PK | CBS | '09 |
21 | Scott Kazmir | -$5 | $11 | -16 | $10 | $18 | $9 |
22 | Kevin Slowey | $10 | $11 | -1 | $7 | $13 | $8 |
23 | Mark Buehrle | $7 | $11 | -4 | $13 | $13 | $19 |
24 | Ben Sheets | $3 | $10 | -8 | $13 | ||
25 | Rich Harden | -$3 | $10 | -13 | $11 | $14 | $13 |
26 | Clay Buchholz | $24 | $10 | +14 | $9 | $14 | $8 |
27 | David Price | $28 | $10 | +18 | $11 | $14 | $11 |
28 | Daisuke Matsuzaka | $6 | $10 | -3 | $9 | $14 | -$2 |
29 | Rick Porcello | $3 | $9 | -6 | $9 | $11 | $15 |
30 | Jeff Niemann | $11 | $9 | +3 | $8 | $11 | $16 |
Average | $8 | $10 | -2 | $10 | $12 | $10 |
Price and Buchholz save this bracket from completely tanking. Harden and Kazmir are the only negatives here, but seven losers in a group where only $10 per pitcher is being spent is more of a beating than it sounds like. Only thirty-nine A.L. pitchers lost $3 or more last year and six of them are right here.
Rotoman's still in lockstep with the market here, so he gets some of these guys and misses on others without making me think he's acing it or striking out. He "gets" Price but misses on Buchholz. He avoids Kazmir but gets stuck with Sheets. Rotoman is doing what the market and most of us do on pitchers: making educated guesses, not predictions.
Predictions are CBS's department. CBS is optimistically predicting what these pitchers will do, while both the market and Rotoman are hedging their bets. Stage Three is when the market agrees on the pecking order with the projections even if it doesn't agree what to pay.
One thing the market did decide to do is cheat the pitchers in the second and third tier...at least compared to '09. These guys get paid $14 (11-20) and $10 (21-30) compared to $17 and $12 in 2009. The market is finally deciding that since these pitchers aren't predictable, why should we pay them like they are?
But they are also shifting money to the bottom from the top.
Next Ten (31-40) Most Expensive A.L. Starting Pitchers 2010
# | Player | $ | Sal | +/- | PK | CBS | '09 |
31 | Ervin Santana | $16 | $8 | +8 | $12 | $12 | $6 |
32 | Andy Pettitte | $13 | $8 | +5 | $5 | $11 | $16 |
33 | Phil Hughes | $16 | $8 | +9 | $4 | $11 | $17 |
34 | Wade Davis | $10 | $7 | +2 | $7 | $11 | $4 |
35 | Brian Matusz | $9 | $7 | +2 | $8 | $10 | $4 |
36 | Shaun Marcum | $20 | $7 | +13 | $8 | $11 | |
37 | Joel Pineiro | $11 | $6 | +5 | $5 | $11 | $21 |
38 | Erik Bedard | $6 | -6 | $6 | $13 | $13 | |
39 | Scott Feldman | -$4 | $6 | -10 | $5 | $11 | $19 |
40 | Trevor Cahill | $25 | $5 | +19 | $4 | $9 | $7 |
Average | $12 | $7 | +5 | $6 | $11 | $11 |
This bracket of pitchers gets a raise from what the 2009 bracket got. Yes, it's a piddling $1 per pitcher raise, but it does speak to the idea that the market saw less of a hierarchy in 2010 than it did in 2009.
The results seem to back this up, too. Seven of these pitchers earn in double digits in 2010: or as many as the first and second tiers as well. Of course, there aren't as many big-time earners here (since the overall earnings are lower), but this still looked like a great place to put your money last year. Only Bedard and Feldman lost money; everyone else was profitable, and Cahill and Marcum were really profitable.
The column I'm most intrigued by is 2009. Why is this group of pitchers $3 cheaper per pitcher than the prior group yet earned more than $1 per pitcher in '09? There is a similar phenomenon in 2009, when this bracket of pitchers only gets a $6 average salary after earning $12 in 2008.
The results last year, though, were quite different. The market correctly predicted the 2009 pitchers' fall while 2009 was a far better indicator of this bracket in 2010 than the market. This is a different group of pitchers, too. The 2009 group seems to have more of those soft tossing veteran types, while more young arms dominate the 2010 grouping.
The next group is definitely hit or miss.
Next Ten (41-50) Most Expensive A.L. Starting Pitchers 2010
# | Player | $ | Sal | +/- | PK | CBS | '09 |
41 | Joe Saunders | $1 | $5 | -4 | $5 | $11 | $11 |
42 | Chris Tillman | -$2 | $5 | -7 | R1 | $10 | -$0 |
43 | Ryan Rowland-Smith | -$11 | $5 | -16 | $9 | $9 | $10 |
44 | Gil Meche | -$4 | $4 | -8 | $8 | $7 | $2 |
45 | Ricky Romero | $17 | $4 | +13 | $1 | $10 | $11 |
46 | Mark Rzepczynski | $0 | $4 | -4 | $5 | $5 | $6 |
47 | Brandon Morrow | $10 | $3 | +6 | $3 | $10 | $4 |
48 | Dallas Braden | $17 | $3 | +13 | $3 | $5 | $10 |
49 | Nick Blackburn | -$1 | $3 | -4 | $8 | $9 | $13 |
50 | Colby Lewis | $19 | $3 | +16 | $2 | ||
Average | $4 | $4 | 0 | $4 | $8 | $7 |
On average, these pitchers break even, but pitcher-by-pitcher they do anything but. When you throw down $4 on a pitcher you're hoping for at least a mild win, but less than half of these pitchers turn a profit. The profits turned by the big winners here (Braden, Lewis, Romero) are big enough to offset this, but I walk away with the same impression I walked away with last year: you might not be spending much on these guys, but you're better off either spending more on an elite pitcher or just spending $1 or $2 and crossing your fingers.
Or perhaps you're better off doing both.
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