Starting Pitcher Strategy

Bird Watcher read my post on National League pitchers but questioned my idea that you should spend your money on the best pitchers.

I don't understand how you conclude it's better to go after some of the big dogs. Average value for the top 20 was $15 while average cost was $21. More important, only 6 out of the 20 produced positive value. Pitchers 21 to 60 averaged $8 in value ($7.35excluding Dickey) with average cost of $7. Also, one-half of these pitchers produced positive net value. Seems better budgeting to stick to the lower tiers, shift the excess money to hitting and if you get a dog, at least it is not a $15 dog and you still have a reasonable chance to replace the lower priced pitcher with a reasonable FA pick-up. Thoughts?

I covered some of this ground in the initial article, but below are some clarifying points.

1) For me, the "elite" pitchers aren't Top 20 but rather Top 10

One of the main conclusions I have reached compiling these charts year in and year out is that the eleventh to twentieth most expensive pitchers are the biggest money losers time and time again. The money bar for an elite pitcher (in my opinion) is a $20 earner, not a $15 earner. This makes a significant difference in this type of analysis. This is more apropos in the American League, where the Top 10 pitchers come closer to breaking even, but generally speaking this is a good rule of thumb.

2) There is a difference between profit and earnings

Here is another way of looking at how all of these pitchers do from season to season.

Bracket	1-10		11-20		21-30		31-40		41-50
	Earned	Cost	Earned	Cost	Earned	Cost	Earned	Cost	Earned	Cost
2009	$20	27	$14	18	$13	12	$11	8	$8	5
2010	$22	26	$17	18	$11	10	$10	8	$5	5
2011	$23	25	$12	17	$12	12	$9	8	$4	5
2012	$19	25	$11	17	$11	11	$7	8	$9	6
	$21.00	$25.75	$13.50	$17.50	$11.75	$11.50	$9.25	$8.00	$6.50	$5.25

To Birdwatcher's point, the pitchers from #21 on down consistently earn a profit while the pitchers from #1-20 consistently lose money. I would agree with the premise that taking losses on your entire team is a surefire way to finish in the second division.

However, you do need for your team to generate statistics. While a $9 return on an $8 investment sounds better than a $21 return on a $26 investment, you do need to get those $21 of stats from somewhere. If you plunked down $8 on six starting pitchers and got a $54 return on your $48 investment, you wouldn't have a first division staff but rather a middle of the pack staff. 

3) Even though pitching is more unpredictable than hitting, it still counts for half of your point total

Birdwatcher's suggestion of avoiding spending in the top tier and hoping to catch lightning in a bottle at the bottom is a tempting one. If you were burned by a $30 Roy Halladay last year, it is an especially tempting idea.

However, your odds of landing an elite ($20+ pitcher) are historically better if you spend enough money to buy a Top 10 pitcher. Of the 37 pitchers that have earned $20 or more since 2009 among the 50 most expensive pitchers by year, the breakdown goes like this:

1-10: 23 $20+ pitchers

11-20: 9

21-30: 9

31-40: 6

41-50: 1

Since, R.A. Dickey and Kyle Lohse were even cheaper than the 50th most expensive pitcher in 2012 you could argue that I'm hiding some key evidence here to prop up my case, but since 2009 they are the only pitchers that cost less than $8 that landed in the Top 10. They are what we call outliers.

Can you win with a cheap pitching strategy? It isn't out of the question. I'm sure someone out there did exactly what Birdwatcher is suggesting. This hypothetical owner bought Dickey, spent $40-50 on his entire pitching staff, and either bought pitchers that were neutral value and won or used his excess offense to trade for the pitcher or pitchers he needed later. The free agent landscape isn’t better. The free agent starting pitchers that earn $10 or more are few and far between, and there hasn’t been a free agent starter to earn $20 or more since 2009.

The odds of landing someone like Dickey - either through auction or as a free agent - are incredibly slim. You can win with this strategy, but the data I've compiled over the last five years - and this is why I've been running these charts out here winter after winter - suggest that your odds of putting together a winning staff this way are subpar or worse.