Fantasy Baseball 2018: When to draft for each pitching category

Standard fantasy baseball leagues use five categories to value their pitchers. How do you know when to draft for each stat to have the best pitching staff?

Earlier this month, I wrote about when to draft for each offensive category. Wait for power. Load up on speed and contact early. Now it’s time to talk about the pitching stats. The standard five for fantasy baseball are wins, saves, ERA, WHIP and strikeouts. I am not a fan of wins so I will switch that with quality starts.

Quality starts is a better indicator of a pitcher’s skill. Wins rely on the offense to put up runs and the bullpen to shut down the opposing offense in the final innings. A pitcher earns a quality start by pitching at least six innings and giving up no more than three runs. That’s more valuable than a win.

When drafting pitchers, there are two pools to choose from, starters and relievers. While you have seven different batters to choose from (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, DH), they all contribute to the same stats. Starters help with QS, ERA, WHIP and strikeouts, Relievers contribute to ERA, WHIP, strikeouts and saves. Having a good mix of both will lead to success.

It’s important to know what pitching stats your league is using. If your league uses wins, it may not benefit you to draft someone from a poor offensive team. Or, if you’re using K/9, relief pitchers have more value.

More from Fantasy Baseball

• 5 fantasy baseball waiver wire pivots to replace Triston McKenzie
• Fantasy baseball mock draft 2023, 12-team: Aaron Judge over Trea Turner?
• 3 fantasy baseball sleepers being drafted too late
• NBA DFS picks December 25: Merry Bucking Christmas
• Fantasy Baseball: Hot pitchers worthy of starting this weekend

Quality Starts

This category is more the elite pitchers, right? Only the most dominant pitchers will pitch the most quality starts. Wrong. There were 16 starting pitchers with at least 20 quality starts and 52 with at least 15.

Justin Verlander and Chris Sale topped the list with 23. Some surprising names on the list include Luis Severino, Ervin Santana and Jeff Samardzija. If you look at the wins total for those three, Santana had 16, Severino had 14 and Samardzija picked up just nine. What are the odds that the Giants offense is to blame for that?

Though, drafting for quality starts can be tough. The first eight to 10 pitchers are no-brainers. They contribute to four of the five categories. Later in the draft is when you’re looking for value. How many owners do you think drafted Jhoulys Chacin? I’d say not many but he finished with a 3.89 ERA and 16 quality starts.

It doesn’t matter what team the pitcher plays for, it’s all about their individual skill. It does matter about the park and the matchup, which is why streaming is becoming more popular every season. Add a player for a particular start and then drop him the next day. There are a lot of pitchers that benefit from that.

Draft a quality pitcher or two early and then round out the rest of your rotation later in the draft.

Ratios

I’m combining ERA and WHIP into one section. They go hand-in-hand most of the time. If a pitcher allows a lot of hits and walks, chances are their ERA is going to be high as well, unless the pitcher has a high strand rate and can get themselves out of the mess. However, it can’t be done all the time.

Unlike quality starts, the lowest ERAs and WHIPs belonged to the pitchers that were drafted the earliest. There were a couple of surprises sprinkled in as well. Samardzija had the 10th-best WHIP while Andrew Cashner had the 15th-best ERA.

It’s all about timing, which is out of anyone’s control. Sale was a dominant pitcher all season, but who saw his two blowups against the Cleveland Indians in August coming? He allowed a combined 13 runs off 15 hits and four walks while striking out eight in 8.0 innings. Those owners obviously started him but were given two poor outings in a three-week span.

When drafting pitchers, I don’t expect my No. 4 and 5 pitchers to give me sub-3.00 ERAs or sub-1.10 WHIPs. I do expect, however, 3.80/1.30 respectively. With the number of home runs hit and runs scored last year, both numbers were up across the league. I believe that will be the case in 2018, so drafting those elite pitchers is more important than ever.

Strikeouts

There were only 16 starting pitchers that reached 200 strikeouts and one that reached 300 last season. There were four others eight or fewer away from reaching 200. Those numbers are up from 2016, with 12 and zero respectively. Batters are swinging more often, so pitchers are rewarding with higher strikeout totals.

Again, the names at the top of this list were all drafted in the first few rounds of fantasy drafts. Having one or two of these pitchers on your team will give you a nice anchor in the strikeouts category, allowing you to focus elsewhere for a few rounds.

Relief pitchers can also help in this category. Guys like Corey Knebel, Kenley Jansen and Brad Hand were just a few relievers with over a 100 strikeouts. Drafting the right combination of 250+ strikeout starters and at least one 100-strikeout reliever puts you in a good situation to win that category.

Saves

My least favorite category to draft. Yes, there are a couple of closers worth drafting before Round 6 but the majority of closers are similar when it comes to their stats. Alex Colome led all closers with 47 saves and was the 15th closer drafted.

This is an unpredictable stat to draft for. While you know which closers are in the best situations, things can unravel and make for a bad season. Seung-Hwan Oh was one of the higher-drafted closers last season but finished with just 20 saves and a 4.10 ERA.

Because they pitch in fewer innings, one bad appearance can skyrocket your ratio stats. Look at Fernando Rodney. He recorded 39 saves but had a 4.23 ERA and 1.19 WHIP. I’d rather have the combination of Dellin Betances and Felipe Rivero, combined 31 saves, 2.20 ERA and 1.037 WHIP.

The other thing is that saves can be found everywhere. Rivero, for example, was not drafted and took over the Pirates closer role after Tony Watson was traded. There are plenty of other situations where someone emerges as a team’s new closer, whether it’s because of trade, injury or just poor performance.

Draft two or three closers throughout the draft but also take a chance on a set-up man. You never know what’s going to happen.

Pitching stats are a little more fickle than the offense. There are the elite options but they are few and far between. You start taking risks the later you get in the draft. There will always be a surprise here and there but you can’t bank on that.

Next: Is Blake Parker the reliever to own in LA?

As far as drafting priority, I would target the ratio stats first. It’s hard to recover from a bad ERA or WHIP. Next would be quality starts, then strikeouts. Those two counting stats can be improved throughout the year. Finally, go for saves. I don’t like drafting a closer before Round 8 and when I do, I draft three within five rounds of each other. The second and third tiers are home to some good, undervalued relievers.

Remember, it’s good to have a strategy when drafting but don’t stick to the plan 100 percent. Things change and so will your team’s needs.