Streaming pitching can often be the difference between winning the league and waiting for next year. This week, the Touts were asked:
What’s your philosophy when it comes to starting/benching struggling starting pitchers?
Doug Dennis (BaseballHQ, @dougdennis41): SPs that I have projected to do well, I give them some rope. If they fail 3-4 in a row, I start to look at home/away and offense matchups. If they keep failing, I bench them if rules permit. SPs that I have projected to be iffy (and that is most of my SPs(!!) I think about home/away from the get-go, bench if rules permit, and depending on what I can do to replace, contemplate cutting them if I can’t just reserve them after failing 4-5-6 times.
Todd Zola (Mastersball, @toddzola): I’m admittedly aggressive. I don’t like sitting a pitcher until he has a good start or two – then you miss those starts. Plus, my research shows you can absorb a few blow-ups, the added strikeouts mitigate much of the damage in terms of standings points. If there’s a hint of injury (lower mph, drop in spin rate) I’ll reserve, but otherwise it’s all systems go, perhaps to a fault. I should note, it is league dependent, the better the alternative, the more likely I am to reluctantly bench, but most of my leagues are 15 team mixed and deeper. Also, in leagues with an IP cap, I’m more judicious since there’s a finite number of starts.
Perry Van Hook (Mastersball, @): In leagues where there are reserve slots I would “rest” a questionable but potentially viable SP until he improved or had a terrific matchup. There are leagues where you have to weigh the damage to your ratios versus the eventual upside
Ray Flowers (Fantasy Guru Elite, @BaseballGuys): I tend to think that any top-40 SP has to be started, even if struggling. You can make adjustments if he’s been particularly brutal, or if he’s facing a white-hot offense in a good ballpark. That said, you have to be smart about it. If it’s outing after outing with a beatdown, you have to consider benching anyone. Most of the time it’s a skills/matchup/trend decision for a struggling arm. Moreover, you have to determine why a guy is struggling. If he has a .398 BABIP or if his swinging strike rate has dropped by four percent. The reason for the struggles plays a part as well.
Rick Wolf (Fantasy Alarm, @RickWolf1) and Glenn Colton (Fantasy Alarm, @glenncolton1): It depends on a ton of factors, but we do not play straight match ups. The most important factors are where you are in the standings and your ability to withstand a bad outing based on your stats in ERA & Ratios. Also, depends on the type of pitcher and his trend. Hard throwers are more predictable and less likely to blow up against a good team or in a bad ballpark. Need to look at the team’s trend, the ballpark that they are in and their GB% as a high number there can help to make sure that big innings don’t come from the long ball. That said, sat Kyle Gibson vs NYY last week so you can never be 100%.
Mike Podhorzer (Fangraphs, @MikePodhorzer): The answer is highly dependent on league format and alternative options, as well as how “struggling” is defined. If your replacement options are Chris Tillman and some generic middle relievers on pace for 50 innings, there’s less incentive to bench your guy versus in a shallower league where you have decent alternatives. In terms of defining “struggling”, I completely ignore ERA for at least the first month. Rather, I focus solely on underlying skills, expected ERA metrics like SIERA, and pitch velocities and any mix changes. That has far greater predictive power than ERA does. If the underlying skills support the poor start, my decision will depend heavily on my preseason value. If I projected him as a top 20 or 30 pitcher, I’ll probably give him a bit longer to get his skills back to where they should be. Beyond that, I’m more inclined to bench him until he gets his strikeouts and walks in line with expectations.
Rudy Gamble (Razzball, @RudyGamble): Three factors: 1) What is our Streamonator’s projected $ value for the start (which factors in opponent, park, home/away, etc.), 2) Is it a daily or weekly transaction league? and 3) What are my alternatives? If the Streamonator $ value indicates it’s a mediocre start and a pitcher has been struggling, I am looking for any excuse to bench him. In daily transaction leagues (where there is typically an IP or GS cap), I just sit him. In weekly transaction leagues, I am looking to see if I have a better alternative. I have a lot of Jon Gray shares this year and he has been benched on some teams (with strong alternatives) and started in others.
Tim McCullough (Rotoexperts, @Tim_Rotoexperts): League format matters a lot when it comes to pitching philosophy and struggling starters. In a 10-team mixed league with daily moves, I am more likely to bench a pitcher who doesn’t matchup well with a team according splits and park factors – mainly because there are streaming options available in such a league. So, I will look for a viable streamer to replace the struggler on my roster. In deeper leagues (i.e. 15-team mixed or 12-team mono) where there are fewer viable streaming options, I am more apt to keep the struggling starter out there, especially if the league has weekly moves. However, if this hypothetical struggling pitcher is a complete disaster, I will bench him and replace him with a highly ranked middle reliever who strikes out plenty of batters and has excellent ratio stats with high strikeout rates. I like to have one or two of those pitcher types sitting on the bench for just such emergencies.
Andrea LaMont (LennyMelnickFantasySports, @RotoLady): It depends on the type of league it is. If it is a category based roto league, I usually just bench him and hope he comes around. As long as I have a spot on my bench I won’t consider dropping him until late May or early June. If it is a head-to-head points league, such as this year’s Tout Wars league, I am a whole lot more willing to get rid of him. I dropped Marcus Stroman a couple weeks ago because he is walking batters like crazy and I can’t afford to have those negative points on my roster every week.
Patrick Davitt (BaseballHQ, @patrickdavitt): My default is to let ’em pitch. I do bench my weakest starters in weeks with tough matchups—nothing new or fascinating there—but the underlying assumption is that they all get to go unless there’s pretty potent evidence not to. When I get heartburn is when I have a weaker guy in a two-start week, and they’re BOTH against tough opponents. Hate to miss out on 10 Ks or whatever, but I’ll pull that pin if it looks like those Ks could cost me 10 ER in as many innings.-/h
Charlie Wiegert (CDM Sports, @GFFantasySports): When one of my pitchers is struggling, I’ll bench them if I have a better option and his start is against one of the better hitting teams. But if it’s against Bal, Cws, KC, Cin or SD, I’ll leave him in!
Gene McCaffrey (Wise Guy Baseball, @WiseGuyGene): If I can figure out what the problem is, that usually tells me what to do. If I can’t, I would do what I try to do with my lesser SPs anyway: start them at home, bench them on the road. If it’s one of my aces, I have to let him pitch unless he’s pitching through an injury. Oh wait, it’s 2018.
Mike Gianella (Baseball Prospectus, @MikeGianella): It depends a great deal on the pitcher’s track record/why he’s struggling. If a pitcher I drafted to be my SP1/SP2 doesn’t perform, I’m going to lose regardless of whether I bench him or not. I’m fairly liberal with starters outside of the Top 60 in deeper mixed as far as dropping or benching them if I don’t like the matchup or see the trend lines going in the wrong direction but above this (admittedly arbitrary) line I’m inclined to stick with the pitcher unless it’s obvious he’s pitching through an injury.
Scott Swanay (FantasyBaseballSherpa, @fantasy_sherpa): If it’s a guy w/ a proven track record of success, and there aren’t any apparent injury concerns, I’ll likely leave him in. If it’s someone I’ve rostered largely on the basis of potential, it depends whether his struggles are due to something obvious (e.g. – loss of velocity, decrease in strikeout rate, increase in walk rate). It that’s indeed the case, then I’ll likely stream him until my confidence in him is renewed. Finally, I’m not shy about adding/dropping starting pitchers on the waiver wire – most of the time, things don’t work out long-term, but if just one or two do in a given season, your team will likely be better off for having done that.
Howard Bender (Fantasy Alarm, @RotobuzzGuy): Always depends on who the starter is and what the upcoming match-ups are for the week, but if it’s a player I drafted in the mid-to-early rounds, I’ll give him some leeway so I don’t miss the expected good starts. Things should balance out in the end, especially if my projections have him doing significantly better than his current performance. For pitchers I grabbed late and have low expectations for, I will park them on the bench for a week or two and look to replace them if someone of quality appears on the waiver wire.
Phil Hertz (BaseballHQ, @prhz50): Generally if they’re on my team I start the strugglers – unless the game is Coors. I do check BaseballHQ’s match-up guide, and if they’re not recommended and they’re going against a recommended starter and/or a hot team, I might bench even if not at Coors.
Jeff Boggis (Fantasy Football Empire, @JeffBoggis): It all depends on the pre-ranking of the starting pitcher. For example, Chris Archer (SP-TB) was struggling in his first 4 starts on the season, but I kept him in my starting lineup because I know what his track record is and that he had a pre-ranking of 61. If his pre-ranking had been 150 or higher, I probably would have benched him. Over the past 2 weeks, Archer has pitched 18.1 innings with 19 strikeouts, 1 win, a respectable 3.44 ERA and a 1.31 WHIP. He’s had little run support this season, but this should turn around soon.
Scott Wilderman (OnRoto, @): I’ve always looked only at underlying stats — what I think Ron Shandler first coined as “indicators”. At this point, while a high ERA might catch my eye, if the K/9 and BB/9 are fine, I wouldn’t even consider a number 1-3 starter to be struggling if the K/9 and BB/9 are consistent with expectations. If those numbers are way, way out of line, I’ll take a look at velocity or injuries, etc, but otherwise sitting a 1,2 or 3 starter because of a few bad outings is like trying to time the stock market — a bad idea. For deep leagues with back-of-the rotation guys, though, I think you need to look at what their known weaknesses are and see if that’s what’s causing their 2018 problems. Most projection systems forecast outliers (the good and the bad) to regress back to the mean, to an extent. So if a guy with decent indicators has an out of line ERA because he’s always given up too many gopher balls and he’s already given up 7 or 8, it may be time to conclude that he’s not over it, and it’s time to sit him.
Michael Beller (Sports Illustrated, @MBeller): It takes a lot for me to bench a starter when his turn comes around. Take this one all the way down to the most basic level. Why do we have starting pitchers on our fantasy baseball teams? So they can, you know, make starts for us, right? If a guy isn’t worth starting, is he even worth owning? Yes, I realize I’m making this simpler than it is in reality, but it’s helpful to think of it in the abstract. Zola hit the nail on the head earlier when he said that struggling pitchers will make up in strikeouts some of the value they give away in the rate categories. Plus, none of us is as good at diagnosing why a pitcher is struggling, or when those struggles might end, as we want to be. You’re nearly as likely to leave a good outing on the bench as you are to sidestep a bad one when you bench a guy for his start. In short, before you bench a guy for his start, ask if he’s even worth having on your team in the first place. If he is, then you want him in your active lineup nine times out of 10.
