Ranking the Starters

[Payne Dailey]

Lime,

I'm going to have to agree with yanks on this one. A lot of your rankings are way off imo.

[Registered_Guest]

I don't think anyone is being too harsh.

Your NL rankings are bad. (I'm putting that kindly as possible)

[Lime]

I didn't post them to hear how perfect they were. Tell me where I went wrong, and why.

You don't need make smart remarks, "Pettitte ahead of Smoltz? hahahahaha", and run off. I've yet to hear the slightest concerns about the fact Smoltz hasn't started in 5-6 years. Pettitte, until he got hurt last year, posted good K rates and in fact everything was good. Why is such a stupid thing to put him a couple spots ahead of Smoltz?

[Cornbread Maxwell]

Look, Pettitte has a career 1.38 WHIP. He is coming off an injury. His numbers in NY were deflated because of the park effect. Hes now in a park that inflates his numbers - check the split. Smoltz is no more of an injury concern than any elite SP - and his %s are fantastic. Being a SP puts less pressure on his arm - not more.


The thing is though, your lists are filled with these type of mistakes - its pretty tough to begin.

I guess my question to you is what is your basis for this - what kind of league are you projecting for and what is the process you use to come up with projections?

[TheYanks04]

How aboout for starters:

You have 15 NL pitchers ranked ahead of C. Zambrano including Webb, Wood, Eaton and Mulder?

You have Eaton at 15 which to say is widely optimistic would be the understatement of the millenium.

You have an injured Mark Prior over Schmidt.

You have Oswalt at 10 and Sheets at 1?

You have Jon Lieber finishing worse than Jeff Suppan and Joe Kennedy and Victor Zambrano. Same for John Thomson.
And Eric Milton (please) over all of them.

[Lime]

I guess my question to you is what is your basis for this - what kind of league are you projecting for and what is the process you use to come up with projections?

W, K, ERA, WHIP

And I admit, I've been doing a ton of rankings, including looking at essentially every major leaguer's stats, and I'm getting sick of them. I just wanna draft. So they probably are rushed.

I will take your word for it when it comes to Smoltz. That's why I'm here: help from the experts.

And I'll also say that I use my gut instincts a lot... maybe too much. We'll see as the season rolls on.

[LBJackal]

I would just suggest looking at each players career stats, making a projections for them, giving them all a $ value, and then sorting by the $ vaue. Doing this, it would be almost impossible to get Eaton coming in at better than Zam. You can make it much more complicated than that, but just ranking them looking at the stats you think they'll put up is better than going from instinct and just sorting the names out. Also, don't forget to factor in WHIp - that hurts players like Webb who might have a good ERA but kill you in WHIP.

[Lime]

How aboout for starters:
You have an injured Mark Prior over Schmidt.

I thought the injury wasn't as serious as first speculated, and that Prior isn't expected to miss any time out of the gate.... ?

You have Oswalt at 10 and Sheets at 1?

Well, yeah. Looking at last year:

Oswalt: 7.8K/9IP, 3.49 ERA, 1.24 WHIP
Sheets: 10K/9IP, 2.70 ERA, 0.98 WHIP

As for the wins, 20 is hard to repeat twice in a row to begin with, but add that with an Astros offense that, lost Beltran, is getting older, and a closer (Lidge) who just may crack having no help at all in that bullpen.

I see the two having very similar Win totals, with Sheets having a big edge with every other category.

You have Jon Lieber finishing worse than Jeff Suppan and Joe Kennedy and Victor Zambrano. Same for John Thomson.
And Eric Milton (please) over all of them.

I know Kennedy pitches at Coors, but I can't ignore the numbers he put up last year pitching in thin air. V-Zambrano... you have to think there's a reason the Mets gave up Kazmir to get him. He's a limitation-of-walks away from being a very good starter, just look at his other numbers. Milton is more of a hunch. He's overpaid but I have a feeling he'll earn at least most of those dollars this year.

[Lime]

Also, don't forget to factor in WHIp - that hurts players like Webb who might have a good ERA but kill you in WHIP.

Webb is a tricky case though.

2003: 8.6K/9IP, 2.84 ERA, 1.15 WHIP
2004: 7.1K/9IP, 3.59 ERA, 1.50 WHIP

There are more than a few who in two neighbouring years are like two completely different players. What's the best thing to do with these types?

[Transmogrifier]

Also, don't forget to factor in WHIp - that hurts players like Webb who might have a good ERA but kill you in WHIP.

Webb is a tricky case though.

2003: 8.6K/9IP, 2.84 ERA, 1.15 WHIP
2004: 7.1K/9IP, 3.59 ERA, 1.50 WHIP

There are more than a few who in two neighbouring years are like two completely different players. What's the best thing to do with these types?

Not to pile on here, but while Webb maybe a tricky case, he's not number 11 in the NL, above the likes of Wood, Zambrano, etc.