Having good starting pitchers is nothing but LUCK?

[kugino]

some stats like Ks, WHIP, and ERA are fairly predictable from a starter. johan santana is most likely going to do fairly well in those categories. same with most of the top-tier pitchers. you also expect crappy pitchers to give you crappy stats. what's very unpredictable and left up to chance is wins and saves. smoltz has pitched about the same as his careers stats, but his bullpen has been awful and blew a bunch of wins for him. villarreal has like 7 or 8 wins, right?

[ukrneal]

This is why many of us don't like to draft pitchers early. That said, this analysis is flawed if you are not excluding the stats from RP. They can play quite an important role, and would be necessary to see if we are to evaluate your situation accurately.

[mcliffy2]

The skill is picking up some late round gems, but more importantly for pitching, its using the waiver wire, which certainly requires some skill (a guy who checks once a week will miss out on Liriano, Weaver, etc)...this year I got Jered Weaver and Arroyo off waivers, and they are my 2 best pitchers right now. Willis, Beckett, and Hernandez...eh, ok (I didn't draft a starter til the 8th round).

[Smileyman9]

I agree with everything that's been said here...starting pitching just isn't as stable once you get past the top 10 guys..and even then luck filters into it.

If you look back at the pre-season rankings you can learn quite a bit
I'm going to use a site that someone posted on here...I believe they made it so I'm sure they're kicking around the board here somewhere. It was a great resource...they took and averaged together multiple rankings for assorted sources and made a master list.
http://ironheadsports.tripod.com/fbrankings.html

Top 20 ranked SPs

Johan Santana
Pedro Martinez
Jake Peavy
Roy Oswalt
Chris Carpenter
Randy Johnson
Ben Sheets
Carlos Zambrano
Roy Halladay
Dontrelle Willis
Rich Harden
Mark Prior
John Smoltz
Felix Hernandez
Jason Schmidt
Andy Pettitte
Mark Buehrle
Bartolo Colon
Brandon Webb
Barry Zito

How many of those guys would you still consider top 20 material?

I think every fantasy team needs a stable ace...after that, hit the waivers and look for the low WHIPs

As for Padilla - I picked him off of waivers 2 starts ago in a 12 team league, his split stats are flat out weird, lefties now hit 297 against him (before yesterday it was over 300) and righties hit 197 against him...to me, WHIP is the huge thing, with lefties it's a painful 1.79.....righties a .87 on the season...maybe he blows up, maybe he keeps up the weird splits..
[/url]

[markj11]

At least you didn't take Peavy in the 3rd or 20th.

[beatdrum]

I use the strategy of not drafting starting pitching until the 7th round or so-unless someone just falls in my lap. This year my first starting pitcher was drafted in the 8th round. Here is my drafted starting pitching...

Brandon Webb (8th)
Josh Beckett (9th)
Scott Kazmir (14th)
Chris Young (15th)
Daniel Cabrera (18th)
Carlos Silva (20th)

There are some bombs in there of course, but after making a few moves in the early part of the year, I now have one of the top staffs in our league, and because I concentrated on offense early on, my hitting stats have put me in first place!

My point is, if you do your homework, you can get quality starters late.

[pibb55]

I think there is some luck involving injuries but thats why the majority off managers here agree with taking pitchers later. I went with this strategy and have the best pitching staff in my league. I took Johan because he was the only stud I felt I could rely on then didnt draft another til the 12t round.

Johan (1st)
Kazmir (12th)
Harang (13th)
Cain (14th)
C Young (15th)
Bedard (16th)
Odalis (17th) Ehhhh

21 trades later my pitching staff is:

Johan
Oswalt
Schilling
Lackey
Vazquez
Lowry
Bucholtz
James

For the most part there isnt that much luck, but there is luck in all of fantasy sports, however, its the managers who can overcome bad luck and still succeed that win consistently

[Q]

Well who are each teams relievers?

[bleach168]

I agree with everything that's been said here...starting pitching just isn't as stable once you get past the top 10 guys..and even then luck filters into it.

If you look back at the pre-season rankings you can learn quite a bit
I'm going to use a site that someone posted on here...I believe they made it so I'm sure they're kicking around the board here somewhere. It was a great resource...they took and averaged together multiple rankings for assorted sources and made a master list.
http://ironheadsports.tripod.com/fbrankings.html

Top 20 ranked SPs

Johan Santana
Pedro Martinez
Jake Peavy
Roy Oswalt
Chris Carpenter
Randy Johnson
Ben Sheets
Carlos Zambrano
Roy Halladay
Dontrelle Willis
Rich Harden
Mark Prior
John Smoltz
Felix Hernandez
Jason Schmidt
Andy Pettitte
Mark Buehrle
Bartolo Colon
Brandon Webb
Barry Zito

How many of those guys would you still consider top 20 material?
[/url]

1-9 the list is pretty good. RJ and Peavy have pitched well this season but have been unlucky. Sheets has been injured since pre-season which was why you shouldn't have drafted him that high in the first place. The rest of the top 9 have been pure quality.

10-20 though looks pretty random and very ugly.

[beatdrum]

I use the strategy of not drafting starting pitching until the 7th round or so-unless someone just falls in my lap. This year my first starting pitcher was drafted in the 8th round. Here is my drafted starting pitching...

Brandon Webb (8th)
Josh Beckett (9th)
Scott Kazmir (14th)
Chris Young (15th)
Daniel Cabrera (18th)
Carlos Silva (20th)

There are some bombs in there of course, but after making a few moves in the early part of the year, I now have one of the top staffs in our league, and because I concentrated on offense early on, my hitting stats have put me in first place!

My point is, if you do your homework, you can get quality starters late.

Well who are each teams relievers?

I drafted...

Brad Lidge (5th)
BJ Ryan (7th)
Mike Gonzalez (13th)
Ambiorix Burgos (21st)

Not bad. Of course I'm a closer scavenger. I stay up to date on each MLB team's closer situation (thanks to the cafe ) and I've made several moves. I now lead the league in saves!