Greinke or Lee?

[Mookie4ever]

When I look at a pitcher I mostly throw out ERA for a given season, it is so erratic over one season that it is almost meaningless. Cliff Lee displayed the skillset of a 3.50-3.75 ERA pitcher last year. His xFIP was 3.69, his xERA was 3.57. If he pitches exactly like last year for the next 10 years his ERA will generally be around 3.50-3.75 over that time span. So for me if he regresses by 25% he is at a 4.00 ERA talent already. I think his ERA will be south of 4 but north of 3.50. I have him down for 3.75 on my projections (I only project era to the nearest 0.25, so a pitcher is 3.25, 3.50, 3.75, 4.00 etc).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a 3.75 ERA on an AL team, that is a very good player. The biggest difference between Lee and Grienke for me is the strike outs. Grienke struck out more guys in fewer innings. Lee probably has him by a little bit in WHIP, I think their ERA is a wash. But I tend to draft for strikeouts first since all the other SP stats are so random.

I hear you and I guess that is where we differ. When we are talking about comparable pitchers I find that the high K/9 guys much flakier and much more prone to blow up their ERAs Whip or just get injured. The GB pitchers I find to be more consistent. Webb and Lowe will not have huge K/9 but will get over 150 K just because they are consistent and durable. The Scott Kazmirs of this world not so much. And every once in a while a GB guy will surprise you and punch up his K rate like Halladay did.

So I disagree that ERA and Whip are that random but agree that it's probably a matter of preference as to what style of pitcher you prefer. Personally, I have Webb and Lowe on almost all of my teams and I have never once drafted Kazmir or Burnett.

[Ender]

I'm not saying that strike out pitchers are more consistent, just that strike outs as a stat are. A 3.50 ERA pitcher can easily pitch just like every other year and end up with a 4 ERA or a 3 ERA. ERA/WHIP/W are just extremely random, strike outs just seem more dependable.

I haven't seen a study done but I would assume that GB pitchers are a little more consistent for ERA since fluctuations in HR/FB don't hurt them as badly but their WHIP is probably less consistent since BABIP fluctuations hit them so hard.

I just don't draft starters until round 8-9 or so and I build a deep staff with good K rates so any single pitcher having an injury or bad luck isn't going to hurt me. Always has seemed to work for me.