Here’s something to think about in AL-Only Leagues:

If the Yankees

Or The Red Sox:

.

Don’t get their shit together, there’s a good chance that they’ll both feel the need to acquire amazing pitchers sooner rather than later. It’s just something that I was thinking about the other day when deciding how to use my FAAB. By no means would I hoard the bucks, but considering that Yahoo!’s now put most of the prospects in the pool rather than adding them to waivers, it might be wise to really sit on your FAAB.

I almost never account for WINS in fantasy baseball. I’ll rate the pitchers based on the other three (or four) categories and then casually nudge them in either direction depending on their projected run support and bullpen stability. In deep leagues, there’s a little something I like to do and it’s never really back-fired: I chase wins.

Starters will do what they do, but it’s relievers that I’m after. Find me a competent reliever that doesn’t pitch the ninth, has great ratios, and is generally slotted for 7th or 8th inning duties on a team with either great starting pitching and no offense or a terrific offense with no starting pitching.

I want gentlemen that’ll come in when the score’s tied or they’re behind and just pitch long enough to get the W. They’re normally pretty cheap, unless they’re next in line to get the saves and the absolute worst case scenario is 50-70 IP with good K-Rates and decent ratios. If they fall apart, you can go hunting for someone else. You’re barely paying a buck or a last round draft pick, it’s not like you’re going to be pissed off when Joba Chamberlain falls apart.

Speaking of Joba, he recorded the W yesterday for the Yankees. The only reason that he’s yet to be added to my fantasy rosters is that his velocity looked absolutely terrible. Maybe the pfx system was b0rked yesterday but Joba lacked zip on the head and depth on the breaking stuff.

For ideas, look no further than the various HOLDS lists spread across the interweb: Joba and Bard should be solid, and Soriano aint a bad option either. Aroldis Chapman will probably end up as the closer at some point and the same’s probably true for Johnny Venters. Gregerson is a freak in San Diego. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hong-Chih Kuo notch six or seven wins in 2011 while providing you with stellar ratios. The entire Athletics rotation is solid enough to ensure that their stellar bullpen should get in on the W action. Bard, Jenks, and Wheeler will all benefit from an improved and healthy Red Sox line-up.

To me, this isn’t rocket science. Predicting reliever wins is volatile and arguably pretty stupid but you’re really just drafting players that’ll bring down your ERA and potentially contribute to W, K, WHIP and ERA over a handful of innings. I’m not going to recommend it for use in shallow leagues, but in deep leagues it’s better than throwing out an innings eater.

It was like Christmas.

Sportsnet, essentially the Canadian FSN, decided to air the Red Sox / Yankees game on one of their alternate channels.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching the Jays, but I felt like watching professional baseball tonight (ZING!).  The Jays are currently hosting the AL-West leading Anaheim Angels and I’ll probably make it down for a game tomorrow or Sunday, but tonight featured M. Rzepczynski and S. O’Sullivan — No thanks.

Jerry Remy also returned to the NESN broadcast booth — Good on ‘em for that.

The Sox are getting trounced, however.  The Yankees have a 12 to 1 lead and Bowden’s already thrown 40 pitches after two-thirds of an inning.  It’s not Bowden’s fault though, it’s Big Fat Brad Penny’s.

This is an article about Brad Penny and why he’s so damn mediocre.  It’s also a story about Radar Guns, and why never to trust them.

For Penny, the wheels were put in motion five starts ago against the Baltimore Orioles.  Penny went six strong, yielding a single unearned run.  Penny’s fastball was jumping out of his hand and touched 98mph for the first time in a couple years.  Penny was overthrowing, of course, and while he continued to throw hard in his next start against the Athletics, he also allowed seven earned runs.  Penny’s next two starts were also disturbing as he could barely touch 95mph, let alone average it.

Then came tonight’s game, in all of it’s Multi-Major-Market alliteration hype.  Penny was pounding his fastball in there, hitting the high-90′s regularly against the Yanks.  The pin-stripers still managed to crush fastball after fastball, turning on Penny’s 97mph cheese as if he were Jamie Moyer.

Even former ROY Eric Hinske was crushing Penny’s fastball, which got me thinkin’.

Pitching obviously has three factors:  velocity, deception, and movement. The velocity was there, but the Yanks knew Penny was bringing the cheese because he couldn’t locate his off-speed stuff, so the deception clearly wasn’t.  More importantly and this shouldn’t surprise Red Sox fans, Brad Penny throws one of the straightest fastballs in the league.  In Brad Penny’s hey-day, both his curveball and his fastball were positive pitches in that they were worth negative runs.

In 2008 as a Dodger, Penny’s fastball was predictably awful as it had slowed a full mph to average 92.4mph, but his curveball was still effective.  In 2009, his fastball has regained it’s velocity and effectiveness, but his curveball’s the proud owner of the Worst in Show award.

-- okay, so it was partially Bowden's fault, the Yanks now have a 15-5 lead --

Brad Penny’s fastball has 11.4″ worth of vertical movement whereas the league average is 8ish.  If you’re unfamiliar with pfx, more isn’t always better.  In this case, more is worse, much worse.  Penny’s fastball is as flat as they come, as the backspin counteracts gravity quite severely.  The horizontal movement is even worse, and in this case more is better.  Penny’s fastball only has 4 inches worth of horizontal movement versus the 6″ average.

We’re not talking straight as an arrow, but it’s damn close.  With Penny firing 97mph darts — lawn darts, not precise darts — was it the velocity detracting from the movement?

Ubaldo Jiminez throws hard, and he wasn’t having these issues.  Justin Verlander’s fastball had similar vertical movement, but almost double the horizontal movement. Edwin Jackson and Josh Johnson are next in line, and we begin to find some similarities.  Jackson’s fastball has been fairly average and the same goes for Johnson; it’s their off-speed offerings that’ve kept them dominant. The same goes for the rest of the league leaders in fastball velocity.

Penny’s curveball has maintained it’s vertical drop from previous years, it’s just been epically bad in 2009.  It more than likely has something to do with the massive deterioration of his change-up, a pitch that rarely dives like it used to.

All of this reiterates how important it is for a pitcher to be able to deceive a batter.  Brad Penny’s fastball and change-up are insanely flat and his curveball realistically only has vertical movement.  If you’re a pitcher and you can only control one axis at a time, you’re going to have a lot of games like tonight.

Somehow I’ve made it through 8 innings of this game, even with this 16-7 score.

As a native Torontonian and a Blue Jays season ticket holder, I get to behold the beauty that is the Yankees vs. Red Sox reloading period known as Free Agency.  People look at the Yankees and Red Sox as fantasy goldmines but with the recent reloading of their pitching staffs, combined with the maturation of the Rays; I’m curious as to how the rest of the AL EAST will fair.

How will the Orioles and Blue Jays offenses, and to a lesser extent the Yankees, Sox and Rays fair against pitching staff’s consisting of 4 and sometimes 5, potential aces. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with the starting pitching as the bullpen’s in the AL East are also some of the best in the MLB.

Even in 2008, the numbers were:

BLUE JAYS

LOST: McGowan (Injury), Marcum (Injury), John Parrish, A.J Burnett. GAINED: Brian Burress, Mike Maroth, Matt Clement, Bryan Bullington,

RAYS

LOST: Edwin Jackson and Trever Miller. GAINED: Joe Nelson, Lance Cormier, Brian Shouse

YANKEES

LOST: Muissina (Retirement), Pavano, Ponson GAINED: Sabathia, Burnett

REDSOX

LOST: Timlin, Byrd, Schilling, Aardsma, Smoltz (Injury) GAINED: Tazawa (Japan), Ramon Ramirez, Penny, Smoltz, Saito

ORIOLES

LOST: Burress, Cabrera, Olson, Cormier GAINED: Uehara (Japan), Hendrickson, Rich Hill, David Pauley, Brad Hennessey, John Parrish

Onto the point young man, get to the point!

Blue Jays and Orioles hitters are going to be facing the Rays, Sox, and Yankees 18-19 times each. Which means they’ll be facing an above average cast of stars, a third of their season which doesn’t include anyone outside their division or Jeremy Guthrie, Roy Halladay, Dustin McGowan, etc. etc.

BJ: Bill James Projection Model CH: Chone Projection Model when there was no BJ Data.

An Example:

Nick Markakis is one of the best young outfielders in the league, and most people have him improving upon his 20HR in 2008, and 23HR in 2007.  Some think this is a stretch, but it’s the prevailing thought.

Markakis will be facing Sabathia, Burnett, Wang, Petitte, Chamberlain, Beckett, Dice-K, Lester, Penny, Smoltz/Buchholz, Wakefield, Kazmir, Shields, Garza, Price, Sonnanstine, Halladay and McGowan with the possibility of Hughes being thrown in there.

Sonnanstine, Penny, Wakefield, and McGowan come in as average players with the possibility of sub-4.00 ERAs.

The Red Sox, Yankees, Rays and Blue Jays all have stellar bullpens as well.

The question is whether or not Markakis projections should be adjusted based on the level of competition?

A Non-Math Conclusion — For Now.

As much as I’d like to assume that somehow, someway, the AL EAST pitching will be no better or no worse than it normally is, or the rest of the schedule will even everything out — I CANT! The talent either came from the NL, or within the AL EAST.

Thankfully, other than Alex Rios and Vernon Wells the Blue Jays really do not have any notable offensive fantasy contributors.

The Orioles on the other hand are filled with players that could potentially be effected by not only the front five, but also the depth of the Sox and Yankees. Nick Markakis, Aubrey Huff, Matt Wieters, and Brian Roberts are all going fairly high in 2009. Felix Pie, Adam Jones, Ty Wigginton and Melvin Mora are also on many people’s sleeper lists.

I’m not sure how this will play out, but with so much talent bunched at the top — I’m going to downgrade players on the Orioles and Blue Jays.

Players on the Rays, Yankees and BoSox should roughly stay the same as the O’s and J’s are a mess up front.

If you have the slightest clue as to how this will actually play-out, feel free to comment. For the time-being, I’ll attempt to put together some variety of maths to explain what a reasonable prediction would be a possible unexpected drop in production.

photo courtesy of keith allison flickr