Shuffle Up: Jacob deGrom, the hair apparent
I'm on a plane. I can't complain.
The idea is 5x5 value for rest of season. What's happened to this point is merely an audition. I provide courtesy injury ranks at bottom, but they're not for debate. Everyone seems to be more optimistic on injury returnees than I am.
The prices are unscientific in nature, and players at the same price are considered even. I'm just looking for a way to show the pockets of value as I see them. I don't look at old prices when I construct these - it's all from scratch. I don't even see the point of looking back there; live in the present, look to the future.
I welcome your respectful disagreement. Obviously you will feel passionate about what you don't agree with, that's why we have a game. But why not give a solid reason, so we are all elevated by your knowledge? I know most of you get it, and see the value in that.
And remember the golden rule - a player doesn't gain value because you like him, nor does he lose value because you don't like him. I didn't rank Dallas Keuchel first, did I?
To the pricing list. If I missed someone, let me know. I'm on Twitter, @scott_pianowski.
$31 Max Scherzer
$31 Clayton Kershaw
$30 Chris Sale
$27 Zack Greinke
$27 Jacob deGrom
$27 Gerrit Cole
$27 Chris Archer
$26 Felix Hernandez
$26 Corey Kluber
$25 Madison Bumgarner
$24 Sonny Gray
$24 Matt Harvey
$24 Jake Arrieta
Jacob deGrom is not a pedigree pitcher. He was a nondescript ninth-round pick, never showed up on any high-end prospect lists. Thus, when he hits Citi Field and puts together a dynamite resume, the public is often slow to accept it. This isn't the guy everyone was waiting for.
If you examine the pitching leaders over the last calendar year, deGrom is seventh in fWAR, third in ERA (an eyelash behind Scherzer and Kershaw), fourth in WHIP. The only reason people aren't shouting his name on rooftops is because he's screened by another big-name pitcher in the same clubhouse. Look, Harvey is wonderful, too, and people can celebrate him all they want. But don't let deGrom's lack of a hashtag (and a pedigree) get in the way of the truth here. New York has two front-line aces right now (perhaps more on the way), and if pressed, I'd take deGrom for the rest of 2015.
Chicago pitching coach Chris Bosio turned Arrieta into a dominating ace. I don't understand why so many are late to this story . . . There's been some bellyaching about Kluber's recent fallback, but when you go seven or eight innings and allow four runs on your *bad* turns, I'm not going to worry. He's still striking out well over a batter per inning, and he's getting over five whiffs for every walk. Nothing to see here, move along.
$23 Johnny Cueto
$23 David Price
$22 Cole Hamels
$21 Jason Hammel
$19 Dallas Keuchel
$18 Jon Lester
$17 Michael Wacha
$17 Michael Pineda
$17 Carlos Martinez
$16 James Shields
$15 Shelby Miller
$15 Francisco Liriano
$15 Danny Salazar
Let's take an Occam's Razor approach to Lester. Last year's 2.46 ERA has to be seen as an outlier - this is someone with a 3.59 career mark. The move to the National League is supposed to help, but his inability to check the running game gives some of that back - NL teams take more advantage of that. Lester is better than his current 3.80 number, but probably not by much. Look for something in the 3.30-3.50 range from here on out, a solid support arm, but not ace-level.
Some don't want to fully accept Wacha because his strikeout numbers are pedestrian, but he's also trimmed the walks and upped the ground balls, points in his favor. And he's always kept the ball in the park for his entire career, to the point that we can start looking at that as part of his profile. Don't xFIP yourself into the wrong answers - home runs aren't one giant lottery. The revolution is coming. We'll have better numbers soon.
$14 Trevor Bauer
$14 A.J. Burnett
$13 Julio Teheran
$13 Carlos Carrasco
$11 Tyson Ross
$11 Taijuan Walker
$11 Scott Kazmir
$11 Masahiro Tanaka
$11 Jesse Chavez
$11 Jeff Samardzija
$10 Wei-Yin Chen
$10 Noah Syndergaard
$10 Jordan Zimmermann
$10 John Lackey
$10 Jesse Hahn
$9 Gio Gonzalez
$9 Garrett Richards
$9 Eduardo Rodriguez
$9 Anibal Sanchez
I probably have more faith in Teheran than most people, as we discussed last week. He's a smart kid, a good athlete. His home ERA is terrific, his road ERA a mess - but he's met a lot of the wrong teams on the road. I'm not giving up yet. The NL East is filled with cushy opponents. Too much goodwill built up over 2013 and 2014.
$8 Lance McCullers
$8 Jose Quintana
$8 Hector Santiago
$8 Carlos Rodon
$7 Phil Hughes
$7 Mike Fiers
$7 Justin Verlander
$7 Jaime Garcia
$7 Clay Buchholz
$7 Chris Heston
$6 Yordano Ventura
$6 Kendall Graveman
$6 Drew Hutchison
$6 Collin McHugh
$6 Chase Anderson
Maybe you can time the market on Buchholz, figure out the matrix. I've tried for a while and failed, miserably. Somehow he posted a 1.74 ERA ad 1.02 WHIP in a partial 2013 season, then collapsed to 5.34/1.39 last year. He's had dominant starts and blowups this year; look at the game scores, from high to low: 83, 82, 79, 71, 63, 60, 59, 48, 47, 46, 40, 31, 30, 5. Life in Fenway Park, and the AL East, prevents me from accepting a solid floor with Buchholz. I'll let him be someone else's problem. In a mixed league, why run uphill when you don't have to? (If you want to side with Buccholz, there are smart people agreeing with you, starting with my pal @michaelsalfino).
Sometimes fly balls get a bad rap. So long as a pitcher has an extreme batted-ball profile in either direction, he's doing a good thing. In other words, yes, you can believe in Santiago as a full-season story. He's also pushed his strikeout rate up, and trimmed his walk rate. No one is betting on the 2.68 ERA or 89-percent strand rate to stick, but I'm fine with something in the mid-3s going forward.
$5 Michael Bolsinger
$5 Doug Fister
$5 Matt Shoemaker
$5 C.J. Wilson
$5 Brett Anderson
$4 Wade Miley
$4 Tommy Milone
$4 Ryan Vogelsong
$4 Rubby De La Rosa
$4 Mike Leake
$4 Matt Wisler
$4 Mark Buehrle
$4 James Paxton
$4 Erasmo Ramirez
$4 Aaron Sanchez
$3 Yovani Gallardo
$3 Williams Perez
$3 Trevor May
$3 Tanner Roark
$3 Roenis Elias
$3 Robbie Ray
$3 Marco Estrada
$3 Kyle Gibson
$3 Kevin Gausman
$3 Jered Weaver
$3 Jason Vargas
$3 Ian Kennedy
$3 Edinson Volquez
$3 Drew Pomeranz
$3 Dan Haren
$3 Charlie Morton
$3 Andrew Cashner
$3 Alex Wood
$3 Joe Ross
$3 Aaron Harang
Fister is a classic case of "so underrated, he's overrated." His fastball is down to 85.9 and his ground-ball rate has sagged, too. There's pumpkin risk here . . . Anyone else sick of waiting for Cashner's strikeout rate to catch up to his raw stuff? No way I'm paying an expecting price for that . . . I still consider Morton rosterable in deeper head-to-head formats, where quality innings (and a shot at a win) matter and you don't care about strikeouts so much. The Washington mess happened, okay, but everyone gets their brains beat in, once in a while. It happens again this month, I'll reevaluate . . . If Joe Ross had a rotation spot right now, he'd be at eight bucks. Common sense tells us someone will eventually get hurt again in Washington.
$2 Wily Peralta
$2 Wandy Rodriguez
$2 Vincent Velasquez
$2 Tyler Lyons
$2 Tsuyoshi Wada
$2 Tim Lincecum
$2 Nathan Karns
$2 Mike Pelfrey
$2 Mike Montgomery
$2 Matthew Andriese
$2 Mat Latos
$2 Kyle Ryan
$2 J.A. Happ
$2 Chris Young
$2 Chi Chi Gonzalez
$2 Anthony DeSclafani
$2 Alfredo Simon
$2 Adam Warren
$1 Vance Worley
$1 Ubaldo Jimenez
$1 Tom Koehler
$1 Tim Hudson
$1 Nick Martinez
$1 Miguel Gonzalez
$1 Kyle Hendricks
$1 Jose Urena
$1 Jorge de la Rosa
$1 Jimmy Nelson
$1 Jeff Locke
$1 David Phelps
$1 Colby Lewis
$1 Cody Anderson
$1 C.C. Sabathia
$1 Brett Oberholtzer
$0.50 Bartolo Colon
$0 Taylor Jungmann
$0 Shaun Marcum
$0 Sean O'Sullivan
$0 Scott Feldman
$0 Scott Copeland
$0 Ricky Nolasco
$0 Rick Porcello
$0 R.A. Dickey
$0 Odrisamer Despaigne
$0 Nathan Eovaldi
$0 Mike Wright
$0 Michael Lorenzen
$0 Matt Garza
$0 Kyle Lohse
$0 Kevin Correia
$0 Jon Niese
$0 Jon Moscot
$0 John Danks
$0 Jeremy Hellickson
$0 Chris Tillman
$0 Chad Bettis
$0 Bud Norris
$0 Alex Colome
$0 Adam Morgan
Courtesy Injury Ranks - Not for debate
$15 Stephen Strasburg
$13 Lance Lynn
$11 Jose Fernandez
$11 Jake Odorizzi
$7 Hisashi Iwakuma
$6 Matt Moore
$5 Matt Cain
$2 James Paxton
Two more courtesy ranks
$7 Steven Matz
$5 Ervin Santana
