The DOs & DON’Ts of Pitcher Selection
Pitching is often the most important part of a team’s lineup. Making the mistake of picking a pitcher that has a bad night can really cost you.
While there is not any one statistic that can help you pick successful pitchers every night, there are plenty of statistics that can help you make better decisions. I’m going to walk you through the steps that I take each day when selecting my pitchers. If you have just been randomly choosing pitchers based on their matchup, I would suggest trying this out. It has worked quite well for me and the whole process only takes about 15 minutes.3G3. The DO’s
The DOs
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1. The very first step I take is to analyze each of the pitcher’s matchups. This step accomplishes two things: it helps weed out the pitchers with bad matchups and it also gives me a direction of whom I would like to research. Look for matchups against teams like the A’s, Giants, and Padres.
2. Once you have gone through the matchups and eliminated the pitchers with bad matchups, the next step is to look at each of the pitcher’s salaries. This step is just as important as the first one because even if a pitcher has a good matchup, he might be too expensive to justify taking him. In this step, eliminate all the pitchers that aren’t worth their salary.
3. At this point, you should be able to narrow down your list of possible pitchers. I usually like to narrow my list down to about 6 or 7.
4. Now it’s time to start looking at the numbers. You can look up these numbers in whatever order you would like, I usually like to start with the Home vs. Away numbers. Some pitchers are pretty consistent regardless of where they play, but most pitchers have drastic differences between their numbers at home and on the road. For example, Jaime Garcia has incredible numbers at home with an ERA of 1.14, but on the road his ERA jumps up to 5.67. Then you have Ubaldo Jimenez who has a 6.24 ERA at home, but has been great on the road with an ERA of 2.28. Also pay attention to strike-out numbers at home vs. on the road because many pitchers are more comfortable and get more K’s at home.
5. The next step is to check out the Pitcher vs. Batter numbers for each pitcher. You might think that a pitcher has a really good matchup, but until you check his history against the batters he is facing, then you never know. There are plenty of sites out there that show these stats, all you have to do is Google it and you can easily find a site.
6. Now this is the hard part. You have to take all of the information that you have gone through and come up with the three best pitchers based on all of the different variables. I typically like to select my pitchers first and then fill in the rest of my team so that I can take the pitchers that I want and not just have to pick a pitcher because their salary matches what I have left to spend.
The DON’Ts
Now I’m going to go into a few things that you should NOT do when selecting your pitchers.
DON’Ts:
1. Do not base your decision solely on a pitchers overall ERA. There are so many different statistics that make up that ERA that it is not a good idea to base your choice on it. Looking at Home/Road ERA and PvB stats is a much better option.
2. Do not take the cheapest pitchers that you can just so that you can afford the big hitters. This is a terrible strategy and will certainly catch up to you in the long run.
3. Do not take young pitchers on the road that have great numbers at home and terrible numbers everywhere else.
4. Finally, do not take any pitcher that is opposing the Red Sox at Fenway, just trust me on this one.
So there you go. This is a blueprint of how I select my pitchers each day and it has worked great for me so I suggest trying it out. Once you get the hang of it, your pitchers will put up much more consistent points and then you just have to worry about your hitters.
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About the Writer: Derek ‘Notorious’ Farnsworth has been playing fantasy sports ever since he could walk. He loves sports so much he swears his first words were “Michael Jordan.” He recently graduated with a Master’s degree from the University of Utah and is excited for their entrance into the PAC-12. He was introduced to daily fantasy sports last year by clicking on one of Draftstreet’s famous referee ads, and quickly climbed the RotoGrinders Rankings towards the Top 25. He also loves betting on sports and the occasional craps table.