Fantasy Baseball is all about finding that extra edge your competitors overlook. Whether it’s taking a flier on an injured pitcher with upside late in the draft, or utilizing those extra stats such as BABIP (batting average on balls in play) and xFIP (fielding independent pitching), finding an unexploited edge over the competition is crucial. In this spirit we will examine SI columnist Tom Verducci’s “Year after effect”, or has it’s become known “The Verducci Effect”.
The year after effect lays out the theory that young pitchers under 25 will suffer quite seriously either by injury or by decreased performance the year after having their workload increase by 30 innings or more from the previous year. The rationale as explained by Verducci is that young pitchers bodies should be eased into the rigors of a full season or by industry standards 200 innings per year. The increased stress of 30+ innings can lead to serious injury or serious fatigue leading to sloppy mechanics resulting in a decrease in performance. In his own words,
"It's like training for a marathon. You need to build stamina incrementally. The unofficial industry standard is that no young pitcher should throw more than 30 more innings than he did the previous season. It's a general rule of thumb, and one I've been tracking for about a decade. When teams violate the incremental safeguard, it's amazing how often they pay for it." –Tom Verducci, SI sports
Verducci has been studying this trend for 10 years and has a relatively impressive track record if you add injuries and inflated ERA.
As you can see there are some pretty big names on the list including Francisco Liriano a few years back, and Cole Hamels as recently as last year. There are also those names that have come through unscathed such as Justin Verlander, C.C. Sabathia, Tim Lincecum, and Jon Lester. This year’s list highlights young guns such as Felix Hernandez, Josh Johnson, Max Scherzer, Joba Chamberlain, Homer Bailey, Wade Davis, and Rick Porcello. Hit the link to read the latest at risk pitchers.
Examining past history, a few if not more of these pitchers will break down or suffer regression this year. The question is how can we accurately predict which ones?
Verducci admits himself that “The year after effect” is not an exact science. He cautions to use it as more of a guideline than a rule to be strictly followed. To that end, there have been many critical of the theory for a number of reasons. Popular critiques include the volatility of pitching health in general. Of course there will be significant breakdown in pitching health, it is after all the most violent and unnatural motion the human body is capable of. This obvious observation would explain away the injury aspect of “The year after effect”. The other hole in the theory rests in using ERA as a measuring stick as to success or failure of a pitcher. It has become widely accepted that ERA is less an indicator of pitching success than more accurate ways to measure pitching such as WHIP (walks+hits per inning) or the more advanced xFIP (fielding independent Pitching) which essentially measures how a pitcher would fare with league average defense behind them, in a league average ballpark. Therefore, while Verducci claims to have hit on players such as Mike Pelfrey due to ballooning ERA, Pelfrey’s xFIP the year before indicated his ERA was artificially low and that a regression was near unavoidable. Essentially, the reliance on ERA and health have been widely regarded as suspect measuring devices for future performance. While both of these arguments are one hundred percent correct, it does not mean “The year after effect” should be dismissed outright.
As Verducci says the effect should be used as an indicator of potential disaster, not a guarantee. With that in mind Verducci’s list still holds plenty of value to enterprising fantasy managers. By taking the list and further examining the names, we can absolutely find red flags. For instance Homer Bailey has been blessed with a manager who truly believes in him. Dusty Baker has always believed in his pitchers. So much so that he has a tendency to ignore all normal pitching precautions and toss his young guns to the wolves. Bailey’s increase of 55.1 innings won’t stop Dusty from pitching that poor man into the ground. As a result of his innings increase and current situation, you will not see Bailey anywhere near my teams until 2012 after his impending Tommy John surgery.
On the other end of the spectrum Felix Hernandez will be on any and all of my teams whenever I can get him. What makes him different than Bailey even though he is 23 and increased his innings by 38 is that he has the background to sustain his increase. For years the Mariners have closely monitored King Felix and made sure his workload has not exceeded his physical growth. Remember that Hernandez made his big league debut at 19 years old and has been pitching in the big leagues for 4 years now. In 2005 when Felix was 19 his workload increased by 23 innings and the next year by 18.2. Essentially, the King has a head start on the other young guns on this list because of his longer history of steady work increase, and the careful planning of the Seattle staff.
These examples of pitchers who are more likely to succeed and due for a blowout highlight what I feel the importance of “The year after effect” is. It gathers a solid group of at risk pitchers for us dedicated managers to research. Considering Verducci’s track record, the players on this year’s list will have a red flag attached until proven otherwise in my book. However it is critical to do your own research and not see “The effect” in black and white terms. Projection in itself is essentially an educated guess. Personally, if I go down in flames this year, I want to go down on my projections.
| Pitchers At Risk 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| * = Previous career high occurred prior to most recent season. |
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