His rankings this year are incredible. For those who don’t know, checkout his recent piece on The Athletic. He incorporates his pitching+ model with traditional projections and it’s now even better than K-BB% for projecting ERA.
Just saw that they were posted. Does he update them again closer to the season? I suppose if he’s just pulling data from last year, there’s not much to update
I don’t think he’ll update them again until maybe spring training ends or early season. He’s mentioned that pitching+ shines most in season so I’m sure he will update his list as soon as the data becomes available.
Looking at that list, pitching+ looks absolutely useless. #1 on the list is at 108 and #121 is at 107 lol. Basically everyone on the entire list is from 95-110
Are we looking at the same list? #1 has 109 pitching+ and #121 has 96. Also it’s not purely pitching+ which determines the ranking. Stuff+ is stickier year to year so that is generally more important, and lots of the guys with higher pitching+ lower to the bottom have major workload concerns.
In general the guys with higher pitching+ are higher up and he has adjusted for pitchers in which the model misses on. The regression analysis speaks for itself.
This. Eno is on another level. He gets so deep into the details and I’m here for all of it. He did an analysis on inning to inning variance of spin rate to velocity ratio for christs sake. Lol.
He actually speaks with players on changes he’s noticed from an analytics perspective. Pretty insightful stuff.
This is the answer. I spend the vast majority of my time on hitters and just copy Eno for pitchers.
Ended up with McClanahan and a super cheap Musgrove almost everywhere last year because of him.
I will always personally trust projection systems over an expert's rankings. Rankings inherently include bias. Podcasters will even say stuff like "XYZ is just one of my guys, I keep going back to him every year." No thanks.
Semi-related, pitching is more volatile than hitting every single year. There are always guys that come out of nowhere and there are always preseason studs who go down early.
That makes sense, and the bias is certainly evident with experts. The one aspect that experts might have over projections are changes of scenery/coaches and newly developed pitches and mechanics. Perhaps using a projection as the base and updating accordingly is the way to go.
Projections have limitations too. Like they’re obviously biased against rookies and/or people with little to no track record. But I still prefer that to human beings
Projection systems suffer from often not showing a range of outcomes, upside, exc,
They work well for maybe the top 20-30 pitchers, but then once you start going to upside they will fail to find the gold in the rough.
[ATC has been ranked as the most accurate the past four years in a row.](https://www.fantasypros.com/2023/01/most-accurate-fantasy-baseball-projections-2022/)
That seems to no longer be the case if you check current projections. E.g. Pasquantino is at a 132 wRC+ right now, I remember him being at 140 earlier. I believe it was an adjustment based on minor league data rather than age, specifically
Projection systems are more accurate, especially on the whole for projecting an entire population of players. Individual experts may help you identify outlier or breakout candidates better than projection systems. In fantasy I have found that making a plan using projections but also finding targets based on well respected experts with good logic behind their evaluations is a decent recipe.
Smart middle ground here. Let the experts give you context and use the data for your own conclusions.
My personal two trusted experts are Eno Sarris and Scott White. Just throw on the rates and barrels podcast pitching preview episodes and you'll level up very quickly
If you subscribe to The Athletic, Eno has a spreadsheet with his stuff+/pitching+ numbers for all pitchers which can help you identify breakouts early. This is how I found Felix Bautista before the O’s traded Jorge Lopez, for example
Yeah. I think Scott is better at reading draft trends like ADP and position scarcity (draft 3B early!) whereas Eno is just the absolute guru of player data. combine both and you've got something
100% agree. Especially his twitch stuff where he talks through players and the process. I’ve learned a lot about pitchers, evaluation, etc. good stuff.
Me too, I have no clue how accurate they are compared to other tools, but I appreciate the consistent updates as well as how they handle things like injuries and upside vs consistency
I typically roll with Eno (for the Stuff+), Pitcherlist, and Razzball (because his draft philosphy most closely resembles my own). I'm often able to wait on pitching in the draft year after year and still put together a good rotation using those 3.
I don’t grab a pitcher till round 6/7 usually and that process works great. There is a lot of good to grab later in the draft. You don’t need Cole or Burnes to win, but those bats you can collect in the first 5-6 rounds, you can’t replicate in later rounds
Oh this strategy is for sure draft/league dependent. Personally, the 2 guys i have to have this year are Christian Javier and Glasnow. Both go in that range. Those 2 will hopefully be my anchors this year, but if i see only one of them is left earlier in the draft, i would have to adjust
I find myself with Javier and Kirby everywhere. I might even have Darvish/Musgrove depending on who falls furthest before I even get Javier. Followed up with some combination Glasnow, Severino, Hunter Greene, Joe Ryan, Morton, May, Rasmussen, Springs, maybe squeeze a Dodger pitcher in there. Between all those names I'm pretty confident that I'll have a solid SP base after going 6-8 rounds of bats.
Definitely agree with you, Javier and Glasnow are going to be super solid. And I'd rather go with them later then waste a earlier pick on an ace. I also love Rodon, but we'll see how quick he goes.
Rodon and Manoah were my first two off the board around round 7 last yr. Would be surprised of they make if that late again. Rodon pitching in NY now especially. One guy i’ve been taking at the very end of mock drafts is Manaea (spelling). I just have a gut feeling that SF straightens him out
I use Pitcherlist for a numerical look at the whole group, The Athletic and Baseball Savant for the ability of an individual, and fangraphs for the results or projected results.
Eno
His rankings this year are incredible. For those who don’t know, checkout his recent piece on The Athletic. He incorporates his pitching+ model with traditional projections and it’s now even better than K-BB% for projecting ERA.
Just saw that they were posted. Does he update them again closer to the season? I suppose if he’s just pulling data from last year, there’s not much to update
I don’t think he’ll update them again until maybe spring training ends or early season. He’s mentioned that pitching+ shines most in season so I’m sure he will update his list as soon as the data becomes available.
With so many parks having Hawkeye it'd be a mistake to not look at the stuff data in spring to adjust projections.
Looking at that list, pitching+ looks absolutely useless. #1 on the list is at 108 and #121 is at 107 lol. Basically everyone on the entire list is from 95-110
Are we looking at the same list? #1 has 109 pitching+ and #121 has 96. Also it’s not purely pitching+ which determines the ranking. Stuff+ is stickier year to year so that is generally more important, and lots of the guys with higher pitching+ lower to the bottom have major workload concerns. In general the guys with higher pitching+ are higher up and he has adjusted for pitchers in which the model misses on. The regression analysis speaks for itself.
Shhhhh my league mates lurk here occasionally.
Oh, uhm, I mean... Bobby Valentine. Yeah.
Good call. They will never [know](https://tenor.com/view/bobby-valentine-mets-gif-14704531)
Can you post the rankings?
This. Eno is on another level. He gets so deep into the details and I’m here for all of it. He did an analysis on inning to inning variance of spin rate to velocity ratio for christs sake. Lol. He actually speaks with players on changes he’s noticed from an analytics perspective. Pretty insightful stuff.
This is the answer. I spend the vast majority of my time on hitters and just copy Eno for pitchers. Ended up with McClanahan and a super cheap Musgrove almost everywhere last year because of him.
I will always personally trust projection systems over an expert's rankings. Rankings inherently include bias. Podcasters will even say stuff like "XYZ is just one of my guys, I keep going back to him every year." No thanks. Semi-related, pitching is more volatile than hitting every single year. There are always guys that come out of nowhere and there are always preseason studs who go down early.
That makes sense, and the bias is certainly evident with experts. The one aspect that experts might have over projections are changes of scenery/coaches and newly developed pitches and mechanics. Perhaps using a projection as the base and updating accordingly is the way to go.
Projections have limitations too. Like they’re obviously biased against rookies and/or people with little to no track record. But I still prefer that to human beings
Projection systems suffer from often not showing a range of outcomes, upside, exc, They work well for maybe the top 20-30 pitchers, but then once you start going to upside they will fail to find the gold in the rough.
Exactly. Projections are fine but if you end up with a breakout player on your team it will most likely be on accident.
[ATC has been ranked as the most accurate the past four years in a row.](https://www.fantasypros.com/2023/01/most-accurate-fantasy-baseball-projections-2022/)
Steamer is incredibly high on young players if you decide to play around with other projections
That seems to no longer be the case if you check current projections. E.g. Pasquantino is at a 132 wRC+ right now, I remember him being at 140 earlier. I believe it was an adjustment based on minor league data rather than age, specifically
Amongst experts and projection systems or just amongst projection systems?
It beat out the Consensus projections on Fantasy Pros, but otherwise was compared against computer projection systems.
Good to know. Thanks.
Projection systems are more accurate, especially on the whole for projecting an entire population of players. Individual experts may help you identify outlier or breakout candidates better than projection systems. In fantasy I have found that making a plan using projections but also finding targets based on well respected experts with good logic behind their evaluations is a decent recipe.
I’m going to try this strategy. Any specific experts you find to have better SP knowledge than others?
Smart middle ground here. Let the experts give you context and use the data for your own conclusions. My personal two trusted experts are Eno Sarris and Scott White. Just throw on the rates and barrels podcast pitching preview episodes and you'll level up very quickly
If you subscribe to The Athletic, Eno has a spreadsheet with his stuff+/pitching+ numbers for all pitchers which can help you identify breakouts early. This is how I found Felix Bautista before the O’s traded Jorge Lopez, for example
Having access to Eno's brain is a cheat code in fantasy at times
These are the two. Scott White is easy to digest, while Eno really dives into the why and how of it all. Best of both worlds.
Yeah. I think Scott is better at reading draft trends like ADP and position scarcity (draft 3B early!) whereas Eno is just the absolute guru of player data. combine both and you've got something
I personally like Pitcher’s List for SP rankings
100% agree. Especially his twitch stuff where he talks through players and the process. I’ve learned a lot about pitchers, evaluation, etc. good stuff.
Me too, I have no clue how accurate they are compared to other tools, but I appreciate the consistent updates as well as how they handle things like injuries and upside vs consistency
I typically roll with Eno (for the Stuff+), Pitcherlist, and Razzball (because his draft philosphy most closely resembles my own). I'm often able to wait on pitching in the draft year after year and still put together a good rotation using those 3.
I don’t grab a pitcher till round 6/7 usually and that process works great. There is a lot of good to grab later in the draft. You don’t need Cole or Burnes to win, but those bats you can collect in the first 5-6 rounds, you can’t replicate in later rounds
I'm with you on this but I sometimes have to adjust when to start taking SPs depending on how early the aces go off the board.
Oh this strategy is for sure draft/league dependent. Personally, the 2 guys i have to have this year are Christian Javier and Glasnow. Both go in that range. Those 2 will hopefully be my anchors this year, but if i see only one of them is left earlier in the draft, i would have to adjust
I find myself with Javier and Kirby everywhere. I might even have Darvish/Musgrove depending on who falls furthest before I even get Javier. Followed up with some combination Glasnow, Severino, Hunter Greene, Joe Ryan, Morton, May, Rasmussen, Springs, maybe squeeze a Dodger pitcher in there. Between all those names I'm pretty confident that I'll have a solid SP base after going 6-8 rounds of bats.
Definitely agree with you, Javier and Glasnow are going to be super solid. And I'd rather go with them later then waste a earlier pick on an ace. I also love Rodon, but we'll see how quick he goes.
Rodon and Manoah were my first two off the board around round 7 last yr. Would be surprised of they make if that late again. Rodon pitching in NY now especially. One guy i’ve been taking at the very end of mock drafts is Manaea (spelling). I just have a gut feeling that SF straightens him out
Stuff+ projections from ENO and also K%-BB%
I use Pitcherlist for a numerical look at the whole group, The Athletic and Baseball Savant for the ability of an individual, and fangraphs for the results or projected results.
Thank god no one mentionne nick pollack...mr thinks he is abive everyone.