The dos and don’ts of drafting injury-prone pitchers
Recent history suggests that the wisest such picks are the ones at full strength on Opening Day, rather than DL-bound to begin the year. This season, Masahiro Tanaka, and to a lesser degree, Jose Fernandez, Stephen Strasburg and Michael Pineda, fall within this group.
Players on the Disabled List on Opening Day, or projected to miss at least five games during the season.
Last season alone, six pitchers entered the year with injury questions, either beginning the year on the disabled list or projected to miss a minimum of five starts. All three pitchers who began the season on the active roster finished within 15 starting-pitcher spots on the Player Rater, with two of the three who didn’t failing to throw a single pitch. Granted, a six-pitcher sample shouldn’t be considered a definitive study, but it illustrates the fact that when it comes to drafting pitchers — especially in shallow mixed formats such as ESPN’s standard game — it’s best to draft the most skilled arms today. With a deeper free-agent pool, it’s easier to fill spaces in the event of the worst in the injury department, and if your pitcher doesn’t wind up getting hurt, you’ve got a chance at 33 starts, perhaps 23-25 of them extremely useful.
Tanaka in particular stands out. He posted a sub-one WHIP in 24 starts, never going more than two straight turns without registering a quality start, though he did miss 37 New York Yankees games (effectively 7-8 starts) between April 23 and June 3. And that was despite his entering last season one of the scariest picks in years on the injury front; persistent questions about his elbow had many fantasy owners in a panic that he was on the verge of Tommy John surgery.
On the flip side, it’s the pitchers recovering from Tommy John surgery who often get too much credit in terms of draft appeal.
Matt Harvey didn’t help matters; he finished his first season back from surgery No. 33 on our Player Rater. Unfortunately, Harvey was one of the few pitchers to exceed expectations immediately following a Tommy John surgery. Since 2009, 23 draft-relevant — including AL- and NL-only leagues — pitchers have pitched a season following such a surgery. Their performance afterward wasn’t quite as good as you might remember it.
Performance of starting pitcher in season prior to and in first full season upon return from Tommy John surgery based on ESPN’s Player Rater.
Harvey, John Lackey (who wasn’t remotely useful in fantasy in 2011), Kris Medlen and Jordan Zimmermann were the only ones who exceeded expectations, and don’t forget that both Medlen and Zimmermann logged some time late in the years following their surgeries, with the numbers in the chart above from their years after that. Meanwhile, Fernandez, Patrick Corbin, Adam Wainwright, Strasburg and Joe Nathan were also fantasy-relevant in their years following a Tommy John surgery, but only Strasburg’s performance fell within range of his draft expectations. And again, he’s a pitcher who logged a bit of time in the year following his surgery, with his stats in the chart from the year after that.
That’s compelling evidence that the Tommy John surgery returnees you want are the ones who have had well over a year to recover since having the operation, and if possible, with some time in professional competition last season. Otherwise, your odds of the pick going bust are extremely high, at least judging by this admittedly somewhat limited sample.
This season, the Tommy John surgery returnees include the following:
Yu Darvish (March 17, 2015 surgery)
Zack Wheeler (March 25, 2015)
Joe Nathan (April 29, 2015)
Brandon McCarthy (April 30, 2015)
Adam Ottavino (May 7, 2015)
Homer Bailey (May 8, 2015)
Alex Cobb (May 14, 2015)
Unfortunately, none of those surgery dates makes a single one of this group a completely “safe” pick, though Darvish’s might have been long enough ago that he could contribute by a month or two into the season. Still, his ADP ranks him among the top 50 starting pitchers — exactly No. 50, actually — which might be a tad generous considering the history of his predecessors. Don’t be quick to overrate him.