This is the seventh article in the series looking at the current 2010 fantasy baseball ADP (average draft position) for starting pitchers. The data uses ADP numbers from Mock Draft Central using the NFBC scoring system.

The chart below lists players arranged by my 2010 fantasy baseball rankings with the current ADP broken down by where that player would fall in a 12 or 15 team league by round and pick. The one caveat being that the 12 team numbers may be skewed slightly as some players may go later than others due to the larger player pool to pick from.

Undervalued:

I have Ryan Dempster 11 spots higher on my starting pitcher list than his current ADP ranking. Numbers from 2008 and 2009 were pretty close to the same except for a drop in wins and some regression to his ERA that was to be expected. Has a much better percent chance of striking out 175+, having an ERA under 3.7 and a WHIP under 1.3 than quite a few people that are currently being drafted ahead of him.

Gavin Floyd was a top prospect for the Philadelphia Phillies and one of the top 50 prospects in the minor leagues when he was coming up through the farm system. It took him a little over 170 innings at the major league level before finally settling into a groove so the struggles he encountered still have some people not giving him enough credit. Bumped up his strikeout rate 1.3 per nine last season and decreased his home run rate. ERA went up slightly only because of the ineffectiveness of the bullpen behind him.

Hiroki Kuroda is ranked 50th on my list and is 66th according to his current average draft position. Injuries kept his innings down in 2009 which might partially explain his current standing. But in the innings he did pitch, he improved his strikeout per nine ratio by a batter.

Overvalued:

Starting pitchers in general. Last year in the NFBC, there were only three pitchers drafted in the first 50 picks on average. Those were Tim Lincecum, Johan Santana and CC Sabathia. This season there are eight pitchers with a current fantasy baseball ADP in the top 50.

If you look at the top 15 pitchers based on where they were drafted in the NFBC last season, you could argue that half of them were busts or went too high, either based on injury or performance. Those would include Santana, Jake Peavy, Cole Hamels, Francisco Liriano, Roy Oswalt and John Lackey. Even though they did not have terrible seasons, you could add Chad Billingsley and James Shields to that list as well as their actual value turned out to be much lower than where they were drafted.

Cliff Lee seems to scream overvalued to me based on where he is going in fantasy baseball mock drafts. Moves back to the American League where his control was not as sharp as it was in the NL. Will see a drop in his strikeout rate and if his strand rate which was higher than average the last two seasons regresses, his ERA is going to jump as well. Now, I am not saying to stay away from him, just that there several better options than him when you are on the clock to make your draft choice.

As I wrote about Javier Vazquez in the 2010 fantasy baseball rankings for pitchers, I just don’t see how he is being drafted as high as he is. The move back to the American League (drop in strikeouts, higher ERA and WHIP) coupled with the move to the Eastern division and playing in New York (4.91 ERA and 1.29 WHIP when last with Yankees) means there is some regression coming to his 2009 numbers. Remember that you should be drafting players based on what they will do in 2010 and not what they did last season. I still see way too many people doing that. There are variables every year that impact performance and you need to be able to take these into account when the information is available to you.

A.J. Burnett I have ranked as the 37th pitcher compared to his ADP that places him at 29. An ERA over 4, plus a WHIP that hit 1.40 last season combined with a past injury history makes me leery of grabbing him too high in a mixed league draft. If  you wait to draft starting pitchers and he is one of the top two pitchers on your team, you are going to need to surround with him low ratio pitchers so you don’t feel the full impact of his lack of control.

The FBT Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide is now available for purchase for just $9.99. You can view a sample here to see the template for the top 10 catchers and top 10 starting pitchers.

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• Projections in Excel for 480 players using the standard 5 x 5 fantasy baseball categories
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• Expanded player rankings for all positions
• Ages for all players as of opening day
• Word / PDF document that explains how to use the projections and some tips for some neat things to do in Excel.
• The first article that will be only available to subscribers (and not posted on the website) for “how to win your fantasy baseball draft league”. This is a seven page document with 3,500 words of fantasy baseball goodness based on my 20 years of playing in fantasy baseball leagues.
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Next up in the 2010 Fantasy Baseball ADP rankings will be closers.