Fantasy Focus: Ranking Matt Cain

Jeffrey Gross, writing for hardballtimes.com, put out a ranking of the top 100 fantasy starting pitchers today. I have to say I have seldom been as disgusted and even downright angry at the arrogance of someone who claims to know something about baseball. I was specifically PO'd, not just at his ranking of Matt Cain at an absurdly low #38, but at the comments he made later, as well as his responses to my objections in the comments section.

Just for a frame of reference, here is a list of some of the pitchers he had ranked above Cainer: Mat Latos, Max Scherzer, Yovani Gallardo, Ricky Nolasco, Jeremy Hellickson, Shaun Marcum, Hiroki Kuroda, Colby Lewis, Brett Anderson, Madison Bumgarner(yes, Madison Bumgarner!), Ted Lilly, Jhoulys Chacin, Wandy Rodriguez, Josh Beckett, Phil Hughes, Daniel Hudson.

Now, those are some pretty good pitchers there, but ahead of Matt Cain? Here's what Gross had to say in his commentary: "Matt Cain ranked 38? Yeah, that's right. I hate Matt Cain. I wish I could justify slotting him even lower, but I can't." Really? He hates Matt Cain? Then he has no business writing for a reputable baseball website nor giving drafting advice to fantasy baseball players! I was so taken aback by that quote, I at first thought he was being sarcastic, but he wasn't! When I called him out on it, his response was pretty hostile and defensive. He trotted out something about a drop in swinging strike % and threw out a comp to Carlos Zambrano who he apparently hates too. I pointed out that Zambrano has had both physical and mental health problems the last 2 years and will still probably have a sub-4 ERA in 2011. I also pointed out that Cain's BB/9 has trended down for 3 seasons while his HR rates and LOB rates have been stable. Gross came back admitting that he has no explanation for Cainer's HR/FB% and reiterated that he really thinks Cain should be outside the top 40, then stated he won't be drafting Cain at all! I must have gotten under his skin because he ignored my last response and then wrote a sarcastic comment about Cain over on fangraphs.com in an article about Matt Garza, "But hey! If Matt Cain can do it...."

It appears that Jeffrey Gross is basing most, if not all, of his rankings on a calculated stat, xFIP, that purports to give a more accurate measure of a pitcher's true performance than ERA. Now, don't get me wrong here, I am not dismissing xFIP as a stat. It is a very useful tool for evaluating most pitchers. The problem with xFIP is that there are a few pitchers, Cain, Zambrano and Matt Garza to name just 3, whose ERA consistently outperforms their xFIP. It is important to note that all 3 of these pitchers rely heavily on a high velocity, 4 -seam fastball that they throw up in the strike zone. Not surprisingly, all 3 get a lot more flyball outs than groundouts. xFIP relies heavily on the assumption that what happens to batted balls in play is largely due to luck. To a certain extent, that is true. However, non line drive flyballs in play are much more likely to be caught for outs than are groundballs, which often find their way between infielders for base hits. What about HR's? Don't all HR's have to start out as flyballs, and doesn't the % of flyballs that become HR's eventually regress to an average based almost exclusively on luck? Well now, that is not always true. In fact, most HR's are not lazy flyballs that carry over the fence at random. Most HR's are hit off mistake pitches such as hanging sliders and curveballs that are crushed. They are no-doubters! Pitchers with good fastballs that they throw up in the zone are actually much less likely to make "mistake" pitches with them than they are with their secondary stuff. Batters are able to make contact with them, but are not able to "get on top" of them and drive them. The result is a lot of weak flyballs, popups to the IF and high, shallow flyballs to the OF. They are easy outs, do not allow baserunners to advance and have no chance of carrying over the fence. I don't know if PitchFx can differentiate between a fastball and a hanging breaking pitch, but if it can, I bet it would confirm my observations from watching Matt Cain pitch a whole lot of games. Maybe OGC can help me out with this one.

Grant, over on mccoveychronicles.com wrote a piece today with basically the same complaint about Cainer's rankings by the xFIP fascists, but from a different angle. In the comments section of that post, someone made a very interesting point that on PitchFx, Matt Cain throws about 75% fastballs, a very high %, and gets a higher percentage of outs with that pitch than all but about 2 or 3 pitches in all of baseball! Bottom line, Cain has a darn good fastball and knows how to use it. He is not going to suddenly give up a bunch of HR's off the fastball!

Matt Cain is just entering the prime years of his career. He's never had any serious injury issues. His command of his fastball and other pitches is steadily improving. His peripheral stats have either improved or remained stable for several years now. He will have a much improved offense behind him in 2011. Even with a slight regression in some of his peripheral stats, he should be able to put up more wins, which are a category in most fantasy leagues, in 2011. He should be ranked in the #20-25 range in fantasy drafts.