2020 MLB Draft Guide: Pitching Category Targets

With more teams experimenting with the use of “openers”, and home run and strikeout totals surging over the past several years, assembling a championship caliber fantasy baseball pitching staff has become increasingly challenging.

The average velocity of a fastball was 90.7 in 2010. It was 92.7 in 2019. The jump in velocity has contributed to a decrease in the average innings pitched per start. Consequently, starting pitchers often aren’t the pitcher of record and that’s caused their win totals to decrease. This current live ball era has also caused average pitcher ERA and WHIP to increase. 

These changes to the fantasy baseball pitching landscape must be taken into consideration when using pitching category target totals as part of your draft day strategy in Roto style fantasy leagues.

The best way to determine category target totals for a specific fantasy league is by researching its history. Familiarize yourself with the league’s results over the past few seasons and you’ll know the average final category totals needed in order to have a chance at winning the league.

While we Roto league fantasy players would love to finish first in every category, that’s unlikely. Instead, draft a balanced team consisting of players whose cumulative stats will help you finish near the top three of each category.

The concept of using category target totals as part of your draft strategy is simple. As you draft a player, keep track of his projected season long production. Using this strategy allows you to monitor and evaluate your draft in real time. At any given time during your draft you’ll know what categories you can hold off on, and what categories to target with your next few picks.

The most common categories featured in Roto leagues are Wins, ERA, WHIP, Strikeouts and Saves.The following chart provides average category target totals for use when drafting your team:

Wins                                   

Starting pitcher win totals have been declining for the past decade. Only 14 starting pitchers won 15 games or more last season. Among the many factors that affect a pitcher’s win totals, the number of innings pitched in a season is significant. Just 15 pitchers logged at least 200 IP last season. They averaged 15 wins each. The 15 pitchers who worked between 163 and 172 innings averaged only 11.5 wins each. Wins are tough to predict, but follow the target total advice for the ERA, WHIP and strikeout categories that we’ve outlined, and the wins will come.

ERA

You’ll want your fantasy team’s ERA to fall well below the 4.51 league average. In this current live ball era full of aggressive free-swinging batters, targeting pitchers with both above average K/9 and ground ball rates can help you stay within range of our suggested 3.60 ERA target.

Batted ball data can also help you identify pitchers projected to post low ERAs. In 2019, starting pitchers who posted the top 20 K/9 rates had an average ERA of 3.35. Only three of those pitchers had an ERA over 4.00. The 20 starting pitchers who had the highest ground ball rates on the season had an average ERA of 3.63.

Conversely, starting pitchers who were top 20 in hard hit and line drive rate had average ERAs of 4.18 and 4.00, respectively.

WHIP

As per this stat’s definition, you’ll obviously want to target pitchers with low walk and hits allowed rates. However, rostering pitchers with low hard hit rates might also help you slightly. The 10 pitchers with the lowest hard hit rates last season posted an average WHIP of 1.203. The 10 pitchers with the highest hard hit rates had an average 1.244 WHIP.

Strikeouts

Total strikeouts have increased by close to 25 percent since 2010. Batters are all about swinging for the fences and they’re not afraid to go down swinging in pursuit of the long ball. There were 25 qualified starting pitchers who struck out at least a batter per inning last season. Try to roster as many of them as possible.

Saves

Saves are one of the toughest categories to project. Typically, a closer significantly helps you in one category. Yes, he’ll contribute to your team ERA, WHIP and strikeouts but, he won’t pitch enough innings to really move the needle in those categories. Grab a solid closer between the seventh and 10^th rounds of your draft. From there you can target a closer with upside in the later rounds. Or, you can target relief pitchers who consistently post high strikeout rates and low ERAs. Make sure they have a potential direct line to a role as a closer as well. Too many closers lose their jobs throughout the season for you to invest too many early picks on a closer on draft day. Approximately 80 saves in 15 team leagues, 87 saves in 12 team leagues, and 95 saves in 10 team leagues will put you close to top of the category in your league. However, as long as you do real well in the other pitching categories, you can probably win your league with 55, 62 and 68 saves.

If you plan on using the category target totals provided here on draft day please note that last season only 14 starting pitchers met our ERA and WHIP targets, and struck out at least one batter per inning. Your draft day goal should be to roster at least two starting pitchers who can come close to producing those type of stats. From there, you’ll have a solid base from which to work from. The volatility within the closer position can actually work to your benefit if you roster elite setup men and middle relievers. However, quality starters who eat innings are becoming harder and harder to find these days.