Matt defends his “mancrush” on Brandon Webb.

As Pat explained in a recent post, last Monday we participated in an online auction of the top players in an inaurgual season for a new keeper league. The second phase is a live auction on 3/9, where those obscure middle relievers and 4th outfielders will round out our rosters.

Going into the auction, Pat suggested that we sit out the top 100 players entirely, believing that by holding onto our auction money, we would be able to reap tremendous value in the second phase of the auction. I was dubious, feeling that others would likely follow the same strategy, and that there would significant bargains. Pat also suggested that we use the RIMA plan as a guide for the draft. This strategy, and other variations described in the Baseball Forecaster (our fantasy “bible”) involves spending significant pitching money on a closer, very little on the rest of the staff (Low Investment Mound Aces) and the rest on “Reliable” hitting (hence, “RIMA”).

I was worried about this strategy because of the structure of our league: the points in pitching are skewed towards “rate” categories, counting whip and era as double (along with saves). That, coupled with a high minimum innings requirement (1250 for the year in the NL, 1200 for the AL, while starting only 9 in each league) could force us to “chase innings” during the year with free agent starters who could kill our whip and era.

I was intrigued by the “Sanlimadini” plan, which involves drafting a frontline starter, a closer, and cheap pitchers, spending the rest on reliable bats. This is one of the LIMA hybrids described in the Forecaster, and is devised for leagues with a “significant” innings requirement. By having that workhorse anchor, it lessens the need to have a Doug Davis type in your lineup to “give you innings” at great cost to your rate stats.

During one of our predraft strategy sessions, I touted Brandon Webb as one of those candidates for Sanlimadini. I think Pat gets hives if he bids more than $25 for any pitcher, so it’s fair to say that he wasn’t too keen on getting a stud pitcher like Webb due to the expected lofty price tag.

In Baseball Forecaster, Ron Shandler explains that it is more important that your high priced players return “fair value” than any other category of players (i.e.: tier 2 and 3 players), and that it is less important that you see a “profit” or get a “bargain” (of which there is “no such thing” according to Shandler).” The best “values” or keepers are typically found at the lower price points. Pat agrees with this general concept, and as he notes in his post, we were content to acquire reliable studs like Miguel Cabrera at $38 and David Wright at $36. Pat just sees starting pitchers as too injury prone to be considered “reliable”, and while this proposition is generally sound, it has become the “conventional wisdom.”

Since Pat has always advocated exploiting weaknesses in the conventional wisdom, I was puzzled that he was opposed to getting a true NL ace like Webb in the high $20’s or low $30’s.

I see Webb as perhaps the most likely pitcher in MLB (with the exception of Johan Santana) to return “fair value.” When Sanatana was auctioned early for $34 (establishing a depressed price structure for starters and certainly the low range of “fair value” for this dominant pitcher), I was determined to get Webb, and believed that up to $30 would be fair value. Since I was driving the online auction bus, I had control of the draft. Admittedly, I was asleep at the wheel while Jermaine Dye boarded another bus for $5, and Aaron Rowand for $6 (we were price enforcing all night! I blinked and they were gone!) So when I pulled the auction bus over to pick up Webb at $29, Pat wanted to throw me under it.

Two springs ago, I auctioned Webb in my NL only keeper league for $29, and and have been happy to keep him at that salary through this season. Hence the title of this post. Why do I love him so??

Simple: Webb is a reliable, consistent, relentless workhorse who anchors the whip and era categories for your team. Over the last three years, Webb, age 29, has thrown between 229-236 innings, 14-18 wins, 172-194 K’s, 3.01 - 3.54 era, 1.13 to 1.26 whip, and he’s coming off the best year of his career. To compare, Johan Santana, also age 29: 219-231 innings, 15-19 wins, 2.78-3.33 era, and 0.97 to 1.07 whip, and his “best year” was four years ago. The only real edge here is whip, but even that difference is marginal.

The Forecaster describes Webb as the “model for extreme ground ball pitchers” who “hasn’t shown any ill effects” from “piling up the innings”,”20 wins can come at any time.” Webb earns a Reliability score of 82 in the Forecaster (Miguel Cabrera’s is 83, Johan’s is 92).

I felt even more vindicated when I received Baseball Prospectus in the mail the next day. Naturally, I turned to the page 18 scouting report, which notes a 2007 season “almost identical” to 2006, that Webb’s inducing lefties into hitting ground ball outs more than ever before, “playing right into the trap”with Orlando Hudson at second base. The one criticism, holding runners on base, because of the opposition’s “desperation” to avoid Webb’s “perfect” “ground ball rate for twin killings”. BP’s Pecota projection sees 214 innings, 14 wins, 1.24 whip and 3.39 era, which I think should be more like a 30 percentile (off year) projection. With comparables like Rick Reuschel and Roy Halladay, Webb’s in pretty good company.

As an aside, Pat’s mancrush on Scott Kazmir ($23) may prove disastrous to our hopes of finishing in the money this year. He’s being shut down for two weeks because of a “strained elbow.”

And finally, guess who’s the #1 ranked RF in all of MLB, acording to Baseball Prospectus? The same guy Ron Shandler gives an upside of 30/30 .300.

Pat, game on. And Kendrick ($19) is all on you.