On a recent fantasy baseball podcast, the host proposed that he would prefer Edinson Volquez over Javy Vazquez and that Chad Billingsley was equivalent to Daniel Cabrera. Ugh.
There are certain times when one just simply has to shake one’s head when listening to fantasy baseball advice. Today was one of those days. On a prominent podcast one of the hosts advised that he thought Chad Billingsley was the equivalent of Daniel Cabrera, and that he would rather have Edinson Volquez over Javier Vazquez.
Billingsley vs. Cabrera
Roughly speaking, this is very poor analysis. The purported rationale for the opinion was that Billingsley was merely a strikeout pitcher with big control problems. This assumes that Cabrera is a strikeout pitcher and that Billingsley’s control problems are as bad as Cabrera’s.
Currently, Billingsley is in fact having control problems. He has a 5.5 BB/9 IP rate with 13.0 K/9 IP. He also has a 40% hit rate and a 65% strand rate, resulting in an xERA of 3.75, far better than his actual ERA of 5.20. In 2007 he had a 3.9 BB rate and had a K/BB ratio of 2.2 last year and 1.8 this year. Billingsley made great improvement across the board in 2007 in all skills ratios, and had ERAs of 3.80 and 3.31 in his two years in the bigs.
Cabrera is not even close. Since 2004 his lowest ERA is 4.53. He was a good strikeout pitcher in 2005 and 2006, but in 2007 he had a 7.3 rate, which is solid but certainly nothing spectacular. In 2008 he has dropped to 5.1. His K/BB ratio the last two years was 1.5 and this year it is 1.0. He has never had a walk rate below 4.8.
There is nothing even remotely similar about these two pitchers that warrants the comparison. In his short stint in the majors Billingsley has been and is far better than Cabrera.
Vazquez vs. Volquez
I though this advice was far worse. Volquez has had 30 good innings in the majors, his 30 this year. These innings are propped up by an 89% strand rate, resulting in an xERA of 3.53. His BB rate this year is 4.9.
Javier Vazquez was a down ballot Cy Young quality pitcher last year. His K/BB ratios the last three years were 4.2, 3.3 and 4.3, all of which are elite level. He is a 200 IP horse, averaging over 200 IP the last four seasons. This year is more of the same with an 8.6 K rate and a 2.3 BB rate for a ratio of 3.7.
In short, in Volquez’ best case he would turn out to be as good as Vazquez. For now Volquez is a fly ball pitcher in a brutal park with 30 good innings under his belt as a result of a fluky strand rate. Advice of this sort is the worst kind; it is completely ignorant of how good Vazquez is and how lucky Volquez is.
Not only that, this opinion ignores the risk factors. Even if I am wrong about the quality of Volquez, what reason is there to think that he will be the equivalent of Vazquez in 2008? None that I can see. Essentially this is an example of wishcasting (thank you Christina Kahrl). Nothing more than overt hope and prayer could justify this opinion.
I am sure if pressed he would say it was a gut feeling or other such nonsense. Maybe it is. But that is an after the fact justification, and if a fantasy owner wants to rely upon such a gut feeling even though it flies in the face of the hard evidence, feel free. Just don’t come crying home when the gut feeling turns out to be an ulcer.
7 responses so far ↓
1 MlbFan30 // May 2, 2008 at 11:59 am
Where do you listen to these podcasts?
Is it from some big name site, or like a small blog with little fanbase?
2 Michael McLaughlin // May 2, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I am a proud owner of edinson volquez and has done very well for me this year. I just dont understand where you are coming from here. Vazquez in the last couple seasons, this year and the last 3 his record is 40-37 with a 4.20 ERA. If you look at his whole career stats hes a 50% winner.Although I know volquez will not keep up the stats he has produced I would still take a prospect that is up and coming then a declining 32 year old Javier Vasquez who is going to give you a 50 % chance of winning with a 4.20 ERA. Vaquez is 4-0 with a 1.28. And you say he is a fly ball pitcher what about a strikeout pitcher the last game he had 10 K’s and he has had two games with 7 ks and 1 with 8 k’s. Not only that he hasnt let up more then a run all season.The real test will be today though hes going against Atlanta. Even though it could be a fluke I would take the risk with the prospect then a 50-50 pitcher that is on the decline.
3 Andrew // May 2, 2008 at 12:46 pm
He also said that he would take Volquez over Ervin Santana. First time listening to Berry, and it will be my last.
4 Mysterious Stranger // May 2, 2008 at 3:06 pm
In fairness, I heard the podcast too, and the guy wasn’t saying that Billingsley was equivalent to Cabrera. He was merely saying that the both exhibited the same sort of control problems. He also said, obviously, Billingsley’s upside is much greater and he’d prefer him. They mentioned Cabrera’s declining strikeout rate and some of the numbers you cited.
I’m afraid for cursory podcast advice, you have to listen to your NFBC partner. Zing.
5 Patrick DiCaprio // May 2, 2008 at 4:23 pm
What NFBC partner? I am not in NFBC.
6 Mysterious Stranger // May 2, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Maybe I’m wrong. Thought you had a team with Cory Schwartz.
Also, there were two guys on this podcast, Matt Berry and Nate Ravitz. And they were debating the issue. They went into many of the sabermetric data you like to cite.
As for Volquez vs. Vazquez, one of the duo said he preferred Vazquez, I believe I remembered.
Anyway, I love your site, but you kind of unfairly boiled down their conversation as if they were just spouting off opinions without reason. Berry and Ravitz are pretty respected fantasy pundits who are both sabermetric-inclined. Sometimes you need to shake your head about that.
But otherwise, keep up the good work.
7 Patrick DiCaprio // May 3, 2008 at 4:23 pm
To be fair I love their show and listen to it every day. However both of the disputed comments were from the same guy, Berry. Ravitz said he liked Vazquez better. So I am not questioning both, just one of them, which I thought was clear but maybe not.
But on Billingsley/Cabrera I think you have it wrong. Berry said Billingsely was the equivalent of Cabrera and then Ravitz attacked him on it. Berry still tried to justify the opinion even after Ravitz caviled. So he obviously thinks/thought his opinion was correct.
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