statimagician

Why is pitching always undervalued in fantasy baseball? You have less spots to fill for pitching and there are less pitchers actually playing in the major leagues so the competition should be higher.

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Some common argument you hear for hitters over pitchers

•You need to draft more hitters than pitchers

So what? You can still divide your money fairly equally beetween them just spend a little less per hitter than per pitcher.

•Pitching performance is less predictable than hitter performance

This could be true if you were comparing the average pitcher to the average hitter, but if you draft a quality pitcher wouldn’t you be able to predict quite accurately how well they will perform. In addition some pitching categories are easier to predict than hitting categories. If he stays healthy, wouldn’t you expect Johan Santana to get alot of strikeouts?

•Pitchers get injured more than hitters do

Actually this is not true, in a study done in 2001 by Stan Conte, it states that an average pitcher has a 23.7% chance to go on the DL. A hitter on the other hand has a 27.9% chance of going on the DL. Of all those hitters the shortstop is the most likely to go on the DL with a whopping 38.4% chance!

Also when pitchers do go on the DL they tend to stay on it longer with an average of 16.6 days on the DL and conversely the hitter stays on it an average of 13.9 days.

The last thing I want to talk about strays a little bit off the topic of this page but when your trying to decide beetween a great starting pitcher or a great closer take the starting pitcher. For example if your staff needs a total of 7 pitchers, 4 starters, and 3 closers. If you have one great starter, 220 innings pitched and a 2.25 ERA and the rest of your staff are average, (average for starters being 220 innings pitched and a 4.00 ERA, and average for closers being 70 IP and a 3.50 ERA), then you will have a total of 430 ER, 1090 IP, and a 3.55 ERA. If you have a superior closer and the rest of your staff is average then you will have a total of 462 ER, 1090 IP, and a 3.81 ERA. Now obviously you realise the big differance in ERA but also notice the 32 ER difference, how will you make that up?

babaganoosh

I guess this depends on what type of league you play in, the leagues that I make, I choose to have the same number of pitchers and hitters and the same number of scoring categories for each.

Just a couple points that would be a little more accurate to draft hitters if you do have such a heavily weighted team for hitters would include:
1) Too large a variety of positions, so there's only so many you can fill a certain position with.
2) Though pitching can be more reliable, one bad game is harder to compensate for when you have a pitcher as opposed to a hitter. So if you draft good hitters, you're more likely to get a more consistent weekly result even if the hitter struggles for 2 or 3 games.
3) Batters play everyday and can accumulate their stats easier than pitchers, so the better the hitter, the better the accumulated stats.