Whenever I find it difficult to come up with an idea to write about, I listen to a podcast and hear a talking head scream out dogmatic overtones and pollute the airwaves. As it happens, the same reason that I don’t listen to as many podcasts as I used to happens to be the same reason I listen to podcasts for article ideas: bad information.

Mainstream media members convey specious statements that sound like they would have some validity, but rarely do. But these moments allow me to come in and provide the answer from an analytic perspective, so I can’t complain.

This particular analyst asserted that because starting pitching depth is better than ever this year, and that the offensive run environment has trended towards starting pitchers over several years, you have to draft pitchers early.

His counterpart argued in opposition and said that because starting pitching is so deep this year, you can wait longer than usual on pitching.

Who’s right?

Examining Starting Pitcher Depth

The truth of the matter is that they are both full of hot air and shouldn’t be allowed to fill the minds of people who have the best intentions. Their listeners want to learn as much as they can about Fantasy Baseball to win their league, and these guys spew out false information.

But hey, it’s not their fault. They’re paid to be entertainers, not thinkers. The problem occurs when entertainers start to think they’re intellectuals.

But to get back to the reality of the topic at hand — the environment that players inhabit does not matter because they all live within that environment.

What really matters is how good a player is relative to the distribution of the players in their environment.

Let’s take this example:

In a hypothetical world where we can pinpoint exactly how good a player is at baseball (i.e. their true talent level) on a scale of 0 to 6, Player 5 in the graph below is the best player in this environment/population (i.e. he has the highest true talent), but the distribution of talent in this population is focused around a narrow point (i.e. Player 5 is first, but not by much), and the average differential of the players is very low.

This is the same reason why running backs are so valuable in Fantasy Football. Running backs, except for very few, don’t produce the most points overall, but compared to other positions, the distribution of running backs is relatively spread out (i.e. DeMarco Murray was the best running back this year, but still finished seventh in scoring behind six quarterbacks).

Even though he’s the highest rated kicker every year, this also why Stephen Gostkowski doesn’t go earlier than the second-to-last round, or shouldn’t at least. He’s the best kicker, but there’s relatively little difference — 29 points to be exact — between him and the 10th-best kicker.

A couple years ago, I wrote an article about position depth in Fantasy Football. I took the top 15 quarterbacks, 30 running backs, 30 wide receivers, 15 tight ends, 15 D/STs, and 10 kickers from the 2013 NFL season and calculated the standard deviation for their position based on the 2013 season’s scoring — Fantasy points were determined by ESPN’s standard scoring for 2013.

Once I calculated the standard deviation, I plotted the standard deviations on a distribution curve so we could visually see how spread out some position’s talent was relative to other positions.

Here was the result (next to each position is the standard deviation for that group):

Back to baseball.

Now that we’ve established that starting pitcher depth, or any position for that matter, is based on the standard deviation of that position, lets look at the standard deviation of the pitching population over the last few years.

Since the SCFE’s original conversation centered around points leagues, these numbers were calculated from the top 108 pitchers — nine starting pitchers for each team in a 12-team league — for each season since 2014 for points leagues.

As you can see, the standard deviation for starting pitching has trended down, which means, as a generalization, it has become less necessary than ever to draft a starting pitcher.

Below are Steamer projections translated into Fantasy points for the top 108 players in 2015. All the way to the left you have Carlos Martinez, and to your deepest right you have Clayton Kershaw.

To figure out the true value of a starting pitcher, you have to figure out how much better or worse he/she is than league average, relative to the distribution of the other players in their league (i.e. 108 pitchers for 12-team leagues with nine starting pitchers on each roster). And you do that with zScores based off of the 2015 Steamer projections,, which I produced for you here:

Player PTS zSCR Clayton Kershaw 628 3.511215724 Max Scherzer 582 2.747312956 Chris Sale 574 2.6144603 Madison Bumgarner 570 2.548033973 Yu Darvish 552 2.249115498 Felix Hernandez 550 2.215902334 Corey Kluber 528 1.850557532 Stephen Strasburg 527 1.83395095 Zack Greinke 522 1.75091804 David Price 514 1.618065385 Jon Lester 512 1.584852221 Masahiro Tanaka 501 1.40217982 Cole Hamels 500 1.385573238 James Shields 493 1.269327165 Johnny Cueto 483 1.103261345 Hisashi Iwakuma 472 0.920588944 Ian Kennedy 471 0.903982362 Hyun-Jin Ryu 470 0.88737578 Alex Cobb 469 0.870769198 Jordan Zimmermann 466 0.820949453 Jeff Samardzija 464 0.787736289 Lance Lynn 464 0.787736289 Marcus Stroman 462 0.754523125 Matt Harvey 461 0.737916543 Phil Hughes 453 0.605063888 Mike Fiers 447 0.505424396 John Lackey 443 0.438998068 Scott Kazmir 440 0.389178323 Francisco Liriano 436 0.322751995 Collin McHugh 435 0.306145413 Cliff Lee 434 0.289538831 Alex Wood 431 0.239719085 Sonny Gray 431 0.239719085 CC Sabathia 430 0.223112503 Julio Teheran 429 0.206505921 Adam Wainwright 427 0.173292758 Homer Bailey 426 0.156686176 Justin Verlander 421 0.073653266 Matt Shoemaker 420 0.057046684 Jose Quintana 419 0.040440102 Carlos Carrasco 417 0.007226938 Chris Archer 416 -0.009379643 Derek Holland 415 -0.025986225 Tony Cingrani 414 -0.042592807 Drew Hutchison 413 -0.059199389 Jered Weaver 413 -0.059199389 Jake Arrieta 411 -0.092412553 Jake Peavy 411 -0.092412553 Dallas Keuchel 410 -0.109019135 Michael Pineda 408 -0.142232299 Brandon McCarthy 406 -0.175445463 Gio Gonzalez 405 -0.192052045 Matt Cain 405 -0.192052045 C.J. Wilson 405 -0.192052045 Tyson Ross 402 -0.24187179 Doug Fister 401 -0.258478372 Rick Porcello 401 -0.258478372 R.A. Dickey 400 -0.275084954 Gerrit Cole 399 -0.291691536 Yordano Ventura 397 -0.3249047 Ervin Santana 397 -0.3249047 Jake Odorizzi 397 -0.3249047 Anibal Sanchez 395 -0.358117864 Danny Salazar 394 -0.374724446 Matt Garza 392 -0.40793761 Andrew Cashner 391 -0.424544192 Chris Tillman 391 -0.424544192 Jacob deGrom 386 -0.507577101 Mike Minor 386 -0.507577101 Shelby Miller 386 -0.507577101 Wei-Yin Chen 384 -0.540790265 Yovani Gallardo 383 -0.557396847 Mat Latos 381 -0.590610011 A.J. Burnett 380 -0.607216593 Tim Lincecum 379 -0.623823175 Jason Vargas 378 -0.640429757 Garrett Richards 376 -0.67364292 Josh Collmenter 376 -0.67364292 Tim Hudson 375 -0.690249502 Jorge de la Rosa 374 -0.706856084 Jose Fernandez 372 -0.740069248 Jeremy Hellickson 372 -0.740069248 Trevor Bauer 372 -0.740069248 Dan Haren 370 -0.773282412 Zack Wheeler 368 -0.806495576 Matt Moore 368 -0.806495576 James Paxton 367 -0.823102158 Bartolo Colon 366 -0.83970874 Wily Peralta 365 -0.856315322 J.A. Happ 365 -0.856315322 Jon Niese 364 -0.872921903 Jason Hammel 363 -0.889528485 Wade Miley 362 -0.906135067 Mike Leake 358 -0.972561395 Clay Buchholz 358 -0.972561395 Mark Buehrle 357 -0.989167977 Kevin Gausman 356 -1.005774559 Drew Pomeranz 353 -1.055594305 Michael Wacha 352 -1.072200887 Tanner Roark 349 -1.122020632 Jeremy Guthrie 347 -1.155233796 Nathan Eovaldi 345 -1.18844696 Vance Worley 341 -1.254873288 Justin Masterson 341 -1.254873288 Roenis Elias 341 -1.254873288 Ricky Nolasco 339 -1.288086452 Henderson Alvarez 338 -1.304693033 Carlos Martinez 333 -1.387725943

What we can see from these zScores, and the graph that corresponds to it, is that our population has a unique shape; the 54th-ranked pitcher — the median pitcher of the population (405 projected points) — is worse than league average (416 points).

Clayton Kershaw isn’t drafted as high as he is because he is the No. 1 pitcher; he’s taken in the first round because of how much better he is than everyone else.

In the end, if starting pitching depth continues on the trend it has been on over the last several years, you don’t need to draft starting pitching at a rate different than you have in recent seasons. Be happy that you know this, and hopefully the people in your league listen to the SCFE that started this conversation to begin with.