First, head-to-head is not rotisserie. ERA and WHIP are incredibly volatile on a week-to-week basis. Far more predictable are strikeouts, saves, and wins (see my Wins by Category analysis). Saves are a special category of their own (see below). But any fantasy manager can prioritize strikeouts. And any manager can examine the depth chart of run-scoring teams to find decent, if not great, pitchers that get some strikeouts and compete for wins. By this standard, Tim Hudson is wildly over-rated for head-to-head play. His prospective run support is good, but not great, and despite his sterling ERA and WHIP, he has only 27 Ks in 64.1 innings pitched. I’d rather gamble on Ian Kennedy.

Second, most leagues, rotisserie and head-to-head, use some kind of start or inning limits. In leagues with deeper rosters this often leaves room for quality non-closing relievers such as Daniel Bard or Luke Gregerson, neither of whom makes ESPN’s top 300. Both of these pitchers have more strikeouts than Tim Hudson in half the innings pitched. They help push down ERA and WHIP. Most importantly, these guys are generally available to fill out a 23- or 24-man roster. They cost little to nothing and in leagues that use a start limit, they add strikeouts, quality innings, and vulture wins and saves while subtracting no starts.

Finally, let’s consider closers. I believe that most analysts undervalue closers. In head-to-head, this problem is magnified.

The disdain for closers arises from the all-or-nothing nature of the save stat. If a high-priced closer gets injured or replaced you lose almost all of your investment. Even coupling a closer with his backup doesn’t necessarily protect you. The backup is simply not likely to have the talent or the job security of the original closer. (I know this well. I owned Eric Gagne and Yhency Brazoban in 2005.)

However, the flip side of this risk is high reward. The limited number of closers makes saves the single most predictable stat category in head-to-head. While a team of middling hitters can often take a few hitting categories from a superior hitting team, and a team of middling starting pitchers can easily make a run at the ERA and WHIP points,  the team with three or four closers will almost always take the saves point. If you go into a single elimination playoff game against an opponent with more closers, you are likely down a point before the match even starts.

High-risk goes with high-reward. The former fact should not obscure the latter.

After the top 50 players or so — the ones desired in any format in any matchup — the game being played makes all the difference. Here are three examples that focus on hitting. I’ll write about pitching in another post.

First, player strengths in head-to-head formats are different than in rotisserie formats. When stats zero out every week against a new opponent, batting average or OBP are far less important than runs, home runs, RBIs and steals (see my Wins by Category analysis). Hitters must have power or speed or both to make a significant difference in head-to-head.

Second, roster depth matters. If a league offers deep enough rosters for a manager to platoon, David Ortiz, for one, is much more attractive. Even as his terrible April has turned into a very good May, he is most potent and most likely to get at bats against right handed pitchers. A platoon of Ortiz and any comparable hitter will give you just as much value as a single slugger ranked twice as high — one, it is important to remember, that you would not be platooning.

Finally, the rankings are based on projected player performance for the rest of the season. This is the nature of the exercise. The results tell you who to own, not who to play. But most leagues allow a substantial number of transactions, making who to play right now a decisive question. If you can play a great player for a month, then get an adequate substitute off the waiver wire, you need to do it.

This is the case among catchers. There are a handful of great hitting catchers and all the rest are interchangeable. So it is bizarre to see Mike Napoli ranked so low. Since starting catcher Jeff Mathis went on the DL, Napoli has not only hit extremely well, with a 1.106 OPS in May, but has played almost every day. Angels Manager Mike Sciosa went from hating the guy to running him into the ground, and Napoli has done nothing but hit. The rub against Napoli is that he will get bumped into a backup roll again with Mathis’ return. This may be true. But it shouldn’t obfuscate the fact that at this given moment Napoli is one of the top fantasy catchers in the game. He’s up there with Joe Mauer. In head-to-head leagues where batting average or OBP is less important (see above) he is, quite simply, the best.

2009: 1.004
2008: 1.069
2007: 1.095
2006: 1.153
2005: 1.125

Pick a run-of-the-mill park like Progressive Field in Cleveland and you will see even more variation:

2009: 0.843
2008: 0.995
2007: 1.120
2006: 0.946
2005: 0.874

Now consider that when you play a home split, you’re playing just one game out of a whole season. Not only will the quality of the opposing pitching staff overwhelm the park factor, but so will sheer randomness.

Yet I am willing to recognize that Coors Field (like Petco Park) is an extreme case. Only once since 2001 has Coors Field been lower than third in run production — when spiking run production for several other parks dropped it to 5th in 2003.

The question is, for whom do you play the split? I have Seth Smith as my fourth outfielder but have avoided playing him much because he sits two games out of six. Apparently the Rockies think more highly of Carlos Gonzalez, despite Smith’s equivalent or superior minor league numbers (compare).

Now, the Denver Post reports that Gonzalez will take his starts from the slumping Dexter Fowler:

Carlos Gonzalez and Dexter Fowler are the Rockies’ two best athletes. Using a platoon, manager Jim Tracy is hoping to create a single terrific center fielder…. Gonzalez, who lost the left field job three weeks ago to Seth Smith, is now starting in center field against right-handers.

If this holds up — and you are in a league with very deep rosters — you can play the double-split: Gonzalez, at home, against right handers. Ignore for now the fact that Gonzalez has a better road than home split — give him time.

Ultimately, I think Hamilton’s problem this season has been health. Then again, health is a skill, and for all we know, it’s a skill Hamilton can’t conquer.

One way to milk out a column is to sort out some hot players and make believe they’re for real. In Matthew Berry’s recent effort, he’ll convince you that Asdrubel Cabrera is just as good as Dustin Pedroia. Or something like that.

Berry may be right. When he talks up a few dozen players in a single column, he’s bound to mention at least one whose numbers will hold true for more than a fortnight. But just remember that he wrote his column before Manny Parra‘s most recent outing.

Now, I’m not here to tell you that any of those guys will be major fantasy forces for the rest of 2009. But if you jumped early, for instance, onto the [Scott] Richmond bandwagon, how happy are you right now?

Well, duh. With this kind of modeling, Harris could be a global warming expert.

But rather than mock the evolving rankings of ESPN’s experts — they write to meet demand, after all — I thought I’d zoom out a level above rank and talk about strategy.

There are two kinds of starting pitchers — those you can count on and all the rest.

Those you can count on are Johan Santana, Tim Lincecum, Roy Halladay, and a few others. I’d mention Brandon Webb except that he’s injured, which means you couldn’t. These are the pitchers who almost always post a quality start. A pitcher can’t hit an ERA under 3.5 without great consistency.

Then there are the rest. Even if you avoid the truly horrible (think the Texas Rangers) or the horribly erratic (think Oliver Perez), the returns are still unpredictable. Most good but not great pitchers will have numerous bad starts. And you don’t know when those bad starts will happen.

For example, Javier Vasquez has pitched well this season, posting a 3.89 ERA in seven starts through May 9. But he also gave up 5 runs and 6 runs in successive starts on April 29 and May 4.

Given that reality, I look for pitchers that couple a respectable ERA with some additional tangible fantasy advantage. Strikeouts is the most obvious. Vasquez, for example, racked up 16 Ks in 14.2 IP in the two games mentioned above. The three other factors I look for are innings, team run production, and the backing of a good bullpen. All of these are indicators of whether or not your average pitcher can stay in games and get wins.

Finally, there’s one great intangible — youth. You never know when a young pitcher will take a step up in capability. That’s what you have to hope for with Richmond, even if he is already 29.

Peripheral statistics generally come from analysis of how a ball is put in play (or not) in relation to the outcome of the play. Perhaps the best known is batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, which measures “the number of batted balls that safely fall in for a hit (not including home runs).” BABIP averages are compiled for ground balls, line drives, and any number of other splits.

BABIP is most often invoked to estimate luck. A batter hitting lots of line drives and not getting hits is supposedly due for a positive correction. Likewise a pitcher getting ground balls and not getting outs.

Thus, Tristan Crowcoft recently used two BABIP averages to tell owners not to give up on Kevin Slowey:

Kevin Slowey’s BABIP numbers very much support his case as a big-time buy-low candidate. Both his .357 BABIP on ground balls and .833 BABIP on line drives were noticeably higher than the league averages…

Going many times better, A. J. Mass processes so many peripheral stats in his recent Hit Parade column that he can’t even reveal what they are:

Next, we take the velocity [read the column] and tweak it according to a complex formula based on each hitter’s skill set, determined by a combination of stats that measure patience at the plate, ability to put the ball in play, power potential and speed.

If he told you the formula he’d have to kill you.

How much do I care about BABIP? Not much.

First, these analyses often reveal the obvious. I’m keeping Kevin Slowey because he pitched well last year and because he has sterling minor league numbers, not because he has good peripherals.

Second, these analyses rely upon the premise that the player will continue to produce (or give up) the same types of hits. Your slumping star’s line-drive BABIP may return to the league average over time, but that means nothing if your slumping star hits fewer line drives. The correction you expect won’t have any effect. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

“Every dog, we are told, has his day, unless there are more dogs than days.”

In Justin Masterson’s 2009 season there have been more dogs than days this year.

Masterson is the classic case of a young pitcher who has great stuff (especially a mid-90s fastball) who can’t seem to master a whole game. He was advanced so quickly through the minor leagues that it is hard to guess what he can do as a starter. His overall minor league ERA is 3.79 and his 2.89 ERA in 9.1 innings at AAA Pawtucket in 2008 is hardly any reassurance that his subsequent 3.16 ERA in Boston that season was for real.

Tuesday, we learned the Phil Hughes was being called up to start for the Yankees and that was it for Anibal Sanchez.

Hughes, like fellow prospect Ian Kennedy, is a strikeout talent who has stumbled badly at the major league level. The question is when he’ll get his act together. For comparison, Jonathan Sanchez came out of the minors with 11.9 Ks per nine IP and posted a 5.01 ERA in his first full major league season.

The difference, in my mind, is control. In 330 minor league innings, Hughes has had a WHIP of 0.92 and 2.2 walks per nine IP. Jonathan Sanchez had 3.5. Even this season, with his 2.60 ERA, Sanchez has already walked 12 in 17 IP. I’d rather gamble on Hughes.

I’ve tabbed a few long plays already this season. I drafted John Smoltz and slotted him to the DL. Actually, that hardly qualifies. The DL-stash of a 22nd round pick is no hardship. I drafted Pablo Sandoval on the hopes that he gains catcher eligibility at some point. That has cost a little more, as Sandoval has started slow and will be no better than an average corner infielder even when he gets better.

Now here’s two more to think about.

First, Ben Sheets. Milwaukee’s former ace could be back in August, but he’s not currently signed by any major league team, which means he’s not DL-eligible. If you sign him, you use up a roster spot for nothing. Once Sheets gets a contract, the run will be on. You need to sign him just before that happens. For now, I’m laying off.

Second, Matt Wieters. The number one prospect in all of baseball is ranked by ESPN as the 10th best catcher and the 179th pick overall. But his eventual callup to the majors still looks a month or two away, especially with the minor but worrisome hamstring strain he suffered this week. In the Mynci, Wieters just landed on the waiver wire. For me, this is a long play worth the intervening zeros. Wieters is in. Sandoval is out.