When you think of hard-throwing fastball-slider guys, who do you think of? Edwin Jackson, of course. And his similarity to Felipe Paulino was pointed out in this blog post last summer.

I was looking at pitcher similarity by pitch velocity and selection, and two of the closest matches I could find were Paulino and Jackson. Despite obviously different body types, they are amazingly similar in what they throw. Check this out (2011 data from FanGraphs.com):

And the similarities don't end there. Delve into the PITCHf/x data a bit, and you'll find that even the movement of their pitches is rather similar (career figures, Fangraphs.com):

It looks like Paulino's fastball has more horizontal fade, while Jackson throws a flatter slider and a changeup with a bit more movement. How successful have they been with these pitches? Here are the reported pitch-type run values from 2011 (again, FanGraphs.com; "/C" denotes value per 100 pitches thrown).

So Paulino's fastball has gotten hammered, while Jackson's changeup has been ineffective. If you look at the career numbers, it becomes clear that these two have made a living off of their sliders (Paulino gets 16.2% whiffs on it and Jackson gets 15.3%).

Despite the similarities in what they throw and how often they throw it, they have had markedly different levels of success up to this point. Jackson has a reputation as a pretty good starting pitcher, and has compiled a 4.46 ERA over 1079 innings, while Paulino had looked like one of those guys who just doesn't get how to pitch until just this past year, when he posted, coincidentally, a 4.46 ERA (against his career figure of 5.28). Compare their 2011 peripherals:

One big thing stands out to me - Paulino bests Jackson's K rate by almost two batters per nine, while maintaining slight edged in walks per nine, HRs per nine, and even more ground balls. His FIP and xFIP suggest that he was the better pitcher by a significant amount this year. So how is Jackson throwing almost the same stuff but being so much more successful than Paulino? Clearly, a lot can be explained by the 30 point difference in BABIP, and Jackson has had some pretty good defense behind him. 

But also it seems that Paulino and Jackson are approaching hitters differently. Paulino's higher strikeout numbers suggest that he is trying to set up the slider and go for the strikeout; he sees 4.30 batters in a typical inning, and he throws about 17.3 pitches in that inning. Jackson also faces about 4.31 hitters per inning, but he only requires 16.2 pitches to do it, because he is pitching more to contact.

So what have we discovered here? Analyzing pitching is a difficult, difficult business. It's not as simple as "stuff" or selection, but it also matters how you sequence your pitches and how you make the pitches that count the most. It's great that both these guys have such a wipeout slider, but you've gotta supplement it with a fastball you can throw for strikes and something else just to keep hitters off balance.

So who would you bet on going forward? Which would you rather have? Injuries are always a concern. Guys who rely so heavily on a hard slider tend to find themselves needing surgery after a few years of wear and tear, and they often have to reinvent themselves; just ask Rich Harden. Still, I think that Paulino may have figured out something this year, so I'd try to upgrade the defense behind him take a flyer on him over Jackson. They would have radically different values in the free agent market as well, so that only makes him more attractive as a signing target. I think Paulino could be a pretty solid starter going forward, based on this comparable.

We in the saber community have a great appreciation of Greg Maddux and his pitch economy, but this chart at Beyond the Box Score is just jaw-dropping. Thanks guys.

After letting Cliff Lee walk this offseason, the Texas Rangers have gotten some surprisingly strong pitching from their youngsters in the rotation. Matt Harrison, Derek Holland and Alexi Ogando have combined to go 7-2 with a 2.53 ERA in 10 starts, providing almost 7 innings a start. Not bad for a couple of post-hype prospects and a setup reliever. It's actually Colby Lewis who's bringing up the rear, sporting poor fastball velocity in 2011.

Going forward, who's going to have the best year? Let's take a look at some of the early 2011 data, as well as 2010 performance:

* as reliever

The 25-year old Harrison is showing a sustained increase in velocity the past two years (avg 92.5 mph, up from 92.2 mph last year and 90.9 mph two years ago). The increased SO/BB ratio shows in the moderately improved xFIP. That being said, Harrison's fastball and slider have not been above-average offerings yet, so there could be some regression in store. If he is able to maintain an earned run average just south of 4.00 this year, he will be a very valuable cog in this rotation for Texas.

As you can see, Holland may have made the biggest step forward from 2010. He's bumped his swinging strike rate and really cut the walks this season (it's still very early, of course). He's just 24 years old this year, is flashing the best fastball of his career, mixing in his other offerings more, and that suggests there is still some upside to come.

Ogando was a very, very good reliever in 2010, and he's showed poise and control as a starter this year. It's impressive for a reliever to avoid walks the way he has so far. He's relied mainly on his excellent fastball and the slider so far, but he has a changeup he can mix in as well. His low strikeout rate has kept his FIP in the mid-4s, but the swinging strike rate suggests that number should come up a bit. As the elder statesman of the bunch, the 27-year old Ogando is probably the poorest bet to maintain his ERA for the rest of the year.

Even though he has the highest ERA of the three thus far, Holland is the pitcher who is likely to turn in the best season for the Rangers in 2011. After that, it's a tossup between Harrison and Ogando. Harrison is the "safer" bet, while Ogando has some more upside. It'll be interesting to see who loses their spot once Tommy Hunter and Brandon Webb return.

Nice article by JD Sussman over at Beyond the Boxscore today. He looks at batted ball percentages and why they don't tell the whole story for pitchers.

We have heard a lot about high ground ball rates and how desirable they are compared to fly balls, but we shouldn't forget that there's a balance between that and the ability to prevent balls in play in the first place. So you have to consider strikeout rate as well as batted ball distribution, because strikeouts directly affect the total number of balls in play, and therefore the number of each batted ball type (home run rate would also play into this equation, though to a much lesser degree). Perhaps what we really should be looking at is the number of ground balls induced per plate appearance or per at-bat.

Among 91 qualified starters last season, Carl Pavano was tied for 15th with 51.2% GB, yet his low 4.8 K/9 meant more balls in the air as well as on the ground (746 total in 221 innings). The other guy who induced 51.2% grounders? His name is Roy Halladay, and he struck out about 7.8 K/9, which resulted in 738 BIP in 250.2 IP. The difference between the two is almost 30 innings where Halladay struck out everyone and no one put the ball in play.

Other guys that fell into this category last year included Rick Porcello, Paul Maholm and Brad Bergeson. So you need to know more than just GB% to talk about the quality of a pitcher.

Taking a look at current draft boards, there are a number of names that could be mentioned here along with Bautista, but I'll try to give a quick rundown on my reasoning here.

Jose Bautista, 3B/OF

Bautista hit 54 HR with 124 RBI last season, and that has ignited his stock. He is currently being valued as the 5th best third baseman out there, and being taken before the 4th round of most drafts. Signing a contract extension and gaining 3B eligibility has done nothing but increase the buzz about Toronto's slugger. This is insanity.

Don't get me wrong, the power (at least most of it) is real. But let's have a quick reality check here: Bautista is due for a big regression in home runs; our projections have him with 31 HR this season, but only 85 RBI, further decreasing his value. Add to that that he is a career .244 hitter over 2744 Major League PA, and even in his career season, he hit only .260. Average easily fluctuates about 30 points from season to season, so don't underestimate the fantasy hit you could take from carrying a very low-average hitter in your lineup (just ask Carlos Pena owners from last year). Bautista is only marginally better than average at best this year, and not worth anything more than a 10th round pick or so.

The comparison that comes to mind is Carlos Pena. After a breakout 2007 in which he hit .282 with 46 HR and 121 RBI, Pena was being snapped up in 2008 drafts. He then went on to a .247 average with 31 HR and 102 RBI, and has only slipped from there. Pena always had prodigious power, but he suddenly became valuable with playing time. The problem is that players always regress to their true talent levels, and pitchers adjust to hitters. Bautista won't see much to hit this season, and it will impact his numbers. Buyer beware.

Alright, what we have done for position players, we can now do for pitchers. Here are your top starters, according to fPAA.

I should note that our regressed projections use both historical ERA and FIP in predicting the 2011 run average, so they tend to be fairly conservative. There are only about 25 pitchers with predicted ERAs less than 4.00. That's why you see so many starters giving a negative fPAA value, because you need a projected ERA in the mid 3's to positively impact your fantasy team. We've made an attempt to predict wins based on a Pythagorean winning percentage given a pitcher's ERA compared with league average, as well as innings pitched.

And now the top relief pitchers:

Instead of trying to calculate saves, which are not easily predicted, we simply used the fan predictions from FanGraphs.com. They are pretty good, and I can not do any better. The first non-closer on this list is the Padres' Mike Adams, who is an ultra low-ERA, high-K setup man. Given that relievers will give you about 1/3 the innings of a typical starter, don't forget that they can help lower your team ERA trememdously.

I know that these rankings will inspire the ire of many of you, especially Justin Verlander, Ubaldo Jimenez and Francisco Liriano fans. Sorry, but my projections just don't like them this year. I'll be happy if they prove me wrong.

We have finally applied our playing time forecasts to our projections, and we are ready with our final rankings for 2011. These rankings supercede any other published rankings for 2011, due to changes in expected playing time.

Here are your top 12 infielders at each position, along with their fRAA values:

And now your outfielders:

You will notice quite a few outfielders who are severely downgraded due to their low batting average and low production numbers, despite hitting a lot of home runs. You will also see that speedy outfielders do very well in fPAA, because a large number of steals is often worth several fantasy points in the standings, provided you do not have a large number of steals to begin with.

Pitchers coming tomorrow.

For those of you who are into fantasy baseball, there are several spots in our Yahoo! keeper league for 2011. This will be our fourth official season.

• Standard 5x5 roto league
• Unlimited number of keepers under a round-inflation model
• 23-man Major league roster
• 5-man minor league roster

One of the distinctive things about our league is that in addition to your normal 23-man roster, you are also given the "rights" to 5 minor league players (who have not yet achieved rookie status as of Opening Day 2011). When these players are promoted to the Majors, only YOUR TEAM may roster them until you waive your control over them by releasing them.

You can have a look at the league constitution for all the details.

If interested, contact me at redsoxtalk (at) gmail as soon as possible so I can get you your roster.

We continue our series profiling the top fantasy players at each position. Here's what we foresee at the cornerstone based on our projection system.

Ian Kinsler continues to provide the best overall fantasy value at the position, combining a decent batting average, power, speed and production into one package. Dustin Pedroia is slightly better in the batting average department, but his overall value is quite close in our model. Both of these guys are guaranteed to hit at or near the top of their lineups, and should score plenty of runs and get plenty of looks.

Robinson Cano had a monster 2010, but there's little to suggest that he's got an encore on tap for 2011. I'd avoid drafting him unless he falls quite a bit. Our model suggests that you may get equivalent value by drafting Brian Roberts a few rounds later.

Surprisingly, Chase Utley has fallen a long way, being ranked after four of his peers. Utley is starting to age, and as one of the players who gets hit by pitches quite often, he's not an insignificant injury risk.

Rickie Weeks will be more valuable than his 1.6 fPAA - IF he stays healthy. Remember that it wasn't so long ago when everyone was afraid to draft him because he was too fragile. One healthy season does not make up for all those years of frustration, so if you draft him, you should also get a capable backup.

Eric Young Jr. is a very interesting case study. Everyone knows how quick and athletic he is, and that he will steal a ton of bases, if he can hit enough to stay in the lineup. Now with Clint Barmes out of the way in Colorado, there's a chance that he'll finally have a chance to live up his potential.

Dan Uggla is projected to hit 30 HRs in Atlanta this season, but he's still ranked number 9 on this list. We also have him hitting just .259 and not doing much on the bases. Just be prepared to balance out his deficiencies if you draft him this year.

Brandon Phillips is surprisingly low on our board. While he's around average at almost everything, He doesn't seem to be able to post the high totals to offet his expected .266 batting average this season.

Piggybacking off of my article from yesterday, I now present to you our current positional rankings, along with each player's total fPAA. We'll start off with first basemen in this post:

Albert Pujols, in case you didn't know it, is a fantasy beast. Above average in every category except steals, he will boost your team's batting average by almost 5 points, provide almost 20% of the HRs and better than 10% of the runs and RBI you need to win your league all by himself. He boasts the highest unadjusted fPAA total in our study, though positional adjustments may change that.

The rest of this list looks like pretty standard fare, though some might take issue with Ryan Howard's low ranking. The truth is that while he will boost your teams' HRs and RBI like few other players, much of that benefit is offset by his lack of steals and inability to maintain a high batting average. If you're in a league that uses OBP instead of batting average, by all means, draft him highly. Derrek Lee has the potential to be just as valuable as Justin Morneau, but I clearly consider him a riskier pick at his age and coming off of a bad season. Changing divisions to the tough AL East won't help his comeback bid any, either.

As for sleepers, much of their value comes from playing time. But our model suggests that Kansas City's Eric Hosmer and the Diamondbacks' Brandon Allen might be good candidates, should they receive adequate chances.