Shuffle Up: The joy of Gerrit Cole

Rest-of-season value is the goal when we do these Shuffle Ups. What's happened to this point is merely an audition.

The dollar values are unscientific, and merely provided as a tool to compare the players at the same position (I wouldn't suggest you use them to compare players at different positions). Groups of players at the same price are considered even.

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Remember the golden rule: no one gains or loses extra value because you do (or don't) roster that partricular player.

Disagree? Excellent. That's why we have a game, and that's why it's a heck of a lot of fun. I welcome your respectful disagreement, both here and on Twitter.

I didn't include Noah Syndegaard or anyone else in the minors. I did rank injured pitchers, but those are merely courtesy ranks. Everyone seems to expect more of injury-returnees than I do. They're worth whatever you want them to be. I'm not going to haggle over the injured guys.

To the mound.

$30 Clayton Kershaw
$30 Felix Hernandez
$28 Johnny Cueto
$28 Max Scherzer
$27 Matt Harvey
$27 Zack Greinke
$25 Gerrit Cole
$23 Chris Sale
$23 Corey Kluber
$23 David Price
$22 Madison Bumgarner
$22 Stephen Strasburg

Not that you needed much of a push with Cole, but let’s note that he’s raised strikeouts, nudged walks down, pushed his ground ball rate to almost 60 percent, and he’s getting more swinging strikes and out-of-zone swings. He’s an interesting dark-horse pick for NL Cy Young . . . Kluber to me is an obvious buy. The K/BB obviously looks good, velocity is only down a spec (and that could be first-quarter type of lag), and Gomes should be back in maybe 3-5 weeks (a huge upgrade) . . . Fly-ball pitchers are often misunderstood; while balls in the air don’t offer the same security that ground balls do, any pitcher with an extreme bias to either batted-ball type is probably exerting more control on his outcomes than an average pitcher, and that is a good thing. So when you see someone with a heavy fly-ball clip, embrace it - it’s probably a sign that the pitcher is doing something right. Some of the heaviest fly-ball ratios thus far: Bartolo Colon, Max Scherzer, Johnny Cueto. 

$21 Jake Arrieta
$20 Cole Hamels
$19 Michael Wacha
$19 Collin McHugh
$19 Jon Lester
$18 Dallas Keuchel
$18 Lance Lynn
$18 Michael Pineda
$18 Sonny Gray
$17 Chris Archer
$17 James Shields

While everything about McHugh’s emergence over the past year-plus seems legit, keep in mind he’s doing it with a huge reliance on the slider. He’s thrown the pitch 42.6 percent of the time this year, the heaviest slider usage in the majors. This is the type of thing that often catches up to a pitcher down the road - heads up in keeper formats. Other slider-heavy pitchers through the opening five weeks: Tyson Ross, Chris Archer, Jason Hammell, Francisco Liriano, Michael Pineda, Justin Masterson . . . What Keuchel does extremely well is get ground-balls by the truckload and generate weak contact. Obviously you don't pay for outlier ratios, but I think he easily matches last year's ERA and probably lowers the WHIP too (even if you want to start from scratch now). Shorter version: he's legit. I wish I had him anywhere, I do not. Keuchel also gets hidden bonuses for checking the running game and being a gold-glove defensive player. That won't show up in metrics generally. Contrast to Lester, who can't check the running game and now plays in the league where it will regularly be exploited.

$16 Jacob deGrom
$16 Scott Kazmir
$16 Shelby Miller
$15 Garrett Richards
$15 Jeff Samardzija
$15 Julio Teheran
$14 Francisco Liriano
$14 Gio Gonzalez
$14 Jake Odorizzi
$13 Anibal Sanchez
$13 Bartolo Colon
$13 Danny Salazar
$13 Mike Leake
$13 Tyson Ross
$12 A.J. Burnett
$12 John Lackey
$12 Jordan Zimmermann
$12 Carlos Carrasco

$11 Doug Fister
$11 Ian Kennedy
$11 Andrew Cashner
$10 Yordano Ventura
$10 Mike Fiers
$9 Trevor Bauer
$9 Carlos Rodon
$8 Carlos Martinez
$8 Jesse Hahn
$8 Matt Shoemaker

Bauer is on pace to strike out 197 and walk 93, which keeps him in the tease file . . . Is this finally the big strikeout year for Cashner? He’s getting more than one per inning, well worth the mild kick up in his walks. His biggest bugaboo to this point is the home-run ball, and it’s possible Petco might not be the home-run suffocation stadium we’re used to . . . I’m surprised some people think I have Ventura too low; if anything, I thought about ranking him even lower. His strikeout rate has dipped under 7/9 while he’s still walking too many batters; when the K/BB ratio isn’t even 2/1, we have a problem. I’m also forever leery on fireballing pitchers who are a little on the shorter side, and Ventura is just 6-foot-0. Sure, the homer rate will likely come down, but even if you want to grade his opening five weeks by FIP, not traditional ERA, we’re looking at 4.71. Last year’s FIP of 3.60 seems like a reasonable place to center your expectations.

$7 Alex Wood
$7 Drew Pomeranz
$7 Jimmy Nelson
$7 Jose Quintana
$7 Rick Porcello
$7 Jason Hammel
$6 C.J. Wilson
$6 Danny Duffy
$6 Phil Hughes
$5 Aaron Sanchez
$5 Chris Heston
$5 Clay Buchholz
$5 J.A. Happ
$5 Chase Anderson
$5 Dan Haren
$5 Anthony DeSclafani
$4 Aaron Harang
$4 Chris Tillman
$4 Drew Hutchison
$4 Edinson Volquez
$4 Hector Santiago
$4 Kyle Gibson
$4 Mat Latos
$4 Tim Lincecum

Happ now has 32 strikeouts against just eight walks, and he’s allowed just six runs in his three home turns. The division is less threatening than it used to be, now that Texas is close to a neutral ballpark . . . Life in the NL Central seems to be agreeing with Hammel again, so maybe we can pretend the Oakland interlude never happened . . . For more Buchholz propaganda, I direct you to my good friend Michael Salfino.

$3 Alex Colome
$3 James Paxton
$3 Jered Weaver
$2 Alfredo Simon
$2 Carlos Frias
$2 Jarred Cosart
$2 Jesse Chavez
$2 Kyle Hendricks
$2 Marco Gonzales
$2 Matt Garza
$2 Mike Pelfrey
$2 Nathan Karns
$2 Nick Martinez
$2 Taijuan Walker
$2 Ubaldo Jimenez
$2 Vance Worley
$1 Tom Koehler
$1 Chris Young
$1 Kyle Lohse
$1 Miguel Gonzalez
$1 Nathan Eovaldi
$1 R.A. Dickey
$1 Rubby De La Rosa
$1 Tim Hudson
$1 Travis Wood
$1 Wily Peralta
$0 Bud Norris
$0 Colby Lewis
$0 Jonathon Niese
$0 Shane Greene
$0 Wei-Yin Chen
-$1 CC Sabathia
-$1 Yovani Gallardo

Courtesy Injury Ranks
$10 *Jose Fernandez
$6 *Drew Smyly
$6 *Hisashi Iwakuma
$6 *Justin Verlander
$5 *Brandon Morrow
$4 *Archie Bradley
$4 *Hyun-Jin Ryu
$3 *Masahiro Tanaka
$2 *Matt Cain