If you like what you’re reading then you will like my 2015 Fantasy Baseball Guide! Last year’s fantasy guide was more than 150,000 words and had 440 player profiles (of hitters and pitchers). My approach to player evaluation is to ask questions about what the player has done in the past and what he may do in the future. I certainly provide a narrative on how I feel a player will perform, but I also ask a lot of open ended questions that I hope will get you thinking about the information I’ve provided.

Before you think about Johnny Cueto in your top 10 do not forget about the three separate times he went on the DL for the same injury in 2013. After coming off the DL for the last time he changed his delivery and used the same new delivery in 2014 and was healthy the entire season. Even though he may have a higher injury risk than other pitchers he’s still one of the best pitchers when healthy.

Since 2011 he has a 2.48 ERA with a 1.07 WHIP, 20.8% strikeout rate, .264 BABIP, 8.6% HR/FB rate and 79.6% LOB%. Last year he was extremely lucky with the BABIP and LOB% (.238 and 82.5% respectively) so regression should occur. Also, what’s troubling was his ground ball rate was the lowest its been since 2010. The reason why the ground ball rate has decreased is because he’s not throwing the slider nearly as much and has opted to throw a cutter (image below from BrooksBaseball.net).

The usage of the cutter is likely to remain consistent which means I do not expect the ground ball rate to increase back to pre-2013 levels. The positive side of using the cutter more is it misses a lot of bats. In the last two seasons the cutter has a 24% strikeout rate.

Overall, I expect Cueto’s 2014 numbers to regress, but not as much as you might think. I still believe he’ll have a sub-3.00 ERA with the same strikeout rate. I’m projecting him to make 25 starts because of the injury risk. Its important to note that when you calculate your rankings and/or dollar values for each player that you add 5-7 additional starts to your estimated statistics from a replacement level pitcher that’s likely to be available in your league format. If you play in a shallow format Cueto’s value gets an uptick because there is going to be a big pool of streamable pitchers available on the waiver wire.

My 2015 projection for Cueto is 160 IP, 2.80 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 163 Ks and 10 wins.