In this viz Al Melchior tackles the age old question of "who should I start in my fantasy league?" By performing some sabermetrical Jiu-Jitsu, Al's viz recommends who you should start (Josh Becket) and who you should use to keep the bench warm (Scott Baker).
About this Viz
xFIP is an experimental stat that tries to predict how well pitchers will do in the future. It looks at the things that pitchers are 100 percent responsible for (home runs, walks and strikeouts -- not hits or total runs) and then normalizes the home runs by a pitcher's fly ball rate. When you compare this to current ERA, you can tell who has been unlucky (perhaps giving up lots of seeing-eye hits) and who has been lucky (helped by great fielding). This assumes that defense will even out over the long haul so it therefore makes sense to start pitchers with high ERAs compared to their xFIPs.
