Fantasy baseball: Starting pitcher Circle of Trust

If you’ve seen The Odyssey, then you know there’s a new Meet the Parents coming out. (Or maybe you know by some other means, but I’m a simple man who only learns of coming attractions passively.) Along with the usual suspects, it stars Ariana Grande, who I think is going to be harder to make the butt of the joke than Ben Stiller was, but that’s neither here nor there.

The point is that the trailer reintroduces the Circle of Trust contrivance that fueled so much of the hilarity of the first three films. (Or the hilarity of the first, anyway. I never got around to seeing the others.) Today, then, seems like a fine time for me to reintroduce it to my pitching analysis as well.

OK, so my circle is more malleable than Jack’s. It has to be when it comes to starting pitchers, who are constantly making and breaking trust as the ultimate chaos agents of our preferred sport. It’s not their fault, really. Just the nature of the job.

This late in the season, the rosterability of most starting pitchers is well established, but trustworthiness is still up for grabs. It’s a measure that relies less on objectivity than feel, but the gist would be how confident I am inserting said pitcher into my lineup in a given week. Or not so much how confident but am I confident? Is he in the Circle of Trust?

Here are my thoughts on a few of the latest headline-grabbers. Note that those in the Circle of Trust aren’t inherently more valuable than those out of it, but I do have a better idea what to expect from them.