Google

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Fantasy "Real Deal" Pitchers for 2011

As the 2010 fantasy baseball season er "real" baseball season winds to a close there are a couple of things I wanted to get down to kind of be ready for the draft next season. Basically I don't care for Yahoo! rankings of players and I think their system is seriously messed up when it comes to pitchers. According to the old Y! there are 30 starters and 12 relievers that are in the top 100, but when you start looking at who can give you more in a head-to-head one-week-battle pitchers offer far less than there positional counter parts who on a good week can contribute in 5 categories on 6 days. For starting pitchers you get a max of 4 categories and usually only 1 start per week, although sometimes you get the magic 2 start week (rarely), but you can also get really hosed before and after the all-star break. For these reasons I don't feel any of the top 50 picks should go to pitchers and as I have stated before I won't risk a 4th rounder on a starter again, but should any of the following 10 guys show up around the 50th pick or so they are definitely worth a look as I would consider them proven "real deal" pitchers for the upcoming year. You know, baring injury or trades and stuff in the off season. These are in no particular order.

King Felix Hernandez - I didn't realize how good this guy was but he is way up there in innings (which actually could be a liability for next season), K's, and his ERA and WHIP are pretty stellar. Wins are a little harder to come by in Seattle.

Cliff Lee - Yeah former Cy Young winner innings eater and future pin stripe wearer (most likely), still one of the top guy and worth it if he falls to 50 or so. Lefties aren't a bad choice in NY.

CC Sabathia - Yeah former Cy Young winner innings eater and present pin stripe wearer (unfortunately), still one of the top guy and worth it if he falls to 50 or so. Lefties aren't a bad choice in NY.

David Price - Lefties that can throw high 90's wins 18, K 180 plus and have an ERA less than 3.00 in the AL East are pretty nice. Well worth a 5th or 6th round pick.

Jon Lester - Lefties that can throw high 90's wins 19, K 220 plus and have an ERA less than 3.00 in the AL East are pretty nice. Well worth a 5th or 6th round pick. At first I wasn't sure of how good this guy was, I mean he was a nice story about coming back from cancer, but this guy is a top 5 pitching talent. Definitely the Real Deal.

Roy Halladay - 200+ innings - 20 wins, 200+ K's, ERA of around 2.50 and a WHIP under 1.10. And he pitched a perfecto this year. Two Words - Real Deal.

Josh Johnson - Over 1k per inning and he pitched over 180 innings . . . before September. Which is a little cause for concern next season that he didn't pitch an entire month, but he was by far one of the best pitchers April - August. Hopefully his stock drops because without even playing month he is still in the top 30 according to Y!.

The Cardinal Tandem of Wainwright and Carpenter - Wainwright is the top rated Y! pitcher of the season 20/213 K's/2.42/1.05, just slightly ahead of Roy. Carpenter checks in around 15/175/3.42/1.20.

Tim Lincecum - He was a little off this year and well under performed his preseason Y! rank of 9, but he is a former Cy Young winner and I look for him to bounce back. He is probably at the bottom of my list and he checks in with 15 W's/220 K's/3.51/1.27. The last two categories are a little high, and that is what will get you in fantasy head-to-head, not worth a top 6 pick in my opinion, but someone will take him.

I figure a couple of these guys will be around after the fifth round as Yahoo! is sure to screw up the preseason rankings, and when they are I might even draft one. . . might.

No comments: