Player Profile: Edinson Volquez

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” That’s a quote from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It’s not exactly applicable to Edinson Volquez the last two years but it’s a strong point that I can use for illustrative purposes. Coming off the worst season of his career (5-7, 5.71 ERA, 1.57 WHIP an a PED suspension), Volquez rebounded for a solid campaign in his first year with the Padres last year giving hope that perhaps a return to his former glory could be in the offing (it wasn’t the “best of times” though as Volquez best season was 2008 when he went 17-8 with a 3.21 ERA, 1.33 WHIP and 206 Ks in 196 IP).

For his career, this is what we know with Volquez.

(1) He throws hard. His average fastball has traveled at least 93.6 mph in every one of his eight seasons.

(2) His heater allows him to strike a lot of batters out. For his career he’s punched out 653 batters in 679.2 innings, a rate of 8.65 K’s per nine innings. Since his career began in 2005 he ranks 12th among pitchers in K/9 (minimum 675 IP). That’s pretty impressive, no?

(3) He often has no control over his heater. I’m talking that you could crouch behind home plate without a glove and not have to worry about getting hit by a pitch at times. For his career his 4.93 BB/9 is atrocious and only worsened by the fact that he’s actually pulled off an amazing feat – he’s walked at least five batters per nine innings each of the past four years. Among hurlers who have thrown 675 innings since the start of 2005 he is the fourth worst hurler at throwing strikes. Here is the trio of deadbeat arms who have been worse in the BB/9 column: Oliver Perez (5.34), Daniel Cabrera (5.21) and Jonathan Sanchez (5.00). It’s pretty amazing that he’s continued to regularly get the ball given his lack of strike throwing, but just like the others on the list, managers see the talent and the dominating stuff and are willing to overlook some of the deficiencies at times.

(4) He’s displayed a very intriguing trend of increasing ground ball rates. When a player does this once, you take note. When he does it twice you’re intrigued. When he does it three times… sign me up. Volquez had never posted a ground ball rate over 46.3 percent his first five seasons in the big leagues, but the last three years that number has been 50.6 percent or higher. As a result of all those ground balls Volquez has posted a GB/FB ratio of 1.75, 1.75 and 1.79 the past three seasons. As I continue note, a player who generates strikeouts and ground outs is the number one arm type to target on draft day, and it’s also the type of arm that teams try to build their pitching staffs around (now you know why teams continually give Volquez the ball despite all the walks). To that end, have you ever watched Volquez pitch? There are times where batters simply have no chance to put the barrel on the ball. None. There are times where his fastball is darting and diving so much that he has no idea where it is going, the batter has no idea, and neither does the catcher. However, when he’s “locked in” batters have no chance. Unfortunately, he has trouble staying locked in for six consecutive innings so there is always some point in every start he makes where it could go horribly wrong for him.

In a vacuum there is an awful lot to like here. In addition to the strikeouts and the grounders, Volquez pitches his home games in Petco Park in San Diego. When he does make a mistake up in the zone he’s more than likely going to be able to avoid allowing a long ball because his ball yard isn’t going to hurt him (even with the fences being moved in a bit this season). He also pitches in the NL West where parks in San Francisco and Los Angeles are also pitcher friendly. Everything would be peachy if not for his propensity to dish out free passes. Given a run of 4-straight years of at least five walks per nine innings there really is no hope for a change. As crazy as it sounds, if he were to to walk “only” 4.05 batters per nine, a full batter above the league average in 2012, his prospects would improve greatly. Alas, you can’t expect that to happen so Volquez remains a highly intriguing reserve round add that you just hope somehow locks it in for the duration of a season, however unlikely such a prospect might be.

By Ray Flowers

Daily Joust – Wk 11: Did We Learn Anything?

On Monday each week I take a look at the fantasy baseball game breaking down players who have produced noteworthy performances of late – not just positive outings mind you, but I’ll also delve into some of the players that have been sucking wind of late.
To get your daily fantasy baseball fix make sure you head over to DailyJoust.com to set your salary cap club.

GAINERS OF THE WEEK

Jake Arrieta (+43, $212,000 in DailyJoust Salary)
Arrieta dominated the Pirates in his last outing (1 ER in 7 IP) reminding everyone just how good he can be. Of course, the previous start his evil twin came out as he allowed 11 hits and nine runs in just four innings against the Phillies. He pitches in the toughest division in baseball (AL East), and consistency has always eluded him, but this is a young fella that does own a big arm (8.33 K/9, 3.13 K/BB this season).

Craig Gentry (+14, $91K)
Josh Hamilton is dealing with a nasty flu bug, and Nelson Cruz is seemingly always hurt somewhere, so Gentry has been generating a lot of excitement offensively this season in limited playing time. Craig has hit an uber impressive .349 while stealing nine bags in just 109 at-bats, and he has been raking it the past two weeks hitting .484 over his last 31 at-bats. Leonys Martin was called up which could eat into the playing time of Gentry, but he still makes a fine AL-only target.

Mike Minor (+30, $238K)
He’s finally found his game. In his last two starts Minor has allowed a total of two runs to drop his ERA by nearly a run to 6.01. Still, he walked six batters in those two outings signaling that everything isn’t totally “fixed” with his game. His skills far outpace that ERA and his WHIP (1.42) so buying low here certainly makes sense as the Braves have decided to return Kris Medlen to the pen to allow Minor and Randall Delgado to continue to start.

Alexei Ramirez (+17, $77K)
You’re killing me smalls. After improving to .245 with 18 RBI in May, June has been more of the same blah for Alexei as he has hit .212 with a .462 OPS in 52 at-bats. The only thing keeping him in the lineup at this point is his history of success cause he certainly hasn’t merited full time at-bats given his sickly .527 OPS through 64 games.

Jonathan Sanchez ($37, $207K)
A 2-start pitcher this week (HOU, STL) the enigma that is Sanchez continues to vex. In his return from injury he held the Brewers to one run in five innings and walking two batters has to been as an improvement for a guy who has issued 24 free passes in 30.1 innings. He’s not to the point where you can trust him – obviously – but if he goes out and looks solid this week it would be a great time to pounce.

LOSERS OF THE WEEK

Jose Altuve (-11, $91K)
After hitting .283 in May he’s upped that mark back to .317 in June, which just so happens to match his year mark. His speed is allowing him to leg out a few more hits than I expected, but it’s a long season. Given that he’s no power hitter, and that he doesn’t really draw walks either, he’s going to have to keep that average up or he’ll also see his steal total fall do to a lack of times on base to attempt a theft (his OBP is just .359 despite that .317 batting average).

Jose Bautista (-16, $118K)
Flashing the power bat that has produced 40 homers, 100 RBI and 100 runs the past two years, Bautista is on pace to reach all of those marks yet again in 2012 (19 homers, 47 RBI, 42 runs scored in 66 games). However, like I’ve said about 97 times over the past two years, Bautista is NOT a .300 hitter, not even close. Batting .230 on the year, I’ll write it again – in a career that began in 2004 Jose Bautista has finished a season with a batting average over .265 one time – once. It’s an open question if he will make it two times this year.

J.A. Happ (-38, $155K)
Bombed in his last start (8 ER in 3.1 innings against Giants), Happ is sporting a 5.33 ERA and 1.60 WHIP. Consider me shocked (if you could see my face right now you’d understand that I’m not shocked in the least – the guy just isn’t that good a pitcher). NL-only leaguers have had the benefit of Happ’s 76 KS in 72.2 innings, but even in that setup you’re paying a high price for some punchouts (as you can tell over at Fleaflicker, most people are doing the right thing an avoiding Happ).

Derek Lowe (-16, $181K)
If you had said back in March that on June 19th Lowe would have seven victories an a 3.78 ERA I’d have said he would have exceeded all expectations. However, he’s seen his ERA go from 2.15 to that 3.78 mark in his last four outings, though that could hardly be a shock for a guy who has only two more Ks than walks (28 Ks, 26 BBs) in 78.2 innings. Lowe is a middling innings eater who should only be used in certain matchups — and that K-rate is vomit inducing at 3.20 per nine.

DAILY CONTEST

Today you can sign up for the King Arthur’s $50 Free Roll on DailyJoust. No entry free is required to get a chance to play the game and earn your free chance to take home part of the $50 prize pool. All games that start at 7:05 PM EDT or later are open to add players to your daily fantasy baseball squad. So get over to DailyJoust, put together your one day lineup, and get ready to win some free $.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: May30, 2012

(1) Andre Ethier making big push for his payday this offseason.

(2) Roy Halladay out for 6-8 weeks with shoulder injury. Is he done being an elite arm?

(3) Jered Weaver placed on DL with back issue. Believed to be minor.

(4) Roy Oswalt signs with Rangers, about four weeks away.

(5) Jonathan Sanchez still working his way back from biceps issue.

(7) Brandon McCarthy good to go Saturday for A’s.

(8) Injured outfielders close to returning -  Yoenis Cespedes, Cameron Maybin, Michael Morse, Desmond Jennings and Nick Markakis.

You can also follow my work over at Sulia.com where I randomly post some of my thoughts through the day.

By Ray Flowers

The Fantasy Beat: Players Switching Leagues

Justin Fensterman and Trevor Ray talk about the new players to the AL. Whether they are new to the AL coming from the NL or whether they are rookies, every year AL-Only Keepers leagues are stuck with the tough decisions in ranking the new additions.

Listen to the Audio.

How are these players being valued? Check out what Fleaflicker thinks.

Giants, Royals Deal

The Giants added a bat, something everyone knows that they need, while dealing away a problem child who might have had the best arm on the team. The Giants also managed to do something that I always tell people not to do in the fantasy game. What boner did they pull? The sold low and bought high. Maybe they should spend some more time reading my stuff.

The Deal:
Giants Receive: Melky Cabrera
Royal Receive: Jonathan Sanchez and Ryan Verdugo

Cabrera had the best season of a rather undistinguished career in 2011 as he hit .305 with 18 homers, 20 steals, 87 RBI and 102 runs scored. He also racked up 201 hits to impress everyone. However, this is what I see. Cabrera had success because of the copious plate appearance total. I mean, he had 706 of them (the 11th most in baseball). As a result, he was able to post career bests in RBI, runs, hits, doubles (44), homers etc. In terms of his ratios, his BB-rate of 5.0 percent was a career worst. His K-rate of 13.3 percent was a career worst. His .339 OBP was only .008 better than his career rate. His 1.44 GB/FB ratio was just off his career mark of 1.52. His line drive rate of 20.3 percent was only slightly above his 19.4 percent career mark. He also posted a career-high of .332 in the BABIP category, .033 points better than his career average and the first time he had a mark in the .300′s since 2006. It was a strong year in terms of his fantasy value, but in terms of his real world performance his success was largely a factor of those 706 PAs and not because of growth in his game.

Sanchez was a strong performer in 2010 when he went 13-9 with a 3.07 ERA, 1.23 WHIP and 205 Ks in 193.1 innings. Last season he regressed. Not only was he limited to just 101.1 innings with issues with his elbow, he also saw his K/9 mark go down half a batter (it was still an impressive 9.06), while his terrible BB/9 rate (4.47 in 2010) shot up well past pathetic into the realm of atrocious (5.86). So instead of trading him coming off his best season, the Giants held on and ended up having top deal him at his lowest point in four years. Great move guys. Sanchez still owns dominating stuff, but until he does a better job of throwing strikes it just won’t matter. If he were able to get his walk rate under control, and to this point the best BB/9 mark he’s ever had is 4.27 in 2008 – a full batter above the big league average mind you – Sanchez would be one of the better left-handed starting pitchers in baseball. Unfortunately, he’s shown little consistency in his career and the results are a mediocre WHIP (1.39) and ERA (4.26). At this point he’s mostly potential and little substance.

Verdugo is a left-handed starter much in the same mold as Sanchez. He throws hard, his K/9 mark is in the double digits during his minor league career (11.1), but he’s also walking far too many batters leading to 4.5 BB/9 mark. When he’s locked in few can hit him, but far too often he ends up beating himself. He’s not a lock to contribute with the Royals this season either as he has thrown just 130.1 innings at the Double-A level.

If everything comes together for Sanchez the Giants will rue the day they made this deal. It will also end up looking bad if they (a) fail to sign Cabrera to a long term deal (he’s a free agent after the 2012 season), or (b) if Cabrera returns to being the hitter he was for his entire career prior to 2011. As stated, much of what Cabrera accomplished in 2011 was the result, NOT of improvements in his game, but because of all those extra plate appearances an a rather fortuitous BABIP mark. The data seem to favor a regression in the batting average (career .275), in the homer category (he’d never hit more than 17 homers in back-to-back seasons before hitting 18 in 2011), and in the steals department for Melky (he’d never stolen more than 13 bags in a season, and with 10 caught stealing last year in 30 attempts he really didn’t add anything to the offense). The Giants needed a bat and Cabrera fills that need, but let’s hope the Giants realize that they would be lucky to get a repeat effort out of Cabrera in 2012 so they still have a lot of work to do to bolster an offense that was the club’s undoing in 2011.

Final Notes

The Giants’ outfield might be Cabrera in center, Nate Schierholtz in right and ??? They could be interested in bringing back Carlos Beltran and/or Andres Torres/Cody Ross, but for now the look of the outfield is one of a second division club. If it’s Aubrey Huff in left and Brandon Belt at first base, would that make you feel any better? Me neither.

Lorenzo Cain will likely open the 2012 season as the Royals starting center fielder. After hitting .312 with 16 homers, 81 RBI, 84 runs and 16 steals at Triple-A in 2011, he’s someone to remember in the later rounds of mixed league drafts – he’s got the skills to offer a substantial season in 2012.

By Ray Flowers

2011 Pitching Review: Starters – Misses

In my last column I broke down my greatest “hits” of starting pitchers, those that I identified and suggested you add to your stable of hurlers for the 2011 season who succeeded. Today I’ll ding myself by pointing out the hurlers that failed to deliver based on my personal expectations.

For the “hits” see PART I.

NOTE: Please remember that while some of these “calls” seem obvious, they really weren’t back in March of 2011.

MISSES

Josh Johnson (#8): Shoulder woes limited Johnson to just nine starts and 60.1 innings in 2011. He was spectacular when on the hill with a 1.64 ERA and 0.98 WHIP, not to mention 56 Ks in 60.1 innings, but his future is cloudy as he simply cannot be counted on to take the hill every five games.

Roy Oswalt (#13): Back woes limited him to his worst season, possibly ever. He won only nine games against 10 loses, lasted just 139 innings (his lowest total since 2003), and saw his K/9 dip to 6.02 (the worst mark of his career). He wasn’t horrible with a 3.69 ERA and 1.34 WHIP, but he was drafted to be a strong #2 hurler, not a depth play.

Chad Billingsley (#18): It’s time to give up on him becoming an elite pitcher, but he should still be better than he was this season. Chad produced a five year low with 11 victories, a career worst 4.21 ERA, a 5-year worst in K/9 (7.28) and a 5-year high in BB/9 (4.02). Simply put, he wasn’t very good, but he’s still only 27 years old and did toss 188 innings, his fourth straight year hitting that mark.

Francisco Liriano (#23): He will never be the pitcher he was before he blew his arm out, so put that thought out of your head as he’s lost three mph off his fastball since his heyday. As a result, his K/9 fell a batter and a half from his career rate, down to 7.50 per nine, and he was simply dreadful at throwing strikes walking 5.02 batters per nine innings. That’s just shameful.

Ryan Dempster (#25): The good – he threw more than 200 innings with at least 170 K’s for a fourth straight season. The bad – his ERA was awful at 4.80 and his WHIP wasn’t much better at 1.45. A lot of that has to do with his horrible start to the year, though his 3.70 xFIP was actually right in line with his previous three seasons (3.69, 3.76 and 3.74). He wasn’t as bad as he appeared to be.

Ricky Nolasco (#29): I give up. The guy has tantalizing skills including 4-straight years with a K/BB ratio of at least 3.36, and his xFIP keeps saying that his ERA should be well below where it always is (5.06, 4.51 and 4.67 the last three years). I’m still gonna draft him late in 2012, but only at a point where I know he’ll give me value versus at a level that I hope he will be able to live up to.

Brett Anderson (#30): Couldn’t help this one as there was no way to predict that he would need Tommy John surgery in July. He ended the year 3-6 with a 4.00 ERA and 1.33 WHIP over 13 starts.

Jonathan Sanchez (#31): He still owns hellacious stuff, see his 9.06 K/9 mark, but he rarely seems to know where it is going (see his ghastly 5.86 BB/9 mark). It’s as simple as this; until he starts throwing strikes he’s simply not someone that you can trust, at all.

John Lackey (#42): Seems like everything that could go wrong with the Boston righty did in 2011. He won 12 games, his 9th straight season of double-digits, but he threw a nine year low of 160 innings. The Sox may not have been complaining though given his 6.41 ERA and 1.62 WHIP. Amazingly, his K/9 has gone down each of the last six years while his BB/9 has gone up each of the last four.

Ian Kennedy (#55): No one predicted this effort. I’ll tip my hat to the guy as he went 21-4 with a 2.88 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 198 Ks. I don’t think he has a chance in hell of repeating that effort, but he was dynamite in 2011.

Jake Peavy (#56): I thought putting him in the second half of the top-100 was being fair. Turns out, it wasn’t. Peavy only lasted 111.2 innings, posted an abysmal 4.92 ERA, and he has serious questions about whether or not he will ever be able to even take the ball 30 times a year again.

Michael Pineda (#95): Here is my quote, and my reasoning as to why he was so low in my original rankings. “I’d be surprised if he was up before June, but he will be a strikeout force when the Mariners finally turn to him.” I totally missed the time line which is why my ranking of him was so off.

By Ray Flowers

Around the Diamond

photo © 2009 Keith Allison | more info (via: Wylio)

One guy is trying to make history while a former all-star is just trying to stay in the lineup. Another all-star could be headed to the DL, someone can’t figure out how to manage his weight properly and there are some white hot players the last two weeks that deserve a mention.

Asdrubal Cabrera has been the second most valuable shortstop in the game behind only Jose Reyes. Cabrera is on pace to hit .302 with 32 homers, 113 RBI, 108 runs and 18 steals. There is only one shortstop in the history of the game to produce a season as good as that in all five categories, and that is Alex Rodriguez who did it twice. Obviously history doesn’t bode well for Cabrera being able to keep up this pace, nor does a review of his previous levels of production. Consider his homer and RBI totals each year of his career (all levels for each season).

2006: 4 homers, 36 RBI
2007: 11-79
2008: 10-60
2009: 6-68
2010: 4-32

I don’t have any idea how you go from that to 30-100, do you?

I saw X-Men First Class last night. A really good flick, even for those of you who don’t have an affinity for superhero movies. I also learned that January Jones ain’t a bad looking lady at all. Where have I been on that one?

In one of the more vexing cases this season, Jason Bay is hitting .207 with two homers over 164 plate appearances thanks to a recent run of 23 hitless at-bats. Bay has hit at least 21 homers with 84 RBI and 78 runs scored in each of his five big league seasons of at least 145 games played. Moreover, in four of those seasons he hit at least 30 homers with 100 RBI and 100 runs scored. At just 32 years old his struggles this year are befuddling to say the least. The guy has been flat out awful since joining the Mets hitting .244 with eight homers, 57 RBI and 68 runs scored in 134 games with the club.

Dustin Pedroia might need surgery on his right knee that could reportedly keep him out for four or more weeks. A career .299 hitter, Pedroia is struggling along at .247 and has looked little like the player we expect at the dish. Oddly though, he’s on pace for a career best steal total, he already has 13 (career best 20), despite the knee issue and the surgery he had on his foot last year.

Did you see the ridiculous story that Francisco Rodriguez lost 15 lbs over the last week after having two teeth removed? Even crazier than that is the ludicrous notion espoused by K-Rod that he was unaware that he lost the weight. Those two points lead me to two points. (1) Don’t they have milkshakes in New York? It’s completely asinine to suggest that K-Rod couldn’t keep his weight on cause he had teeth removed. You don’t have to eat steak to keep your weight up, especially when you have access to the elite in the medical profession to help to guide you in how  to keep the weight on. (2) How fat is K-Rod if he didn’t notice that he lost 15 lbs? If I gain or lose five pounds my clothes don’t fit.

Only two lefties are in the top-25 in terms of batting average against versus right-handed batters since the start of 2009. They both pitch in the NL. They both are in the NL West. They are Clayton Kershaw and Jonathan Sanchez. For those of you with a curious bent, Kershaw is 9th on the list while the Giants lefty is one spot ahead of him in 8th.

The last two weeks…

Michael Bourn has eight steals.

Nelson Cruz has blasted six dingers leading to 13 RBI and 11 runs.

Kelly Johnson has six homers, 11 RBI and 13 runs scored.

Andrew McCutchen is hitting .417 with 10 RBI, 12 runs and four steals.

Mitch Moreland is hitting .405 with three homers.

Daniel Murphy is hitting .467.

Miguel Olivo has 15 RBI, one more than the 14 of Carl Crawford.

David Ortiz is hitting .405 with five homers, 11 RBI and 12 runs.

Corey Patterson is hitting .356 with three homers/steals and 13 runs scored.

By Ray Flowers

Hot Stove: Holiday Dealings

Less than a week away from Christmas, plenty of teams are more than willing to open their gifts early. In what follows I’ll touch on a few of the players who have recently decided where they should send their holiday greetings from.

Rick Ankiel: The Nationals took a chance on Monday and signed Rick Ankiel to a 1-year deal worth $1.5 million (there are performance bonuses built in to the deal – reportedly up to $1.25 million). Ankiel will likely battle with Roger Bernadina for playing time in left field, though if Nyjer Morgan doesn’t turn his life around and perform better on the field, the defensively gifted Ankiel could also see time in center field. Ankiel hit .264 with 25 homers in 2008, but over the past two years he has batted a meager .232 with 17 homers. There are plenty of holes in his swing leading to a bushel of strikeouts (once every 3.69 at-bats), but the power is legit. Ankiel has hit a homer every 22.8 at-bats in his career which would equate to 18 homers over the course of 400 at-bats. He’s worth keeping a close eye on in NL-only leagues.

Zack Greinke: I always do what I can to mooch off Ted Carlson, he’s a smart guy and a wonderful writer, so I’m gonna point everyone to his full review of the Greinke to Brewers move in From Blue to Brew. My thoughts? Good for the Brewers. They can now team Greinke with Yovani Gallardo and Shaun Marcum for a fantastic top-3 that rivals the best in the NL. I know I’m gonna hear it from Phillies and Giants fans, so let’s do a side by side comparison of each teams top-3 hurlers based on their 2010 numbers.

Brewers: Zack Greinke, Yovani Gallardo, Shaun Marcum
Phillies: Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt (sorry Cole Hamels)
Giants: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez

Brewers: 37-29, 3.90 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 8.19 K/9 in 600.1 IP
Phillies: 46-32, 3.04 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 7.96 K/9 in 674.2 IP
Giants: 42-30, 3.22 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 8.77 K/9 in 629 IP

OK, maybe the Brewers threesome didn’t quite matchup, but admit it, it’s a lot closer than you though it would be other than that unsightly ERA, isn’t it?

Austin Kearns: Signed a 1-year deal with the Indians. I joked earlier at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account that Kearns seems to always fool someone into given him 300 at-bats. Looks like it will be the Indians chance this season. I’m not going to deny that Kearns has some talent, but com on now. He is always hurt and frequently doesn’t contribute much of anything above a replacement level type bat, a fact that can clearly be seen when you place his career slash line (.257/.353/.423) against that of the league during his career (.268/.339/.429).

Ricky Nolasco: The Marlins and Nolasco finally agreed on a deal that will buy out his final two years of arbitration and his first year of free agency. His haul comes to $26.5 million over three years. While that seems like a whole lot of cashola for a guy who has posted ERA’s of 5.06 and 4.51 the past two years, I think it’s a great signing for the Marlins. Some facts that cover the last three years (minimum 480 innings pitched).

(1) Nolasco has allowed 10.99 base runners per nine innings, the 16th best mark in baseball and ahead of guys like Matt Cain (11.07), Jon Danks (11.36), Justin Verlander (11.51) and Clayton Kershaw (11.57).

(2) Nolasco has the seventh best K/9 rate in the game at 8.56, better than Dan Haren (8.53), Josh Johnson (8.51), Zack Greinke (8.37) and Ubaldo Jimenez (8.23).

(3) Nolasco is fourth in baseball with a 4.44 K/BB mark. The major league average the past three years is just 2.07.

So how in the world does he have a 4.31 ERA the past three years? Great question, especially when his FIP mark has been 3.77, 3.35 and 3.86 the past three seasons signifying that he is indeed performing at a very high level. Bad luck maybe?

I’ll tell you this. If you asked me where would I draft a guy with a K/9 rate over 8.50 and a K/BB rate of nearly 4.50, I would tell you top-20 amongst starters for sure. In fact, I’d probably be able to make an argument for at least including that arm in my top-15, and that’s exactly why I think the Marlins did so well here – there just aren’t that many pitchers in baseball of baseball who can post a K/9 mark of 8.50 and a K/BB rate of better than 4.40 to one. In fact, over the last three years there have only been two men who have accomplished that feat – Mr. Nolasco and Mr. Haren.

Chan Ho Park: The 37 year old righty is likely done as a big league pitcher after signing a deal with the Orix Buffaloes of Japan. Park, who once allowed two grand slams to Fernando Tatis in one inning (April 23, 1999), would retire from the big leagues with 124 victories and 1,715 strikeouts in just under 2,000 innings (1993). Hopefully he will be content pitching closer to his homeland of Korea.

By Ray Flowers

NL Cy and an Import

NL Cy Young Controversy?

I just don’t get it sometimes. It could be the booze or it could be the fact that I’m usually only half paying attention when I write given that I have about 867 tasks a day to complete, but how in the world did the Baseball Writers Association of America name Roy Halladay the unanimous Cy Young Award winner in the NL? I admit it, I selected Halladay as my winner in the piece Who is the NL Cy Young?, but as I pointed out in that piece, Halladay’s numbers were almost matched by the Cardinals ‘Adam Wainwright. Check it out (you can access all the numbers by clicking on the link to the original piece).

Halladay had one more win than Wainwright.
Halladay’s ERA was 0.02 worse than Wainwright.
Halladay’s WHIP was 0.01 better than Wainwright.
Halladay struck out fewer batters per nine than Wainwright.
Halladay allowed more homers per nine than Wainwright.
Halladay was only 0.04 better than Wainwright in GB/FB ratio.
Halladay basically doubled Wainwright in K/BB.

I don’t know about you, but those numbers just don’t scream out unanimous selection. Like I wrote Halladay was still my choice to win the award, but I’m just shocked that no one gave a first place nod to Wainwright.

Three other notes that are everywhere but needs to be mentioned nonetheless. (1) Halladay became the 5th pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both leagues as he joins Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Gaylord Perry. (2) Halladay became the 7th Phillie to win the award. (3) Halladay was just the 13th unanimous choice in the NL.

Oh, and before moving on, here is an interesting note for the bridesmaid, Mr. Wainwright. Since he finished second in the Cy Young voting, his options for 2012 and 2013 will become automatically activated – as long as he doesn’t finish the 2011 season on the DL. If he can just stay healthy he will be guaranteed $9 million in ’12 and $12 million in ’13 – plus be eligible for bonuses based on his Cy Young finishes.

Kuroda Re-Signs with Dodgers

Hiroki Kuroda decided to remain with the Dodgers for at least one more season after signing a 1-year, $12 million deal (rumors are that he might return to Japan for the 2012 season which is why he signed for only one year). I find that number off since Kuroda made $13 million last season and because of the fact that Ted Lilly, also of the Dodgers, recently signed a 3-year, $33 million deal. I will say this, the 35 year old Kuroda pitched very well last season. Sure he went only 11-13, but the numbers were mighty impressive.

His 3.39 ERA was better than the 3.43 mark of Tim Lincecum.

His 196.1 innings were more than Wandy Rodriguez, Ted Lilly, Chad Billingsley and Jonathan Sanchez to name but a few.

His 1.16 WHIP was better than Clayton Kershaw (1.18), Johan Santana (1.18) and Chris Carpenter (1.18) to name but a few.

His .243 BAA was better than Ryan Dempster (.244), Roy Halladay (.245) and Brett Myers (.248) to name but a few.

Face it, Kuroda is a solid pitcher who has shown no sign of decline as he hits his mid 30′s (for one, his K/9 rate was a career best at 7.29, well above his 6.56 career mark), even if his career record of 28-30 would lead you to another conclusion.

By Ray Flowers

Top-20 SPs: Latos and Jimenez?

With the 2010 season complete now that the San Francisco Giants are having their victory parade down Market St. (they are taking the same route the organization took in 1958 when the team arrived from New York), it’s time to start looking ahead to 2011. To that end, Ted Carlson asked the baseball staff at Fanball to give their early thoughts on the top-20 hurlers for 2011 (you can read the results at Top-20 Starting Pitchers for 2011). In that piece, Ted called me out for not having Mat Latos in the top-20, and for dropping Ubaldo Jimenez to 15th (no one else had Ubaldo lower than 10th). So let me get to defending myself (to be fair, Ted had Latos at 20 and he was the lowest of the five voters placing Jimenez at 10, so we actually weren’t that different with our views of the two hurlers).

MAT LATOS

Latos had a wonderful 2010 season, his first full year in the big leagues (more on that in a moment). Latos was:

10th in the NL in ERA (2.92)
6th in WHIP (1.08)
5th in BAA (.221)
11th in Ks (189)

Given those numbers you could, rather easily, make a case for Latos being in the top-20 starting pitchers for 2011. Why didn’t I include him?

(1) I went with Yovani Gallardo (#14) and Jonathan Sanchez (20) in the group – only one other voter included either arm – so someone had to be left out.

(2) Latos was great at home (2.45 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, .193 BAA), but only good on the road (3.58 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, .248 BAA). He’ll continue to toss his home games in a great pitcher’s park, but the home/road splits are something to monitor.

(3) My biggest concern is his late season failure, and that should have been written with a capital “F.” Not only was he 1-5 in his last seven starts, but his ERA soared to 5.66, while his WHIP went up to 1.51 while batters hit well over .310 against him. Was it a mere regression given how good he was early in the year? Possibly. Did he wear out given that he threw only 56 innings in 2008 and 123 in 2009? Should we be worried about the Verducci Effect – being under 25 years of age and seeing an increase of 30 innings from one year to the next – given that he added 67 innings to his ledger in 2009 and 61.2 in 2010? Apparently I’m more worried about that than others on staff are, but I will tell you this – given that he had health issues during the 2010 season, coupled with the fact that he has had them in the past, I’m concerned about his ability to stay healthy all season long in 2011.

UBALDO JIMENEZ

Jimenez had a season that was even more valuable than the one produced by Latos. Jimenez was third in the league in wins (19) and strikeouts (214), while his ERA was 8th (2.88). Ubaldo also posted a 1.15 WHIP, 9th in the league, and his total of 221.2 innings was 7th in the Senior Circuit. So, why did I list him #15 for 2011?

(1) I still worry about Coors Field. With all the talk that the team might have been fudging things a bit with the humidor, will Rockies’ pitchers see a slight regression in 2011? Jimenez was 9-2 at home with a 3.19 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP at home, and it can be argued that he is the best home pitcher in Rockies’ history (27-14, 3.34 ERA, 1.25 WHIP in 56 games). I’m still a bit nervous though.

(2) Jimenez saw his ERA drop for the third straight year from 4.38, to 3.99, to 3.47 to 2.88. I have a hard time thinking a Rockies pitcher will be under 3.00 year to year.

(3) He was so great early on that a regression was always gonna happen. At the same time, he was the pitcher he has always been in the second half with a 3.80 ERA an a 1.30 WHIP which leads me to think that his 18 starts before the All-Star break was the outlier, not his “struggles” in the second half.

(4) His stuff is great, he had a career best 8.69 K/9 mark, but he still walked 3.74 batters per nine innings, below major league average. In addition, his GB/FB ratio dipped to a 3-year low at 1.40. That’s still a tremendous number, but the dip from 1.94 and 1.88 the previous two years is a concern.

Given Jimenez’s K potential maybe I should have had him higher than 15th. He might move up a bit before I finalize my 2011 rankings, but I have a hard time envisioning him sneaking into my top-10.

By Ray Flowers