Starting pitching starting strong

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May 9, 2006 David Gonos Senior Fantasy Writer Tell David your opinion

Last week, we took a look at which hitters were performing above and below their averages over the past three seasons. This week, we're turning our attention to the men on the mound.
Obviously, with only six or so starts per pitcher between the beginning of the season and May 7 (our cutoff date), it's a much smaller sample size than the 60-plus at-bats that we used to analyze hitters.
With pitchers, it's always a little more difficult to gauge, since a small injury in any opening month over the past four seasons (including this year) would greatly affect his numbers.
But if you can correctly assess which pitchers are playing above their heads, with a possible decline in their future, you can make moves to greatly improve your team while not giving up too much in return. On the other hand, if you can also figure out which players will remain at this level, then you'll know which players not to trade away.
Also, since the closer role is so volatile to begin with, there are few names that were closing in 2003 and are still closing in 2006. So I removed them completely. That means that guys like Tom Gordon, Brian Fuentes and even Francisco Rodriguez have been removed from this list, even though they rank among the most improved. They are simply better from a Fantasy perspective because they were not closing for all three years previous to 2006. The additional Fantasy points added from successful saves (10) this season are obvious, so why add them to the list?
Below, there are the top 25 pitchers that show the greatest Fantasy improvement for the first five weeks of this season compared to how they've performed in the first five weeks of the past three seasons. If you missed last week's piece, here's the link to the Hitting Review.
The following stats were used to determine very basic Head-to-Head values. We used -0.5 points for a walk, as well as a hit allowed. Allowing an earned run was -1.0 points, whereas a strikeout was worth 1.0 points. An inning pitched was worth 2.0 points and a win brought 10.0 points. No deductions for losses. Numbers were rounded to the nearest whole number.
Only the players that pitched in at least five games in each of the past three Aprils were used in this analysis.

Opening day stats through May 7 (min. 5 games)

	2003-05					2006					H2H
Pitcher	IP	W	K	ERA	WHIP	IP	W	K	ERA	WHIP	Diff
1. Contreras 2. Glavine 3. Maddux 4. Lackey 5. Oswalt 6. J. Santana 7. Mussina 8. Jennings 9. Lilly 10. Rogers 11. W. Williams 12. P. Martinez 13. Bonderman 14. Vazquez 15. Maroth 16. Westbrook 17. Ohka 18. Tomko 19. Lidle 20. Millwood 21. Schmidt 22. Park 23. Lowe 24. Zito 25. Buehrle	19 39 39 39 45 37 46 36 34 40 37 49 40 43 40 30 28 40 41 41 39 32 36 44 47	1 3 2 2 3 2 4 1 2 3 2 4 3 3 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 2 3 3 2	17 20 25 25 35 41 37 29 27 20 24 51 32 47 25 13 12 21 27 34 39 24 22 27 27	5.52 4.05 4.81 5.56 3.60 3.46 3.55 7.33 5.75 3.18 4.12 3.15 4.87 3.86 4.77 3.56 4.85 5.01 4.73 3.66 3.48 5.71 4.27 4.42 4.21	1.620 1.400 1.380 1.550 1.240 1.080 1.330 1.780 1.490 1.290 1.330 0.950 1.280 1.070 1.250 1.200 1.630 1.540 1.230 1.280 1.300 1.650 1.500 1.310 1.270	45 46 38 45 50 46 46 46 34 47 40 40 45 41 35 41 34 37 37 46 43 39 44 42 47	5 4 5 3 5 3 5 2 3 5 3 5 3 4 4 3 2 3 3 3 2 1 1 2 3	21 41 29 37 32 48 42 31 30 23 26 42 39 33 15 25 19 25 38 31 33 28 26 30 19	1.41 1.94 2.35 3.38 2.86 3.69 2.35 4.70 3.18 3.28 3.12 2.72 4.40 2.88 2.55 5.23 3.18 3.41 4.17 3.52 3.77 4.12 3.05 4.07 3.66	0.870 1.040 1.020 1.100 1.090 1.190 0.980 1.480 1.500 1.090 1.170 0.860 1.090 0.930 1.420 1.480 1.350 1.240 1.250 1.280 1.190 1.250 1.150 1.120 1.200	+112 +75 +72 +71 +64 +63 +62 +59 +57 +51 +48 +47 +45 +44 +44 +43 +43 +42 +37 +37 +36 +31 +30 +29 +28

Time to make an offer for

These pitchers are pitching well and there's an excellent change that they'll pitch as good if not better for the remainder of the season. Mike Mussina is finally healthy once again, but you have to look at his increased command numbers to see how well he truly is pitching. His strikeouts-to-walks ratio has increased from an average of 3.08 to 5.25 this year. That's a good indicator that his 2.35 ERA and sub-1.000 WHIP are not accidents. Even better is the fact that his team's offense is one of the best in history, which will obviously lead to more wins.
John Lackey was ranked among our top 25 pitchers and now we have him among the top 15, mostly because of a solid ERA and WHIP. His team hasn't been scoring much, but that should change at some point -- he hopes. They even pinned him with a complete-game loss Sunday. After his first start of the season, Lackey has allowed more than two earned runs only once. He's also striking out more batters than he had in the past, which should prove to be a huge benefit later in the season.
Jake Westbrook has been striking out batters more than usual as well. The former Yankee prospect has a dangerously high ERA, but his control and command are improved, so consider him a nice buy low option right now. I expect him to improve by season's end to put up stats similar to his breakout '04 season. He has two starts against the inferior Royals coming up, so make a move before Wednesday.
Status quo

The group of players below are pitching at the level they should, but for various reasons they found their way on this list. Don't trade them just because you expect them to decline. Jose Conteras looks like another case of a pitcher that couldn't handle the New York pressure, only to explode after leaving. It sounds like hip and back problems might sideline him for a bit, but when healthy, he has been dominant with five straight wins, going at least seven innings in each of them and allowing more than one earned run only once in that span. What's interesting is that he hasn't struck out that many more or walked that many fewer batters than he has in the past. He is, however, keeping hitters off the bases and runners off the plate.
Johan Santana is on this list mostly because of injuries in the early parts of the past few seasons, as well as the fact he was in the bullpen early in 2003. If you can acquire him, go for it, but it's doubtful you'll be able to get him for anything less than an arm and a leg.
Jason Jennings has been sporadic, allowing seven earned runs in two different games, but the '02 NL Rookie of the Year has also pitched at least six innings in all but one start, including a complete game shutout on Sunday. He's not going to lead you in ERA, WHIP or strikeouts, but he has a solid offense supporting him, as well as an above-average closer keeping his leads safe.
Time to dangle to your opposition

The group of pitchers below are pitching well above the level they should, so you might want to put them on the block to see what kind of players you can get back in trade.
Javier Vazquez is a case of someone benefiting greatly by being on a world champion team, more than the team is benefiting from his presence. His four wins are more indicative of the great run support (8.41 RPG) he is receiving than his own dominance. He still does a nice job of keeping his walks down and the bases clear, but his strikeouts are down 33 percent.
Kenny Rogers and the rest of the Tigers staff have been a pleasant surprise for most owners. His ERA is well below where it will end up at season's end -- and don't expect the 25-win season he's on pace for. When we recommended grabbing him, he was around 50-percent ownership, and now he's all the way up to 86 percent. It's time to move him before he falls back to his average numbers. He's a decent No. 5 mixed league starter and that's where he'll end up.
Tom Glavine's command has been sharp, but it's his strikeouts that catch your eye. He has doubled what he averaged for the three previous starts to the season. (He didn't strike out more than 22 batters before May 7 in any of the past three years, despite being healthy.) This is a great candidate to send to someone that has been hit hard by injuries after the draft and desperate for top pitchers (like anyone that drafted Mark Prior or Ben Sheets.) You can likely get a decent speedster back in return.
Greg Maddux, Glavine's former Braves teammate, is in a similar situation as Glavine -- a pitcher on the backside of his career catching his second wind, so to speak. It looks like the luster on his stellar start is already beginning to fade since he has allowed 12 earned runs in his past two starts. Monday's loss was not included in this table's stats. If you can get solid hitting in return, do it.
One of the common themes you'll notice among most of the pitchers on this list is that they are older veterans with more than a decade's worth of experience each. It's highly unlikely they added a skill to their repertoire that suddenly makes them unhittable, so regressing to the mean of their previous performances is highly probable.
Not quite up to par

When analyzing the stats of players we've deemed as disappointments, players that either pitched while they were injured or are currently on the disabled list (like David Wells, Bartolo Colon and Victor Zambrano) were not included. The following is a list of 10 pitchers that show the greatest Fantasy decline over the first five weeks of this season compared to how they've performed in the first five weeks for the past three seasons.

Opening day stats through May 7 (min. 5 games)

	2003-05					2006					H2H
Pitcher	IP	W	K	ERA	WHIP	IP	W	K	ERA	WHIP	Diff
1. Loaiza 2. Ru. Ortiz 3. Redman 4. Franklin 5. Day 6. Lohse 7. Garland 8. L.Hernandez 9. Halladay 10. Radke	41 37 38 39 38 32 38 45 51 44	4 3 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3	31 23 25 14 19 22 19 28 38 27	3.34 4.57 3.13 4.51 3.78 5.42 4.20 3.67 4.19 4.35	1.150 1.580 1.230 1.310 1.290 1.450 1.260 1.330 1.280 1.220	18 14 25 16 25 30 39 44 31 33	0 0 0 1 2 1 2 1 3 3	6 10 15 9 12 15 18 28 15 20	8.35 6.91 5.76 4.41 7.11 9.71 6.05 6.29 3.73 7.29	2.130 2.020 1.600 1.220 1.820 1.990 1.470 1.560 1.310 1.530	-78 -47 -31 -24 -18 -13 -11 -11 -6 -4

Esteban Loaiza had been known for his hot starts, but a shoulder injury killed April for him. I kept him on this list mostly because he was a hot starter in the past and it was worth noting.
Livan Hernandez continues to be erratic, but looking at his previous numbers, you can see that really it's only his record that is dramatically different. In almost the exact same amount of innings, he has allowed the same amount of walks and struck out the same amount of batters. But he has allowed 10 more hits and obviously his ERA is hurting. Buy low and hope that he turns it around -- odds are that he will.
Jon Garland is only on this list mostly because he started so strong last season, that it skewed the numbers for all other seasons.
Roy Halladay hadn't pitched the large amount of innings that he had averaged the past three seasons -- although he did pitch a complete game Monday, which wasn't included here. His innings are down, which makes his strikeouts down, so there's nothing to be alarmed about by seeing his name on this list.
Now is the time to make moves in your league. People don't always have the best gauge on players that they own sometimes. You can snatch a bargain, that's currently disappointing, away from them or dump an artificially hot player on an unsuspecting owner. Either way, you can make miprovements now probably easier than any other time in the season.