dirty
EOG Master
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD>Feb. 13, 2006
Eric Mack
Senior Fantasy Writer
Tell Eric your opinion</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- T9230776 --><!-- Sesame Modified: 02/13/2006 18:21:27 --><!-- sversion: 7 $Updated: emack$ -->If you've read this space before, you know a few pet peeves relate to the projection and evaluation of young pitchers:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=100 align=right><TBODY><TR><TD width=100>
</TD><TD width=15> </TD><TD width=15></TD></TR><TR><TD width=120><CENTER>Get your 2006 Owners Manual and Draft Guide! </CENTER></TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
History has shown us it takes around 60 big-league starts for the talented young arm to develop into a reliable Fantasy option. (Remember Johan Santana's true arrival as a Fantasy ace in June 2004?) It happened last year among high-end starters for Dontrelle Willis, Brett Myers, Jeremy Bonderman.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD width=200>
</TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR><TR><TD width=200>O's fireballer Daniel Cabrera has sleeper written all over him in 2006. (Getty Images) </TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Willis, while good coming in, high-kicked it in gear to become a Cy Young candidate, posting career bests across the Rotisserie board. His third-year breakout (22 wins, 170 strikeouts, 2.63 ERA and 1.134 WHIP) helped countless owners get early-round return on a mid-round pick.
Myers was overlooked after a pair of uninspiring years as a Philly starter who works half his games in a bad ballpark for pitchers, but he finally mastered his stuff and became a 200-plus strikeout man in 2005. He now looks like the ace he was once expected to become, coming off career highs of 208 Ks, a 3.72 ERA (very good for that park) and a 1.212 WHIP. Also, for those Head-to-Head points-based leagues, Myers was hung with a career-low eight losses.
Bonderman did wear down late in the season and finished up with a rough stretch (1-6 with a 6.64 ERA in his final two injury-plagued months), but it was his early-season work that allowed his owners to reap huge Draft Day rewards. He was 13-6 with a 3.95 ERA in late July after losing a combined 32 games in the prior two seasons.
Talk about making something out of nothing.
We can point even further past the fine seasons of Josh Towers (career highs: 13 wins, 3.71 ERA, 112 Ks and 1.275 WHIP), Brandon Webb (career highs: 14 wins and 172 Ks), Bruce Chen (career highs: 13 wins, 133 Ks) and Jae Seo (8-2, 2.59 ERA, 1.107 WHIP and just 16 walks), but you get the picture on the third-year pitchers.
<TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=2 width="40%" align=right border=0><TBODY><TR class=bg0><TD align=middle colSpan=3>Top third-year SPs </TD></TR><TR class=bg1><TD>Rk </TD><TD>Player </TD><TD>Team </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>1 </TD><TD>Rich Harden </TD><TD>OAK </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>2 </TD><TD>Cliff Lee </TD><TD>CLE </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>3 </TD><TD>Erik Bedard </TD><TD>BAL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>4 </TD><TD>Daniel Cabrera </TD><TD>BAL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>5 </TD><TD>Jorge Sosa </TD><TD>ATL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>6 </TD><TD>John Patterson </TD><TD>WAS </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>7 </TD><TD>Noah Lowry </TD><TD>SF </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>8 </TD><TD>Chris Capuano </TD><TD>MIL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>9 </TD><TD>Zack Greinke </TD><TD>KC </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>10 </TD><TD>David Williams </TD><TD>CIN </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
It's no coincidence the now legendary Fantasy L.I.M.A. (Low Investment Mound Aces, named by Ron Shandler) strategy was derived from Jose Lima, who broke through at 21-10 with 187 strikeouts and a 3.58 ERA in 1999. He entered that year with 54 big-league starts under his belt. (The L.I.M.A. strategy suggests you pick starters on the cheap because breakouts can come from the depths of the position).
The third season -- or more roughly categorized: entering the season with around 60 career starts -- is the make-or-break time. Usually "make" -- as in breakout. It takes that long to develop a knowledge of the hitters and a feel for how to get them out.
It is the way to find Fantasy breakthroughs before they happen.
Below is a ranking of the top 10 third-year starting pitchers for 2006. They have varying degrees of draft value, but the ranking is a projection of the rewards you can expect out of them as sleepers.
1. RH Rich Harden, Oakland Athletics
If there's a D-Train Cy Young breakout in this group, Harden is undeniably the guy. The question is not how well he will do, but how often will he be able to do it.
The right-hander led the league in 100-mph pitches in 2004 before suffering a Josh Beckett/Mark Prior season in 2005 -- oft-injured. He needed offseason shoulder surgery on his non-throwing shoulder, but it was the oblique problem that limited him to 19 starts (albeit spectacular ones: 10-5 with a 2.53 ERA and 1.062 WHIP).
The oblique, while frustrating to his owners in 2005, is good news now. For one, it's not a shoulder or elbow issue to deal with. Secondly, he hasn't yet become the household name, so he could slip some in drafts.
Some believe Harden subconsciously changed his mechanics as a result of the shoulder and that led to the oblique and lat injuries (upper back near armpit). He's expected to be fine for spring and primed for a breakthrough.
Don't let him make it out of the sixth round on Draft Day.
2. LH Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians
Lee sure doesn't pitch like he's only in his third full season as a starter. After winning 14 games in 2004 with a tale of two halves (9-1, 3.77 before break; 5-7, 7.91 after), Lee put a full season together with the surging Indians last year.
The 27-year-old left-hander (gotta love someone that age) went 18-5 with a 3.79 ERA and a nifty 1.218 WHIP in '05. He was much more balanced in Year 2, going 9-4, 3.89 in the first half and 9-1, 3.66 in the second.
Left-handers tend to develop more slowly than righties -- perhaps because the opposite spin of a lefty pitch is harder to command -- so Lee is well ahead of the curve. He has made 76 starts in his career to date, so he is more like a 3?-year pitcher.
He was a steal in the 10th round of our magazine mixed-league experts draft and went 59th overall in Round 5 in our 12-team AL-only experts draft in early February. His resume is pretty outstanding right now, so it will be tough to get him as late as the middle rounds of a standard mixed-league draft.
Our third-year starting pitcher rule is more to find sleepers, but in Lee's case it's to recognize him as a potential ace.
3. LH Erik Bedard, Baltimore Orioles
Bedard was amazing before the break in 2005, going 5-1 with a 2.08 ERA, but his success did not carry over to the second half (1-7 with a 5.44).
But good news for his potential owners in 2006: Pitching guru Leo Mazzone is now his mentor in Baltimore. Remember what Mazzone did for Jorge Sosa last season? And that's only his latest reclamation project.
Bedard has made 50 career starts and is still somewhat raw because of all the time missed due to injury, but you could be looking at this year's Myers-like 200-K breakthrough. He went in Round 23 of the December mixed-league experts draft and slipped to Round 11 (121 overall) in the AL-only draft in early February -- one pick after Twins rookie Francisco Liriano.
Once owners realize what Mazzone is doing with Bedard this spring, his value will jump quickly. Careful, though, as soon as you hype someone under the radar (i.e. Liriano), he's no longer a sleeper. He might even get hyped into the overvalued range.
The Bedard-Liriano comparison will prove to be a litmus test for our Fantasy pitching theories above. Throwing out the possibility of injury and we say it's highly unlikely a rookie left-hander will outproduce this third-year lefty in Fantasy -- even though it's likely Liriano is drafted before Bedard in many drafts this spring.
Rookie pitchers rarely win more than 13 games. Bedard can top that total if he can stay healthy.
4. RH Daniel Cabrera, Baltimore Orioles
Another Mazzone project. Another third-year starting pitcher. Another outstanding Fantasy sleeper.
Except this one has arguably the best arm in baseball. A blessing and a curse, perhaps?
Cabrera, 24, was clocked at 100 mph 37 times last season -- by far the most in the big leagues and over twice as many as the runners-up Billy Wagner (18) and A.J. Burnett (17). He's Harden-esque in that regard.
If Cabrera stays healthy, listens to Mazzone and stops trying to throw the ball through the backstop, we might have ourselves something on the scale of an Oliver Perez '04 breakthrough of 239 strikeouts.
That certainly would shock all of us who left him unselected in the December mixed-league draft.
A huge mistake in hindsight. He did go in Round 12 (135 overall) in our February AL-only draft, but that too should wind up being too low for a potential 200-K breakout.
Don't miss out and sleep on him like we did. Draft him in the middle rounds of any draft for some potentially huge rewards.
5. RH Jorge Sosa, Atlanta Braves
It's only fitting that next on this list we have the case study of what Mazzone can do for a young pitcher.
Sosa went from the major-league scrap heap to Fantasy studdom, going 13-3 with a 2.55 ERA in his first semi-full season as a starter (61 career starts). His numbers last season included a 9-2, 2.31 mark in the second half and a 9-0, 1.81 split away from the cozy pitching confines of Turner Field.
He never had an ERA under 4.63. Never won more than five games -- albeit because he was stuck in the back end of the lowly Devil Rays rotation. And most certainly never entered a season with so much promise.
Sosa went in Round 22 (259th overall) in our December mixed-league draft and in Round 13 (145th overall) of the NL version. His level of breakthrough is too optimistic in 2006 minus Mazzone, but he is on the verge of establishing himself as a solid starter for the Braves and Fantasy owners.
Take a flier on him in any league, especially because the Braves haven't lost a division race in over a decade, possess a solid lineup and boast one of the best pitcher's parks in baseball.
6. RH John Patterson, Washington Nationals
Like Lee above, Patterson might have already had his big breakthrough at 27, causing him to go much higher in drafts this spring -- or at all for the first time -- but following our rule suggests even more improvement is on the way. Undoubtedly you have to love the spacious home ballpark he works half his games in, not to mention the addition of Alfonso Soriano to the Nats' lineup.
Patterson's 185 strikeouts and 3.13 ERA in his first truly full season as a starter portend some huge things, but his organization is easy to overlook in Fantasy and has been for a long time. He fell to the 13th round in our magazine's mixed-league draft.
The potential for 200 strikeouts with a tidy sub-1.200 WHIP is far too promising to let slip that far.
7. LH Noah Lowry, San Francisco Giants
Lowry is not quite at the 60-start, third-year range, having started 47 games thus far (14 in the second half of 2004 as a rookie), but he will hit the threshold this season right around midseason.
Coincidentally, that is the time of the year Lowry comes out of his shell. He has been a second-half beast to date, going 8-4 with a 2.43 ERA after the break last year after debuting at 6-0 with a 3.91 ERA in 2004. That promise for the control/changeup lefty bodes well for his 2006 projections, which should be high.
The Giants have an underrated pitcher's park and should be improved offensively with the anticipated return to health of Barry Bonds, who is chasing home-run immortality. Those two factors should combine to make Lowry a 15-game winner in 2006.
The fact he has been a notorious slow-starter can be expected for someone of his makeup -- a control and changeup lefty that relies more on feel than heat unlike Harden, Cabrera or Patterson above. Lowry went 5-9 with a 5.07 ERA in the first half of 2005, lowlighted by his 1-5, 6.45 mark through the middle of May.
Assuming you don't want to risk having to trade for him during another slow start, gobble Lowry up in the middle-to-late rounds of a standard mixed-league draft and be patient or bench him until he finds his groove with the changeup.
8. LH Chris Capuano, Milwaukee Brewers
Usually it's virtually impossible for a young pitcher coming off an 18-win year in his second season to fly under the radar. Not the case with the Brewers' 27-year-old lefty. (Hmm. That age seems to be popular on this list.)
Capuano just missed becoming the first Brewer to win 19 games since 1987 and was able to log over 200 innings for the first time in his career. He won 18 games for an average offensive ballclub that finished at the .500 mark for the first time in over a decade.
Impressive, sure, but he still slipped into Round 19 (226 overall) in our December mixed-league draft. He went 99th overall in the NL-only experts draft in early February. If last year's 18-win, 176-strikeout campaign won't get him respect, perhaps this year will.
He's not a big strikeout pitcher, but if the former Tommy John survivor pushes his innings total up to the ace-like 230 range, he could hit the 200-mark in Ks with a solid ERA. His WHIP is a little high due to walks, but remember: Lefties find command later in their careers than righties (see: David Wells, now one of the best control pitchers in baseball).
9. RH Zack Greinke, Kansas City Royals
If this list was about long-term projectability, Greinke would be far closer to the top. In fact, last spring, your's truly compared the Royals' raw right-hander to a young Bret Saberhagen.
Instead, he was a young Mark Davis. A complete Royal pain.
Greinke arrived in the middle of 2004 as a then-20-year-old phenom, but he enters 2006 as a third-year starter needing to redefine himself.
Last year's summer months (June through August) were particularly rough on the young starter as he went a dismal 2-10 with a 7.74 ERA. If you take out that awful stretch, Greinke was actually a respectable 3-7 with a 4.11 ERA combined in April, May and September. It is those numbers that give him hope.
He was drafted in Round 20 (230th overall) in our AL-only experts league in early February and in Round 23 (271st overall), the final round, in our December mixed-league draft. Coincidentally, both selections were made by the same expert, who is obviously buying into the past hype and promise.
If the 22-year-old can overcome his early struggles (57 career starts) and the Royals' lowly supporting cast, he can post a breakthrough campaign along the lines of Bonderman, another quick-rising high school prodigy.
10. LH David Williams, Cincinnati Reds
The Reds' newly acquired back-end starter has more warning signs than position ones, but he enters the season with 58 career starts and one-time prospect status that was set back by Tommy John surgery.
The bad news is even the Pirates didn't want him, so he will now pitch in the Great American Bandbox in Cincy. The good news is he is now past the industry-standard 18 months post-surgery. It won't take much of an investment to get him on Draft Day and he will be working for one of the best offensive teams in baseball.
We see Williams as a sleeper to post a winning record with 12-plus wins, even if his ERA is a bit over 4.00 and his WHIP over 1.200. Take a flier on him in NL-only leagues. He was picked in Round 21 (251st overall) in our February NL-only experts draft.
<HR>In addition to the pitchers we mentioned above, here are a few more starters in the middle of their prime development stage as a starting pitcher. Because of their number of career starts to date, they just missed us classifying them as a breakthrough third-year starter: Oliver Perez, PIT; Dan Haren, OAK; Bronson Arroyo, BOS; Aaron Harang, CIN; Jerome Williams, CHC; Brandon Claussen, CIN; Casey Fossum, TB; and Aaron Cook, COL.
Eric Mack
Senior Fantasy Writer
Tell Eric your opinion</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- T9230776 --><!-- Sesame Modified: 02/13/2006 18:21:27 --><!-- sversion: 7 $Updated: emack$ -->If you've read this space before, you know a few pet peeves relate to the projection and evaluation of young pitchers:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=100 align=right><TBODY><TR><TD width=100>
</TD><TD width=15> </TD><TD width=15></TD></TR><TR><TD width=120><CENTER>Get your 2006 Owners Manual and Draft Guide! </CENTER></TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>- Pitchers are schizophrenic, offering varying return rates from Draft Day.
- Over-hyped young arms are great picks ... three years from now.
- Getting big-league hitters out is more art than skill.
History has shown us it takes around 60 big-league starts for the talented young arm to develop into a reliable Fantasy option. (Remember Johan Santana's true arrival as a Fantasy ace in June 2004?) It happened last year among high-end starters for Dontrelle Willis, Brett Myers, Jeremy Bonderman.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=200 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD width=200>
</TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR><TR><TD width=200>O's fireballer Daniel Cabrera has sleeper written all over him in 2006. (Getty Images) </TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Willis, while good coming in, high-kicked it in gear to become a Cy Young candidate, posting career bests across the Rotisserie board. His third-year breakout (22 wins, 170 strikeouts, 2.63 ERA and 1.134 WHIP) helped countless owners get early-round return on a mid-round pick. Myers was overlooked after a pair of uninspiring years as a Philly starter who works half his games in a bad ballpark for pitchers, but he finally mastered his stuff and became a 200-plus strikeout man in 2005. He now looks like the ace he was once expected to become, coming off career highs of 208 Ks, a 3.72 ERA (very good for that park) and a 1.212 WHIP. Also, for those Head-to-Head points-based leagues, Myers was hung with a career-low eight losses.
Bonderman did wear down late in the season and finished up with a rough stretch (1-6 with a 6.64 ERA in his final two injury-plagued months), but it was his early-season work that allowed his owners to reap huge Draft Day rewards. He was 13-6 with a 3.95 ERA in late July after losing a combined 32 games in the prior two seasons.
Talk about making something out of nothing.
We can point even further past the fine seasons of Josh Towers (career highs: 13 wins, 3.71 ERA, 112 Ks and 1.275 WHIP), Brandon Webb (career highs: 14 wins and 172 Ks), Bruce Chen (career highs: 13 wins, 133 Ks) and Jae Seo (8-2, 2.59 ERA, 1.107 WHIP and just 16 walks), but you get the picture on the third-year pitchers.
<TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=2 width="40%" align=right border=0><TBODY><TR class=bg0><TD align=middle colSpan=3>Top third-year SPs </TD></TR><TR class=bg1><TD>Rk </TD><TD>Player </TD><TD>Team </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>1 </TD><TD>Rich Harden </TD><TD>OAK </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>2 </TD><TD>Cliff Lee </TD><TD>CLE </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>3 </TD><TD>Erik Bedard </TD><TD>BAL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>4 </TD><TD>Daniel Cabrera </TD><TD>BAL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>5 </TD><TD>Jorge Sosa </TD><TD>ATL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>6 </TD><TD>John Patterson </TD><TD>WAS </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>7 </TD><TD>Noah Lowry </TD><TD>SF </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>8 </TD><TD>Chris Capuano </TD><TD>MIL </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>9 </TD><TD>Zack Greinke </TD><TD>KC </TD></TR><TR class=bg2><TD>10 </TD><TD>David Williams </TD><TD>CIN </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
It's no coincidence the now legendary Fantasy L.I.M.A. (Low Investment Mound Aces, named by Ron Shandler) strategy was derived from Jose Lima, who broke through at 21-10 with 187 strikeouts and a 3.58 ERA in 1999. He entered that year with 54 big-league starts under his belt. (The L.I.M.A. strategy suggests you pick starters on the cheap because breakouts can come from the depths of the position).
The third season -- or more roughly categorized: entering the season with around 60 career starts -- is the make-or-break time. Usually "make" -- as in breakout. It takes that long to develop a knowledge of the hitters and a feel for how to get them out.
It is the way to find Fantasy breakthroughs before they happen.
Below is a ranking of the top 10 third-year starting pitchers for 2006. They have varying degrees of draft value, but the ranking is a projection of the rewards you can expect out of them as sleepers.
1. RH Rich Harden, Oakland Athletics
If there's a D-Train Cy Young breakout in this group, Harden is undeniably the guy. The question is not how well he will do, but how often will he be able to do it.
The right-hander led the league in 100-mph pitches in 2004 before suffering a Josh Beckett/Mark Prior season in 2005 -- oft-injured. He needed offseason shoulder surgery on his non-throwing shoulder, but it was the oblique problem that limited him to 19 starts (albeit spectacular ones: 10-5 with a 2.53 ERA and 1.062 WHIP).
The oblique, while frustrating to his owners in 2005, is good news now. For one, it's not a shoulder or elbow issue to deal with. Secondly, he hasn't yet become the household name, so he could slip some in drafts.
Some believe Harden subconsciously changed his mechanics as a result of the shoulder and that led to the oblique and lat injuries (upper back near armpit). He's expected to be fine for spring and primed for a breakthrough.
Don't let him make it out of the sixth round on Draft Day.
2. LH Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians
Lee sure doesn't pitch like he's only in his third full season as a starter. After winning 14 games in 2004 with a tale of two halves (9-1, 3.77 before break; 5-7, 7.91 after), Lee put a full season together with the surging Indians last year.
The 27-year-old left-hander (gotta love someone that age) went 18-5 with a 3.79 ERA and a nifty 1.218 WHIP in '05. He was much more balanced in Year 2, going 9-4, 3.89 in the first half and 9-1, 3.66 in the second.
Left-handers tend to develop more slowly than righties -- perhaps because the opposite spin of a lefty pitch is harder to command -- so Lee is well ahead of the curve. He has made 76 starts in his career to date, so he is more like a 3?-year pitcher.
He was a steal in the 10th round of our magazine mixed-league experts draft and went 59th overall in Round 5 in our 12-team AL-only experts draft in early February. His resume is pretty outstanding right now, so it will be tough to get him as late as the middle rounds of a standard mixed-league draft.
Our third-year starting pitcher rule is more to find sleepers, but in Lee's case it's to recognize him as a potential ace.
3. LH Erik Bedard, Baltimore Orioles
Bedard was amazing before the break in 2005, going 5-1 with a 2.08 ERA, but his success did not carry over to the second half (1-7 with a 5.44).
But good news for his potential owners in 2006: Pitching guru Leo Mazzone is now his mentor in Baltimore. Remember what Mazzone did for Jorge Sosa last season? And that's only his latest reclamation project.
Bedard has made 50 career starts and is still somewhat raw because of all the time missed due to injury, but you could be looking at this year's Myers-like 200-K breakthrough. He went in Round 23 of the December mixed-league experts draft and slipped to Round 11 (121 overall) in the AL-only draft in early February -- one pick after Twins rookie Francisco Liriano.
Once owners realize what Mazzone is doing with Bedard this spring, his value will jump quickly. Careful, though, as soon as you hype someone under the radar (i.e. Liriano), he's no longer a sleeper. He might even get hyped into the overvalued range.
The Bedard-Liriano comparison will prove to be a litmus test for our Fantasy pitching theories above. Throwing out the possibility of injury and we say it's highly unlikely a rookie left-hander will outproduce this third-year lefty in Fantasy -- even though it's likely Liriano is drafted before Bedard in many drafts this spring.
Rookie pitchers rarely win more than 13 games. Bedard can top that total if he can stay healthy.
4. RH Daniel Cabrera, Baltimore Orioles
Another Mazzone project. Another third-year starting pitcher. Another outstanding Fantasy sleeper.
Except this one has arguably the best arm in baseball. A blessing and a curse, perhaps?
Cabrera, 24, was clocked at 100 mph 37 times last season -- by far the most in the big leagues and over twice as many as the runners-up Billy Wagner (18) and A.J. Burnett (17). He's Harden-esque in that regard.
If Cabrera stays healthy, listens to Mazzone and stops trying to throw the ball through the backstop, we might have ourselves something on the scale of an Oliver Perez '04 breakthrough of 239 strikeouts.
That certainly would shock all of us who left him unselected in the December mixed-league draft.
A huge mistake in hindsight. He did go in Round 12 (135 overall) in our February AL-only draft, but that too should wind up being too low for a potential 200-K breakout.
Don't miss out and sleep on him like we did. Draft him in the middle rounds of any draft for some potentially huge rewards.
5. RH Jorge Sosa, Atlanta Braves
It's only fitting that next on this list we have the case study of what Mazzone can do for a young pitcher.
Sosa went from the major-league scrap heap to Fantasy studdom, going 13-3 with a 2.55 ERA in his first semi-full season as a starter (61 career starts). His numbers last season included a 9-2, 2.31 mark in the second half and a 9-0, 1.81 split away from the cozy pitching confines of Turner Field.
He never had an ERA under 4.63. Never won more than five games -- albeit because he was stuck in the back end of the lowly Devil Rays rotation. And most certainly never entered a season with so much promise.
Sosa went in Round 22 (259th overall) in our December mixed-league draft and in Round 13 (145th overall) of the NL version. His level of breakthrough is too optimistic in 2006 minus Mazzone, but he is on the verge of establishing himself as a solid starter for the Braves and Fantasy owners.
Take a flier on him in any league, especially because the Braves haven't lost a division race in over a decade, possess a solid lineup and boast one of the best pitcher's parks in baseball.
6. RH John Patterson, Washington Nationals
Like Lee above, Patterson might have already had his big breakthrough at 27, causing him to go much higher in drafts this spring -- or at all for the first time -- but following our rule suggests even more improvement is on the way. Undoubtedly you have to love the spacious home ballpark he works half his games in, not to mention the addition of Alfonso Soriano to the Nats' lineup.
Patterson's 185 strikeouts and 3.13 ERA in his first truly full season as a starter portend some huge things, but his organization is easy to overlook in Fantasy and has been for a long time. He fell to the 13th round in our magazine's mixed-league draft.
The potential for 200 strikeouts with a tidy sub-1.200 WHIP is far too promising to let slip that far.
7. LH Noah Lowry, San Francisco Giants
Lowry is not quite at the 60-start, third-year range, having started 47 games thus far (14 in the second half of 2004 as a rookie), but he will hit the threshold this season right around midseason.
Coincidentally, that is the time of the year Lowry comes out of his shell. He has been a second-half beast to date, going 8-4 with a 2.43 ERA after the break last year after debuting at 6-0 with a 3.91 ERA in 2004. That promise for the control/changeup lefty bodes well for his 2006 projections, which should be high.
The Giants have an underrated pitcher's park and should be improved offensively with the anticipated return to health of Barry Bonds, who is chasing home-run immortality. Those two factors should combine to make Lowry a 15-game winner in 2006.
The fact he has been a notorious slow-starter can be expected for someone of his makeup -- a control and changeup lefty that relies more on feel than heat unlike Harden, Cabrera or Patterson above. Lowry went 5-9 with a 5.07 ERA in the first half of 2005, lowlighted by his 1-5, 6.45 mark through the middle of May.
Assuming you don't want to risk having to trade for him during another slow start, gobble Lowry up in the middle-to-late rounds of a standard mixed-league draft and be patient or bench him until he finds his groove with the changeup.
8. LH Chris Capuano, Milwaukee Brewers
Usually it's virtually impossible for a young pitcher coming off an 18-win year in his second season to fly under the radar. Not the case with the Brewers' 27-year-old lefty. (Hmm. That age seems to be popular on this list.)
Capuano just missed becoming the first Brewer to win 19 games since 1987 and was able to log over 200 innings for the first time in his career. He won 18 games for an average offensive ballclub that finished at the .500 mark for the first time in over a decade.
Impressive, sure, but he still slipped into Round 19 (226 overall) in our December mixed-league draft. He went 99th overall in the NL-only experts draft in early February. If last year's 18-win, 176-strikeout campaign won't get him respect, perhaps this year will.
He's not a big strikeout pitcher, but if the former Tommy John survivor pushes his innings total up to the ace-like 230 range, he could hit the 200-mark in Ks with a solid ERA. His WHIP is a little high due to walks, but remember: Lefties find command later in their careers than righties (see: David Wells, now one of the best control pitchers in baseball).
9. RH Zack Greinke, Kansas City Royals
If this list was about long-term projectability, Greinke would be far closer to the top. In fact, last spring, your's truly compared the Royals' raw right-hander to a young Bret Saberhagen.
Instead, he was a young Mark Davis. A complete Royal pain.
Greinke arrived in the middle of 2004 as a then-20-year-old phenom, but he enters 2006 as a third-year starter needing to redefine himself.
Last year's summer months (June through August) were particularly rough on the young starter as he went a dismal 2-10 with a 7.74 ERA. If you take out that awful stretch, Greinke was actually a respectable 3-7 with a 4.11 ERA combined in April, May and September. It is those numbers that give him hope.
He was drafted in Round 20 (230th overall) in our AL-only experts league in early February and in Round 23 (271st overall), the final round, in our December mixed-league draft. Coincidentally, both selections were made by the same expert, who is obviously buying into the past hype and promise.
If the 22-year-old can overcome his early struggles (57 career starts) and the Royals' lowly supporting cast, he can post a breakthrough campaign along the lines of Bonderman, another quick-rising high school prodigy.
10. LH David Williams, Cincinnati Reds
The Reds' newly acquired back-end starter has more warning signs than position ones, but he enters the season with 58 career starts and one-time prospect status that was set back by Tommy John surgery.
The bad news is even the Pirates didn't want him, so he will now pitch in the Great American Bandbox in Cincy. The good news is he is now past the industry-standard 18 months post-surgery. It won't take much of an investment to get him on Draft Day and he will be working for one of the best offensive teams in baseball.
We see Williams as a sleeper to post a winning record with 12-plus wins, even if his ERA is a bit over 4.00 and his WHIP over 1.200. Take a flier on him in NL-only leagues. He was picked in Round 21 (251st overall) in our February NL-only experts draft.
<HR>In addition to the pitchers we mentioned above, here are a few more starters in the middle of their prime development stage as a starting pitcher. Because of their number of career starts to date, they just missed us classifying them as a breakthrough third-year starter: Oliver Perez, PIT; Dan Haren, OAK; Bronson Arroyo, BOS; Aaron Harang, CIN; Jerome Williams, CHC; Brandon Claussen, CIN; Casey Fossum, TB; and Aaron Cook, COL.