What About Pitching?

I recently recieved a post in the fantasybaseballexpress.com forums from "Pirates" who asked me when he thought it was appropriate to pick up pitching in a regular draft. "Pirates" also asks if it is easier to find pitching or hitting once the season starts.

Before I tell you my take on pitching this year, i would like to remind all you fantasy baseball addicts to sign up for the Fantasy Man Leagues on www.fantasybaseballexpress.com. They should be really fun, you will get your chance to play against mikey, as well as myself if you enter the 50 dollar league i am in lol....

I would take Johan Santana above any other player in these year's draft with the exception on Albert Pujols and Jose Reyes. I strongly feel as though he is by far the best pitcher this year. He could be the best in the league at his position in 4 of the 5 categories. There really is not much else to say, this guy is an absolute lock. Other than Santana I would not touch another pitcher until the third round. There i would target either Halladay or Carpenter. I would take Carpenter above Halladay because though they both post excellent era/whip Carpenter has a higher K ratio than Halladay, and Halladay has to face the Sox/Yanks. After that the next tier would be Zambrano/Oswalt. Oswalt should win more games and have a lower whip, but Zambrano should add some more wins this year, but he needs to lower his whip. He is also playing for a long term contract.
I would personally try to take at least one of these guys so you know you have one guy that you can absolutley rely on to give you Wins/K's while improving your ratios. After I hopefully lock up Johan Santana and my infield i will probably target a moderate risk young starting Pitcher such as Kazmir, Hammels, or even Ben Sheets. I would go after one of these guys in around the 6-7th round and would be happy to have one of them as my second starter. Before the 10th round is over i would try to pick up a good to elite closer, and possibly a eric gagne/ brad lidge who everyone is down on this year.

After I lock up 2-3 starters who will have excellent K's,Whip,Era as well as a decent closer i will turn to my late draft strategy which is very similar to Ron Shandler's L.I.M.A. plan. My goal here is to pick guys with excellent skills (Not necessarily roles) who will solidly put me in the top 1/3 of the league in Whip/Era/K's. I will put out a list of these guys later but for now im talking about guys like Scott Schields,Manny Delcarmen,Manuel Corpas, Joey Devine, and even Eric Gagne. The Difference between this and the L.I.M.A. plan is that i am willing to invest an early pick in pitching and will not hesistate to draft the studs. I will probably throw another starter in there, but definetly not a guy who will compromise my top tier era/whip. (Javier Vazquez/Brett Myers are great choices) In essence you are going to dominate in K,Era,WHIP, and saves if you play your cards right. The beauty of this approach though is that while everyone is reaching for picthing you are rounding out your offensive categories which you should be able to easily win.

I definetly think that pitching is easier to pick up once the season starts than hitting. This is because pitchers are more injury prone, and their jobs are not as secure as hitters. Think about it this way if a decent hitter goes through a huge slump, he will get moved down in the order so he can regain his confidence. However if a closer hits a slmup and blows a few saves he loses his Job. Last year we saw Otsuka/Putz/and Papelbon come out of the bullpen to be the best closers that nobody drafted. If you are totally on top of the team's bulppens and pay attention to who the future closers could be (Many are the guys i just mentioned) you really do not have to even draft closers in the actual draft, and can pick up guys from Free Agents. That said i would definetly get one guy just to be safe, and possibly another later, but do not pass up a hitter with potential to pick a run of the mill closer who will probably lose his job soon.

So that is my approach to pitching this year, i will probably expand on it in future posts.
If you have any questions please email me at ajopiela@yahoo.com. I need your participation to keep this going, this is what really makes the fantasybaseballexpress great. So jump on the forums, or send me an email...

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