Any chance of buying Josh Beckett relatively low vanished with Sunday's brilliant performance. He doesn't come without some questions healthwise, but since he's never had any arm issues, he's not a huge risk. Beckett now has 29 strikeouts over 26.1 innings and remains my choice to win the Cy Young this season. Johan Santana and Jake Peavy are the only two pitchers I'd rather own.
Ryan Garko is now hitless over his last 19 at-bats, bringing his season average down to .238. With a 13:13 K:BB ratio, it's not like he's being overmatched, so he's a good buy-low. There's still major RBI potential in that lineup.
Sticking with the buy-low theme, I'm targeting Phil Hughes right now. The 10 walks are ugly, but this is a pitcher with serious talent who will consistently receive plenty of run support. His BABIP (.390) and strand rate (.55) are both ridiculously unlucky, and his schedule has been awfully tough, including four straight road starts. Go get him.
It's becoming increasingly possible 2006 will go down as Jose Reyes' career-year. He's running less, his slugging is down and his strikeouts are up. He's still going to be an extremely valuable fantasy player, but it's surprising just how much he's regressed. Here are his OPSs by month, since April ended last season: .697, .829, .770, .733, .612, .652.
If I own Alex Rodriguez and can get Hanley Ramirez for him, I'd do it without hesitation.
Shawn Chacon's ERA and K:BB ratio are mutually exclusive. Seriously, how can someone post such an impressive ERA (2.45) and WHIP (1.27) while walking as many batters as he's striking out? The short answer: a .232 BABIP. I would say sell-high, but that would be an insult to your league's intelligence. Stay far, far away.
Last week I said "Cliff Lee's trade value will never be higher." Oops. Another complete game shutout later, I'm grubbing on some crow. Lee can be viewed as nothing other than a sell-high with those numbers, but unless you are getting elite talent in return, might as well hold onto him. He's currently throwing better than he ever has, including 2005. An incredibly easy schedule has helped, but Lee is off to the best start by a starting pitcher in the last 50 years.
When Barry Zito signed the richest contract ever for a pitcher, I thought it was going to look bad over the second half of the deal. That it already looks like the worst deal in the history of sports with six years and $106 million remaining puts the franchise in quite a rare position. The team can't possibly dump him like the Pirates did Matt Morris, but Zito is a huge liability every fifth game, and something needs to change before long.
Listening to sports talk on the radio often leads to me narrowly avoiding accidents. When evaluating pitchers, about 90 percent of the time hosts or local newspaper reporters bring up win/loss records. There is not a more irrelevant stat in all of sports.
Did ESPN really use the word "shocking" when reacting to Josh Howard admitting to smoking weed during the offseason? Really, NBA players do that sort of thing? In other news, the government will ask for taxes, you will eventually die and water is wet.
Speaking of ESPN, how come they kept missing so many picks during the NFL Draft? Each pundit seemed far too busy worried about getting face time than the actual picks themselves. And I'm not big on the new trends of knowing who the top-5 picks are going to be beforehand and watching the players put on their new teams' hats before the pick is announced. Where's the drama?
Jonathan Sanchez, AKA "Dirty Sanchez," simply cannot be left unowned in any fantasy league right now. After an absolute gem Friday (10:1 K:BB ratio), he's now fanned 36 batters over 28 innings this season. He's always had plus stuff, but maybe now he's also figuring out how to pitch. You'd still like to see fewer walks, but he's awfully tough to hit and has the ballpark and division working for him.
If you're bored Monday night, I'll be representing RotoWire in a fantasy football draft that can be watched live here. I have the sixth pick, so keep your fingers crossed Edgerrin James slips.