If you went into this season intending to lock down the Braves' closer by drafting both Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrell, things could hardly have turned out better. Venters has a 0.60 ERA and a .794 WHIP with four wins and three saves, while Kimbrell has 58 strikeouts in 37 IP, two wins, 20 saves and a sub-3.00 ERA. Contrast that with those who bought Matt Thornton and Chris Sale, or Jonathan Broxton and Hong Chi Kuo.

Brandon League blew three consecutive save chances in May (and absorbed four losses in four straight outings) but still has 20 saves on the year, one off the league lead. The Mariners are likely to generate more save situations than the average team because their pitcher-friendly park, strong starting staff, solid defense and terrible offense ensure many of their wins are by small margins. League doesn't strike out too many batters (20 Ks in 30 IP), but he's walked only four, keeps the ball on the ground (2:1 GB:FB) and averages 96 mph on his fastball.

Trevor Cahill went from a seven-walk, zero-strikeout disaster start on June 14 to a eight-inning, one-walk, seven-strikeout gem on Sunday. You can usually predict what stars like Roy Halladay and Justin Verlander will do on one end, and also how players like Joe Saunders and Rodrigo Lopez will fare on the other. The 90-percent of pitchers in between can pretty much do anything on a given day. Sometimes it's best to get the cheapest ones applicable to your league and spend nearly all your resources on hitting.

Josh Beckett is missing a home start against the Padres due to an illness. That's like missing a month in terms of expected value. Of course, if you're a Beckett owner you can comfort yourself with the Cahill example.

Tim Hudson might have played one of the greatest regular season games ever Monday night. Not only did he pitch eight scoreless innings of two-hit, one-walk ball, he struck out eight and drove in the game's only runs with a two-run homer. I realize pitchers have thrown no-hitters and perfect games, but a two-run homer against a very tough Ricky Romero has to be worth more than three stranded base runners. Put differently, there haven't been a lot of outings in modern major-league history that give one's team a better chance to win than eight scoreless innings, three base runners allowed and a two-run homer.

Zack Greinke has a 70:9 K:BB ratio and a 5.23 ERA in 53.1 IP. His problem? A .383 BABIP, a .593 strand rate and seven home runs allowed. Jeff Erickson and I talked with Yahoo! Sports' Brad Evans about this on our Sirius XM show Monday, and decided while much of Greinke's results are undoubtedly due to bad luck, it's likely he's also throwing too many strikes in the wrong situations. All things being equal, it's better to walk less batters, but if the hitter knows you're not going to throw him a ball, it has to make his job easier. Like Ricky Nolasco (and Kevin Slowey in years past), the K:BB numbers are fantastic, but at what cost? Few can be Roy Halladay where the location of the strikes is so good, he can get away with it. For most pitchers, might there be a BB/9 number (say 2.0) below which they shouldn't go?