Remember when the Mets traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano? Predictably, the trade looked as horrible as we all thought it would through 2008, when Kazmir enjoyed four straight seasons of a sub-4.00 ERA fueled by his electric fastball-slider-change-up combination. But eventually, it seemed like the Mets may have known what they were doing after all, although there was still no excuse for such a poor return. In 2009 and 2010, Kazmir’s ERA approached 5.00 and 6.00, respectively, as he lost his fastball and his strikeout rate plunged. Fast forward to 2013 and if you had been asleep from 2009 to 2012, you would have thought you had missed nothing. Just another solid performance from the southpaw.

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When teams determine whether a pitcher is going to be a future reliever or a starter, one of the primary factors driving the decision is how many Major League quality pitches the hurler throws. Typically, a starting pitcher will have a larger repertoire of pitches at his disposal, primarily to neutralize opposite-handed hitters. We think of relief pitchers possessing two pitches, while starters generally throw at least three. But Tony Cingrani is built from a different mold. It seems that Mr. Cingrani hearts the fastball.

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The man formerly known as Jamie who arrived in the bigs with a meh fastball has made himself into quite the workhorse. Well, workhorse has somewhat of a negative connotation as it’s typically used to describe pitchers who throw a lot of innings, but not necessarily of high quality. James Shields‘ innings, at least over the past three seasons, have certainly been of high quality. He has given his two teams at least 227 innings a year, with an ERA ranging between 2.82 and 3.52. His 2013 performance was good enough to rank him as the 25th most valuable starting pitcher.

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Finally, we have transitioned from the hitters to my favorite group of players, the starting pitchers. This is where the most disparity in opinion comes and so it will be fun to take a look back at how my starting pitcher Pod’s Picks performed.

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Fantasy owners often cite the mantra “you can’t win your league in the first round, but you could lose it”. It reinforces the notion of sticking with the safety of an established veteran, rather than reaching for the sky with a youngster that possesses tons of upside. While Matt Holliday is no longer worthy of first round consideration, he’s exactly the type of player that helps you avoid losing your league. He was once again a strong contributor, earning nearly $26 and ranking 10th in value among outfielders.

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Ever since Eric Young stole 87 bases in 118 attempts in Single-A back in 2006 with the Rockies organization, fantasy owners have been salivating over his fantasy prospects. With respectable strikeout rates and consistently high BABIP marks coupled with playing half his future home games in offense-inflating Coors Field, we simply couldn’t wait for his first opportunity at a full-time job. Unfortunately, that never really came to pass. After being shuffled between second base and the outfield throughout his career, Young finally recorded more than 200 at-bats in a season and earned a smidge over $9 in fantasy value, good for 49th among outfielders.

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Over the last two years, my fellow FanGraphs authors have discussed the effects of aging on player performance and shared various pretty curves. Eno Sarris introduced some hitter aging curves for both batted ball type distribution and isolated power. Then Bill Petti looked at the various plate discipline metrics. The one skill missing thus far has been speed.

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Hovering around replacement level in several categories does have its value. Despite offering near replacement level production in three of the five roto categories, Austin Jackson was still the 41st most valuable outfielder this year. That made him a solid fourth outfielder on fantasy teams even though he really only stood out in one category, runs scored. However, it was quite a fall from his performance in 2012, when he earned the 19th highest fantasy value. Jackson will need to return to being more than a one category contributor to make his fantasy owners happy, but can he?

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Since he was a minor leaguer, I was a big Desmond Jennings fan. I figured he would be the next Carl Crawford for fantasy owners, but perhaps an even better real life player given his stronger walk rates. Unfortunately, that memo never reached Mr. Jennings and for the second straight season, he has disappointed his fantasy owners. In 2012, he was just the 49th most valuable outfielder, no doubt thanks to his .246 batting average and a knee injury that limited him to just 563 plate appearances despite batting lead-off. This year, he once again missed some time due to injury, but even with 11 fewer steals, moved up a couple of spots to finish as the 42nd most valuable outfielder. Of course, that was still a disappointing performance.

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In his second full season with the Indians, Michael Brantley quietly earned the 34th most fantasy value among outfielders. Who would have predicted that Brantley would earn nearly identical value to Yoenis Cespedes? It may not have been obvious after a quick glance at his stat line, but Brantley does a little bit of everything at least decently, without standing out in any one category. That type of contribution package is typically undervalued in fantasy leagues, which is why it may surprise some to learn how valuable he actually was.

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