No, not the Roberto Hernandez who saved 326 games and spent his career in the bullpen, silly. It’s the Roberto Hernandez who became the artist formerly known as Fausto Carmona of course! After a disappointing season with the Rays that saw him post a 4.89 ERA and eventually get banished from the starting rotation, Hernandez signed a one-year deal with the Phillies yesterday. Twice Hernandez has earned positive value in fantasy leagues, while he has torpedoed the ratios of many a team in all other seasons. Now he moves into the National League, where pitchers typically see a bump in value.

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If chicks dig the long ball, then scouts dig the high-octane fastball. And 22-year-old Royals right-hander Yordano Ventura has quite an electric one. His 97.5 average fastball velocity was the highest among every single pitcher who made a start in 2013. Even cooler, his fastball touched 101.9 mph according to PITCHf/x. It’s not outrageous for a reliever to throw that hard, as nine of them have since PITCHf/x has delivered reliable data. But starting pitchers simply don’t. Ventura officially unleashed the fastest fastball in the PITCHf/x era.

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Yesterday I reminded you all about my preseason lovefest for Andrew Cashner. What I neglected to mention because it wasn’t all that important, is that Cashner opened the year in the bullpen for the first couple of weeks of the season. Who took the rotation spot I expected Cashner to fill? Tyson Ross. Meet your early Pod’s Favorite Sleeper Pitcher.

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It was no secret that I was a huge Andrew Cashner fan heading into the season. You could say that he was my sleeper/undervalued pitcher of the year. I drafted him for my LABR team and Tout Wars squad, shared how upset at myself I would be if he didn’t make it onto every single one of my teams, boldly predicted that he would outearn every starting pitcher on both the Braves and Mets pitching staffs and lead the National League in ERA, and was most bullish on his fantasy value compared to the rest of the RotoGraphs rankers. And yet, despite posting a fantastic 3.09 ERA and ranking 41st among starting pitchers in fantasy value, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.

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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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