Bumgarner, Ubaldo and Latos: NL Starting Pitchers

Madison Bumgarner | Giants
Despite some poor looking fantasy numbers, Bumgarner has been damn good lately in both fantasy and reality. His roto numbers over the past thirty days are skewed by his disastrous outing against the Twins in which he faced ten batters and gave up nine hits (his one out was via the strikeout). But even in that outing, Bumgarner threw twenty-two of his twenty-five pitches for strikes and refused to yield a homer. Bumgarner also had a poor fantasy outing against the Padres before the All-Star break, but once again, he did not allow a dinger.

In three of his past four starts heading into Tuesday’s action, Bumgarner had pitched at least six innings without allowing more than one earned run, striking out a great deal of batters in the process. In fact, over the past thirty days, Bumgarner’s K% is north of 25% and is 10-times that of his BB%. His FIP during the past month has been below 1.00, and his xFIP has been below 2.00.

Yeah, Bumgarner has been quite good, so if there is any chance he’s still available in your leagues, you should do your best to try and create a roster spot for him.

Ubaldo Jimenez and Mat Latos | Rockies and Padres
Everyone got all excited when Ubaldo struggled out of the gate this year, especially when they noticed his velocity was down. But after a couple of starts, Ubaldo started looking just fine again, even with a slower fastball. As FanGraphs’ own Dave Cameron mentioned on The Twitter just the other day, Ubaldo’s xFIPs since the start of the 2009 season have been nearly identical. While Ubaldo may no longer be a fantasy stud, he’s still a pretty good pitcher to have around thanks to his high strikeout rates and a solid ERA.

While Ubaldo’s xFIP has been very consistent, Mat Latos’ numbers have not been, but that doesn’t mean the overall point is anything different. Latos didn’t pitch great early on, but he’s been Good Mat Latos as of late. Latos’ velocity is down on the year, but a lot of that is from his earlier starts. At the very least, you should have trusted Latos because of where he plays his home games, but if you didn’t, shame on you.