Royals pitching prospect Miguel Almonte entered the year as the #10 prospect in the Kansas City system according to Baseball America, and it’s hard to argue that he deserves to fall from that perch in the coming ranking season. As a 20-year-old in his first full-season campaign, the Dominican righthander has posted a 3.16 ERA and 2.97 FIP with a 117/36 K/BB in 119 2/3 innings. As with any young arm in the low minors, there’s still a significant amount of mystery and uncertainty surrounding Almonte. He held up quite well in my viewing earlier this season, though, showing a good combination of potential and polish.

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During last night’s Fantasy Baseball Roundtable radio show that I participate in every Wednesday night, I was asked in one of our regular segments whether Felix Hernandez would remain an effective pitcher after the age of 30. On the surface, this seemed like a pretty absurd question. Of course he would! What would make anyone think he wouldn’t? This article won’t actually answer that question. However, when quickly scanning the King’s statistical record in order to determine my response, there appeared to be some crazy things going on. I would like to share those with you.

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Back in July, Mike Petriello gave us a nice background on Ivan Nova, so I’ll spare you his biographical introduction. At the time, it was July and Nova had looked pretty solid in a handful of starts, but the dreaded small sample size kind of loomed. But since that time, he’s just continued to confound opponents and he appears to be emerging as one of the more shrewd waiver wire acquisitions of the 2013 season. What’s interesting is how different he has been this year versus his career.

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We’ve officially reached the calm before the storm. With just a month and a half to go, the National League starting pitcher tiers have finally started to settle in. Once September rolls around, and teams start calling up prospects, it all goes to hell again. While the trading deadline has passed in most fantasy leagues, there’s still a chance to take stock of potential keepers, or cut dead weight for a potentially better player on the waiver wire. With Breaking Bad being such a topical subject, the tiers will be a ranking of the best characters on the show. Please keep in mind the players are tiered. If Homer Bailey and Shelby Miller are in the same tier, that means I value them about the same. It doesn’t mean whichever player is listed first is better. Enjoy.

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From Jeff Sullivan’s chat that’s happening *right now* on the site:

9:02 Comment From bdhudson
Jordan Zimmermann is developing a really unpleasant trend.

9:02 Jeff Sullivan:
This is an example of a prompt that sends me to 60 seconds of research

9:02 Jeff Sullivan:
This is why my chats go so much slower than others do

9:03 Jeff Sullivan:
Zimmerman’s first 13 starts: 2.00 ERA, 4% BB, 17% K

9:03 Jeff Sullivan:
Zimmermann’s last 12 starts: 5.27 ERA, 7% BB, 20% K

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As we head into the last month of the season, many fantasy owners are clamoring for more strikeouts and wins. Obviously, chasing wins is a fool’s errand (see: the Cardinals boxscore last night as Michael Wacha blew Shelby Miller’s win, allowing 3 runs in an inning of work, yet recorded the almighty win). But obviously, the more starts you accumulate, the greater the opportunity for the holy win, and of course, strikeouts.

With a large base of innings already in the books, that means that a pitcher’s implosion won’t hurt nearly as much at this point, so a streaming strategy isn’t ill-advised. So with that in mind, here is one recommended streaming play a day for games from Wednesday through Sunday. Pitchers should all be available in the majority of 12-team mixed leagues and shallower. Of course, since I don’t know who is in your free agent pool, there could be some better options, in which case I fully expect you to ask me about them in the comments.

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Chris Sale was far from a polished pitcher by the time he was drafted by the White Sox. Armed with two above-average pitches, some analysts believed he was bound for the bullpen. But in his brief time in the minors, Sale worked on a devastating slider. The pitch was so effective that Sale scrapped what many scouts believed to be his most dominant pitch, his changeup, during his stint in the club’s bullpen. The slider continued to be a dominant force in the rotation during Sale’s 2012 breakout, and has become the pitch most people associate as Sale’s best weapon. The slider may be what Sale is known for, but the changeup has always been his best pitch.

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From 2007 to 2011, Dan Haren was one of the best pitchers in baseball. Over those five seasons, he averaged 5.4 WAR, winning 73 games in more than 1100 innings pitched. In fantasy baseball, Haren might not have been profiled as a classic #1 starter, but he was typically among the top 12 pitchers off the board, and if he was your #2 starter, you were pretty well set up.

In 2012, things started to go south, and they went so in a hurry. His fastball velocity was off dramatically, his strikeout rate continued to fall for the third consecutive year, and he was simply much more hittable. His results weren’t awful, but they just weren’t the old Dan Haren: 4.33 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, and a 19% strikeout rate. Pretty much the definition of a spot starter. Single handedly disproving the contract year phenomena, Haren couldn’t even find a suitor as a free agent until the Nationals took a one-year flyer on him in December of 2012.

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Although he started the season in the Padres’ starting rotation, Tyson Ross wasn’t anyone fantasy owners should have had on their radar coming into the season. He posted a 6.50 ERA and 4.80 FIP with the Oakland Athletics last year, striking out only 5.65 batters per nine innings and showing a penchant for dishing out free passes.

That sentiment proved true when the Padres sent him to Triple-A Tucson in the middle of April, and when he returned, he was relegated to a low-leverage position in the Padres’ bullpen. He had little-to-no fantasy value.

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Most prospect hounds are beginning to take notice of Rockies pitching prospect Eddie Butler. He entered the 2013 season with significant pedigree–he was selected 46th overall in last year’s draft–and has pulled off the rare feat of advancing two levels in his first full professional season. Butler made nine starts with Low-A Asheville and thirteen with High-A Modesto before the team deemed him done with the lower minors; he’s thrown ten scoreless, walkless innings with 12 strikeouts across his first two Double-A outings. That’s some serious prospect helium over the past four months.

Of course, this is a fantasy website. The notion of betting on a pitching prospect in fantasy can be terrifying in its own right, but betting on one destined for Coors Field is certainly unappetizing. Unfortunate environmental situation aside, Butler is definitely an arm to keep track of.

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