Today is supposed to be a waiver wire article, but we’ll have plenty of those. For those of you still planning one last draft (and the internal FanGraphs league is one of those), I thought I would present to you my second-ever auction draft. Yes, I’m a noob. But with more mocks and real-life auctions in my review mirror, I’ll be able to step up the auction coverage here at RotoGraphs.

Here are my results, with comments coming after:

Position Player $
C Brian McCann 22
C Jarrod Saltalamacchia 1
1B Adrian Gonzalez 31
2B Brandon Phillips 21
3B Gordon Beckham 17
SS Alcides Escobar 12
CI Paul Konerko 10
MI Chris Getz 1
OF Justin Upton 30
OF Carlos Lee 19
OF Matt LaPorta 4
OF Seth Smith 1
OF Scott Podsednik 1
UT Gaby Sanchez 2
BN Xavier Nady 1
BN Matt Joyce 1
Total Offense: $173

Position Player $
P CC Sabathia 26
P Josh Johnson 22
P Brett Anderson 16
P Roy Oswalt 6
P Ryan Franklin 5
P Ryan Madson 4
P Kerry Wood 3
P Ryan Rowland-Smith 2
P Jonathon Niese 1
BN Ian Kennedy 1

Pitching total: $87

This was a 15-team put on by MDS (MillionDollarSleeper), who I’m sure you’ve seen around the comment boards at this site and others. He brought in an impressive collection of talent including David Goleblahblah, Paul Greco from FantasyPros911, Tim Heany from KFFL, Rudy Gamble and Grey Albright from Razzball, Paul Bourdett from AOL Fantasy Fanhouse, Antonio D’Arcangelis from RotoExperts, Scott Swanay from Fantasy Sherpas, Chris Carbonell from the Starbonell BlogTalkRadio show, Charlie Saponara from FB365, and yours truly.

Given that it was a 15-team league and my second attempt ever, I don’t think I fared so badly. I’d say Adrian Gonzalez for $31 was a little much, but the top-tier first basemen went for closer to $40 and Albert Pujols went for $48, so I think I did okay there. Maybe $10 is too much for Paul Konerko, but Adam LaRoche went minutes later for $15 and I felt (much) better. Things happened a little differently with Alcides Escobar – ten minutes after wondering if I’d spent too much on him, Everth Cabrera went for $4 and I wondered if Escobar’s superior batting average (based on fewer Ks and minor league history) was worth $8. Maybe it will prove to be. Carlos Lee for $19 looks about as bad as he does in a uniform, but the crib sheet I was using from LastPlayerPicked.com had Lee worth $21 next year and I was happy to get the power production with a good batting average for relatively cheap. And as for Scott Podsednik and Gaby Sanchez, who both showed up on my NFBC teams, too: They were cheap. And I think they’ll play almost regularly all year. So that’s something.

On the pitching side, CC Sabathia went for less than Johan Santana ($28), Dan Haren ($31), Felix Hernandez ($33), Zack Greinke ($32) and Tim Lincecum ($41), so I was happy to get my ace for cheaper than most. I also preferred CC, despite his big innings totals, over Ubaldo Jimenez ($26) and Ricky Nolasco ($25) as much as I like the younger pitchers. Lord knows CC has put up big innings totals before.

Once I spent my top-closer money on Brett Anderson, I knew I’d be looking for value in the saves category. Advice from Baseball Prospectus’ Marc Normandin was ringing in my ear (punt saves!), but I decided I’d rather try to field a full team this time. Once he’s healthy, I happen to think that the Indians will want to run Kerry Wood out there at closer to pump up his value for a trade, meaning that between him and Ryan Madson, I think I might have a second closer in there somewhere.

It’s kind of a wonky team and seems devoid of elite, top-shelf talent, but it just might work. What do you guys think?

In terms of pitching attributes, there’s no better blend for starters than high strikeout totals, few walks and ample ground balls. The hurlers who can miss bats, limit free passes and burn worms reign supreme.

Oakland’s Brett Anderson fits the profile. One of the shiny baubles picked up in the December 2007 Dan Haren deal, Anderson ripped through the minor leagues (9.7 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 56.5 GB%) and made the A’s out of spring training last season. As a 21 year-old with scarce experience above A-ball, Anderson was arguably one of the top 15 starters in baseball.

In 175.1 innings, Anderson struck out 7.7 batters per nine innings, while walking just 2.31 hitters per nine. He remained a strong groundball pitcher in the show, with a 50.9 GB%. The lefty’s 3.61 xFIP, based on K’s, walks and a normalized home run per fly ball rate, placed 14th among starters.

In terms of stuff, Anderson went from good to great during the course of the season. Take a look at his velocity chart for 2009:

In April, Anderson sat 91 MPH with his fastball, with an 82.7 MPH slider. By the summer, he was averaging 93-94 MPH with a mid-80’s slider. Overall, Anderson’s heater wasn’t a great pitch in 2009 (-0.56 runs per 100 pitches), nor was his changeup (-0.47). However, he featured some of the best breaking stuff in the majors.

Anderson’s slider (tossed nearly a third of the time) was worth +2.51 runs per 100 pitches. In terms of overall runs (wSL), Anderson’s +22.2 topped all big league starters. His high-70’s curveball also rated well, though the sample is small considering that he threw the pitch less than seven percent (+0.25 runs/100).

Trip Somers’ Pitch F/X tool has different pitch classifications (his site classifies most of Anderson’s breaking pitches as curveballs). Whatever you want to call his pitches, Anderson showed exceptional control when he spun a breaking ball. He threw both the slider and curve for a strike 65.1 percent of the time (62.7 percent MLB average for the slider and 58 percent average for the curve).

For 2010, CHONE (3.92 FIP) and ZiPS (3.78 FIP) both project FIPs in the high three’s. The FANS are even giddier, envisioning a 3.48 FIP.

As that fan forecast attests, people are privy to Anderson’s talents. But he still might be a relative value entering the season. According to MockDraftCentral, the 22 year-old is, on average, going 35th among starting pitchers. That’s after regression candidate Jair Jurrjens and health question mark Brandon Webb.

The only thing standing in between Anderson and acedom is health. The A’s were pretty cautious with him in ’09, limiting Anderson to 94 pitches per start, but his innings total did increase by about 70 from 2008 to 2009 (it’s closer to 40 if you count his pitching for Team USA and a pair of Triple-A playoff starts in ’08). Given Anderson’s talent and modest ADP, he could be the rare top prospect who’s actually a bargain on draft day.

Florida Marlins acquired LHP Nate Robertson from the Detroit Tigers for LHP Jay Voss.

According to Joe Frisario’s MLB.com article, the Tigers are picking up $9.6 million of Robertson’s $10 million salary for the 2010 season.

The 32 year-old lefty posted a decent 4.68 xFIP in 2008, but his ERA soared to 6.35 as he suffered a .343 batting average on balls in play and performed poorly with runners on base (64.3 LOB%). In 2009, the former Marlins prospect hit the DL twice: a lower back strain sidelined Robertson in May, and elbow surgery shelved him from late June to late August. He also had surgery to repair a torn groin muscle during the offseason.

When he did pitch, Robertson wasn’t terribly unlucky. He was just lousy (5.44 ERA, 5.37 xFIP). He struggled to place pitches in the strike zone (43.4 Zone%, compared to the 49-51% MLB average) and walked over five batters per nine innings.

Robertson isn’t an appealing fantasy option at this point, as CHONE (4.81 FIP) and ZiPS (4.97 FIP) both project FIPs in the high fours. At his peak, he was a league-average starter, supplementing below-average K rates with solid control and groundball proclivities. Struggling to throw strikes and stay healthy, Robertson now has “stay away” stamped on his forehead.

The trade also means that Dontrelle Willis will get a chance at the back of Detroit’s rotation, and Clay Hensley will be bumped to Florida’s ‘pen.

Some final cuts were made today, and a closer “decision” was made. Let’s get right into our first of many 2010 waiver wire articles, shall we?

Jon Rauch, Matt Guerrier, Jose Mijares, Pat Neshek
Well, it looks like Jon Rauch is not the winner of the Minnesota closer sweepstakes. Manager Ron Gardenhire announced that the Twins will go with a committee at the position, and Aaron Gleeman is right to predict some media hand-wringing and hair-pulling concerning the decision. In fact, as he points out, that insanity (or inanity) has already begun. While we applaud the decision from a real baseball viewpoint (a Mijares/Neshek platoon could be deadly in the ninth), it does make things difficult on fantasy owners. Jon Rauch still has the best package from an overall skills standpoint, but everyone on this list has had a good spring save Mijares. If you need some cheap saves however you can get them, take the guy from this group that is still available on your wire. It will be your closer lottery ticket.

Chris Young (SD)
There really isn’t any news to back up this item, but Young has pitched well this spring and went un-drafted in many leagues (319.46 ADP). He leads the Friars with strikeouts (16 in 17.2 innings) and has a nice ERA to boot (3.57 if you care about that sorta thing). The walk rate this spring (10 walks so far) is not terribly exciting, but he the surgery he’s recovering from did not show a torn labrum – just fraying – so there’s a chance he can recover to his former glory. Let’s not forget that he was a decent pitcher before last year’s (hurt) disasterpiece, regularly putting up k-rates over eight against average walk rates. Oh, and then there’s that home park that he plays in, too.

David Hernandez
Right after touting Chris Tillman as a good $1 option just last week, the Orioles go and reassign the youngster so that he can get more work in with his new pitch. It’s a testament to the young pitching talent the O’s have acquired that the guy behind him is also interesting – provided you are in an AL-only league and looking for a spot-starter / end of bench option. Now, Hernandez didn’t strike many people out last year (K/9), and he gave up way too many fly balls (FB%), but that was not the case in the minor leagues. Well, at least on one front. He’s always been a fly-ball pitcher (44.5% career in the minors) but he’s always struck out gobs of players (10.12 K/9 career in minors), too. He’s no slop pitcher, as his 93 MPH fastball is augmented by three decent pitches – so here’s a bet that Hernandez will look a lot better in his second attempt at the bigs.

On Saturday, Milwaukee Brewers manager Ken Macha announced that David Bush will slot into the fourth spot in the rotation behind Yovani Gallardo, Randy Wolf and Doug Davis. The 30 year-old Bush is coming off of a grisly 2009 campaign in which he had a Boeing-level ERA and missed time in June and July with a right triceps tear after Hanley Ramirez scorched him with a comebacker. Is there any fantasy value to be had here?

In 114.1 innings pitched, the Wake Forest product had a 6.38 ERA. As you might expect, he wasn’t that bad: Bush’s expected FIP (xFIP), based on K’s, walks and a normalized home run per fly ball rate, was a not-terrible-but still-mediocre 4.79. He managed to punch out 7.01 batters per nine frames, while issuing 2.91 BB/9. Those are quality numbers. But, as has often been the case in his career, Bush was battered by the long ball: he surrendered 1.5 HR/9.

Bush wasn’t particularly unlucky in terms of his fly balls becoming fan mementos. His HR/FB rate was 12 percent, close to his 11.7 percent career average and within the typical 10-12% rate for pitchers. It’s just that hitters are lofting the ball far more often against Bush:

Since his halcyon 2006 season (3.8 Wins Above Replacement), Bush has seen his groundball rate dip every year. He had a 46.6 GB% in ’06, 43.4% in 2007, 41.1% in 2008 and just a 34.4% rate of grounders this past season. Consequently, his HR/9 figures have climbed from 1.11 in 2006, 1.3 in 2007, 1.41 in 2008 and the aforementioned 1.5 mark in 2009. Bush’s xFIP last year was over a full run higher than his work in ’06.

With a kitchen sink approach to pitching, Bush tosses at least five different pitches (his Pitch F/X data identifies an occasional two-seamer as well). His fastball has never been known for its zip, but it averaged a career-low 87.9 MPH last year and was bushwhacked for a -1.36 runs/100 pitches value. That was the 11th-worst mark among starters with at least 110 innings pitched.

Perhaps feeling that his fastball had abandoned him, Bush threw the pitch a career-low 49 percent of the time. Whether you consider them separate pitches or not (the Baseball Info Solutions pitch data does), his slider (+0.20 runs/100) and cutter (+1.06) were effective. However, Bush’s slow curve (-0.15) and changeup (-4.46) rated poorly.

With fewer fastballs thrown (Bush’s fastball percentage has gradually dropped from 57 percent in ’06 to last year’s 49 percent mark), he has placed fewer pitches over the plate:

Bush’s percentage of pitches in the strike zone, 2006-2009 (MLB average that year in parentheses)

2006: 56.5% (52.6%), +7% above the MLB average
2007: 53.9% (50.3%), +7%
2008: 51.8% (51.1%), +1%
2009: 50.5% (49.3%), +2%

His first-pitch strike percentage has fallen from the 62 percentage range in ’06 and ’07 to a major league average 58 percent last year. Not coincidentally, Bush’s walk rate has gone from immaculate to merely good.

Bush’s BABIP (.324 last year) will likely fall, and he should do a better job of stranding runners on base (63.3 LOB% in 2009, compared to a 68.6% career rate). But to be a fantasy option, Bush must prove he’s healthy and regain his once-average fastball (career -0.19 runs/100), rather than continuing to chuck a pitch that looks like a beach ball to major league hitters.

It’s hard to recommend him, given his evaporating groundball rate and increasing rate of free passes handed out. CHONE calls for a 4.79 FIP, while ZiPS shows a 4.57 FIP forecast. It’s possible that Bush could have some value in NL-only leagues, but I can’t see him becoming a good mixed league pick.

Now that Bush is in the rotation, there’s a three-way ruckus for the fifth spot between Manny Parra (chronicled here), Jeff Suppan and Chris Narveson. Given that Soup’s French Onion is better than his fastball, Parra looks like the best option.

There’s an Oriole starter that quietly moving up draft boards and garnering dark-horse votes for the 2010 ROY. He’s being lauded for his poise and polish, and fantasy managers are snatching him up despite his formidable AL East opponents. Talk of his dominating college and minor league performances spreads from water cooler to water cooler and the hype is growing.

That pitcher is not Chris Tillman. Still valued at $0 in AL-only leagues on LastPlayerPicked.com, Tillman is languishing on draft boards and isn’t inspiring the same excitement currently, despite possibly more upside. Is there an open secret sitting in the shadows behind Brian Matusz? Maybe it’s the whole left-handed thing.

It seems a fait accompli that Tillman will rise to the top of this rotation… eventually. The numbers from the minor leagues, though, don’t necessarily bear out all that optimism. For every positive, there’s seemingly a negative that brings an asterisk.

Take his strikeout rate – Tillman had a nice, steady strikeout rate all the way through the minors as he rode his 92+ MPH fastball and big breaking curveball to a 9.8 K/9 career minor league rate that never once dipped below a strikeout per inning. That’s beautiful. Less exciting is his career minor league 3.89 BB/9 that was actually over four walks per nine in the majority of his stops along the way. Much of the optimism about Tillman comes from his stellar work in AAA last year, when he put up an outlier walk rate (2.4 BB/9) that he had never once shown before. In his short time in the majors last year, the walk rate looked okay (3.3 BB/9), but the strikeout rate wasn’t there. Though he’s still young (21) and did most of his minor league work before he could drink, Tillman needs to repeat his 2009 control to really impress the general public, it seems.

Then there’s the pitching mix. The scouts like his fastball and his curveball, but it was his changeup that was the only pitch that scored positively in linear weights last year. He also gave up too many fly balls on mid-to-high-heat as Heat Mapper Dave Allen showed so beautifully late last year. That problem seems commensurate with his minor league career, where he had about an unimpressive one-to-one groundball-to-flyball ratio.

Can a fly-ball pitcher succeed in Baltimore, or can Tillman at least push his ratio back to his minor league level? No matter what, the home run rate should fall. His 2.08 HR/9 rate came on the heels of a 15.2 HR/FB percentage that shouldn’t continue.

There’s also talk of Tillman developing a cutter, which, as Daniel Moroz of Camden Crazies points out, might help him locate his pitches in a new part of the zone in between his high heat and his low curveball. Although the cutter is en vogue, and it doesn’t work for everyone, Tillman might really benefit from augmenting his pitching mix. Anything to keep him from grooving fastballs at the belt would, of course, help.

Taken as a whole, there’s more to like than dislike in the Tillman package. If you squint just right, you could see this young pitcher find his old dominant strikeout rate, push the groundball-to-flyball ratio back to his normal (if mediocre) levels, exhibit his new-found control once again, and drastically improve his results. That’s all without the intrigue of the new pitch added in. In an AL-only league, that’s certainly worth a dollar.

Last season was a year to forget for Tigers pitcher Nate Robertson. A sprained thumb suffered during Spring Training contributed to him opening the season in the bullpen, a place he was unfamiliar with having made starts in 163 of his previous 174 outings in the majors. His new role, along with more injuries, kept him under 50 innings pitched for the year. And when he did pitch the results were just not there. But last year’s troubles are why Robertson is an attractive end-game target for those in AL-only leagues this season.

In addition to the thumb injury, Robertson also suffered in 2009 from a lower back strain that landed him on the disabled list. And if that wasn’t enough, he had surgery to remove a mass from his left elbow that kept him out for 60 days. Robertson ended the 2009 campaign with inflammation on the left side of his pelvis. And in November he had surgery for a torn muscle in his groin.

And you thought you were happy to see 2010 come.

This year Robertson finds himself battling for a spot back in the rotation. He has had a strong Spring and thru games on Tuesday he leads the Tigers with 14.2 IP. Robertson has 2-0 record with a 3.68 ERA, with 6 BB and 14 Ks.

For the five seasons prior to 2009, Robertson averaged just under 31 starts per year for Detroit. His strong showing in Grapefruit League play should help him sew up a spot back in the rotation this year. In 2009, Robertson had a 3.86 ERA in six games as a starter and a 7.48 ERA in 22 games out of the pen.

In addition to pitching out of the pen, two other things stand out as outliers for Robertson last year. Historically a ground ball pitcher, he had a 0.99 GB/FB ratio last year. Also, Robertson usually has pretty solid control, but last year he had a 5.07 BB/9, nearly two full walks above his 3.24 career average.

Assuming Robertson reverts to throwing strikes and getting ground balls, he should be a fine $1 pitcher to target at the end of drafts. In addition to everything else that went wrong last year, he also had a .344 BABIP, 33 points above his career norm. Robertson does not need to make any improvements in his game, he just needs to be healthy and have a reasonable amount of luck to be a good addition to your fantasy team.

There have been requests for some deeper sleepers from managers in NL- and AL-only leagues, and so these dudes will abide. Over the next couple of weeks, Brian Joura and I will cover a few sleeper starters that you might be able to snag for a dollar in your NL- or AL-only draft. Joura kicked off this mini-series with a look at Jeff Francis this morning.

It seems that Jonathon Niese is currently in a battle with fellow lefty Hisanori Takahashi for the fifth starter position on the New York Metropolitans. If the Mets use the spring training stats to decide the battle, Niese will lose. Then he’ll end up in the minor leagues, starting every fifth day, and waiting for the Mets’ brass to finally tire of Mike Pelfrey or Oliver Perez once and for all. Because his long-term upside is superior, we’ll take a look at Niese here. Takahashi is 34, and though he features four legitimate pitches, he wasn’t a heavy strikeout ace in Japan and didn’t show a ton of durability either. He can hit the strike zone, but you wonder what will happen once the league sees him a couple of times.

Niese is in a different situation than the mid-career crafty veteran out of Japan. He is 23, was just ranked the Mets #5 prospect by maven Marc Hulet, and owns at least one strong major league pitch – his curveball. Or at least, that’s what the scouting reports say. As Hulet pointed out in his blurb on the young southpaw, his most effective pitch last year was actually his cutter (+1.3 runs). But now that’s two major league pitches, and it looks like he’s using them more and more each year and using his scratch-level 90-MPH fastball (-0.8 runs last year). It could be a nice mix even without an overpowering fastball.

There seems to be some institutional hesitancy when it comes to Niese, though. Perhaps his merely above-average strikeout rates in the minor leagues (7.83 K/9 career in the minors) didn’t inspire them. After putting together 22 starts in AA at age 22 (2008) with a nice strikeout rate (8.11), a decent walk rate (3.18), and a good groundball rate (53.1%), the Mets did call him up for two major league starts. The first major league player he pitched to (Rickie Weeks) took him deep, and it may have looked like he had a poor debut, but he did okay for a young guy and even racked up 11 strikeouts in his 14-inning cup of coffee.

Maybe it’s the constant speed of the New York news cycle, but when the team started Niese in AAA last year, it seemed to be a statement about the org’s belief in him. As could be expected, his strikeout rate fell a little (7.26 K/9), but everything else held steady and he earned his way back to the majors as an injury replacement for Oliver Perez first and John Maine second. Though the sample size wasn’t large, and the strikeout rates weren’t impressive (6.31 K/9), Niese seemed to settle down and pitched to a 3.25 FIP by limiting walks and improving his ground ball rate. His home run rate also fell precipitously (1.29 HR/9 in 2008, .35 in 2009), which was more in line with his career numbers in the minor leagues (0.53 HR/9 career in the minor leagues).

In any case, given the underwhelming nature of the starters in the rotation ahead of him, and their various injury histories, it certainly seems that the Mets will have no choice but to give Niese more starts this year. If Niese continues his trajectory by inducing more ground balls and limiting the walks, it seems that he would be a decent NL $1 option in 2010.

After missing the entire 2009 season due to surgery on a torn labrum, Rockies pitcher Jeff Francis is back pitching and is in the running for the fifth starter’s job. Saturday’s outing was rough (4 IP, 6 R, 6 H) but should not detract from the fact that if he does make the rotation, Francis is an excellent $1 pitcher in NL-only leagues.

Before the injury, Francis was on his way to becoming one of the top young pitchers in the game. Over the 2006-07 seasons, he had 30 W, a 4.19 ERA and a 1.335 WHIP in his age 25 and 26 seasons. While he did not rack up strikeouts (282 in 414.1 IP), his K/9 went from 5.3 in 2006 to 6.9 in 2007 and he had a 2.62 K/BB ratio in the latter year.

Francis did this without overpowering stuff. His fastball averaged in the mid-80s over these two seasons and was actually a negative pitch in 2007. But he succeeded thanks to an extremely effective changeup. At 11.9 runs above average, Francis’ change was the seventh-best one in MLB in 2007. He also mixed in a curve ball, which was an average offering.

In 2008, Francis struggled right off the bat. He finally went on the disabled list at the end of June with shoulder inflammation and missed five weeks. After getting roughed up again in his first outing after being activated, Francis reeled off six strong starts (2.82 ERA, 24 Ks, 9 BB, 38.1 IP) before being shut down for good after September 12th. In February of 2009, he underwent arthroscopic surgery and missed the regular season.

Flash forward to 2010 and Francis has made four starts in the Cactus League. He is still a work in progress and the velocity on his fastball has not been consistent. Overall Francis has 13 IP, 16 H, 10 ER, 5 BB and 9 Ks. Francis needs the separation between his fastball and changeup to be significant in order for the latter pitch to succeed. He still has two more starts left this Spring to iron things out. However, as the team’s fifth starter, Francis would not pitch the early part of April and could have additional time in Arizona to refine his stuff.

In the end game, you want to take pitchers with both upside and a good shot at a starting spot. We know that Francis has significant upside, based upon what he has already done in the majors. And he should be the team’s fifth starter if he is healthy. Francis is battling journeymen Tim Redding and Gregory Smith for the final rotation slot and should be an easy choice if his shoulder is sound.

So, if you have time before your auction or draft, monitor Francis’ final two outings. Better results than his last performance would be nice, but the real key is that he logs innings and does not suffer any setbacks. If both of those things are true, Francis should be a prime target to fill out the back of your staff.

The Florida Marlins figure to have a fantastic one-two punch at the top of the rotation this season, with Josh Johnson (inked to a four-year, $39 million deal during the off-season) followed by Ricky Nolasco, whose 2009 xFIP was 1.8 runs lower than his ERA. Anibal Sanchez, assuming his shoulder doesn’t start shooting flames, looks to be the third man. After that, things get a little..fishy (sorry).

Chris Volstad, Rick VandenHurk, Andrew Miller, Clay Hensley and Hayden Penn are all looking to earn a spot at the back of Florida’s rotation.

Volstad, 23, was the 16th overall pick in the 2005 draft. The 6-8 right-hander didn’t post huge whiff totals in the minors (6.3 K/9), but his low-90’s fastball, high-70’s curve and low-80’s changeup generated grounders at a 57.4 percent clip and he displayed plus control with just 2.4 BB/9.

Over the last two years in the big leagues, Volstad has posted rates of 5.88 K/9 and 3.51 BB/9, with a 4.43 xFIP. Volstad remains a groundball-oriented hurler, with a 50.9 GB% in the majors. His hook (+0.86 runs per 100 pitches for the curve) and changeup (+0.73) have been effective, but that fastball has been smacked for a -0.55 runs/100 value.

Volstad’s upside doesn’t appear enormous, but he’s a good bet to bounce back in 2010. His ERA was 5.21 in 2009, compared to a 4.35 xFIP. The reason? Nearly 18 percent of fly balls hit against Volstad left the yard last year, by far the highest rate among starters with 150+ innings pitched. If that number regresses back to the 10-12 percent range, then Volstad’s ERA should dip to mid-fours.

A 24 year-old Dutchman, VandenHurk has been Marlins property since 2002. The 6-5 righty features low-90’s Gouda and a hard slider, which has helped him punch out a batter per inning on the farm, with 3.8 BB/9.

Sadly, VandenHurk is often hurt. He had Tommy John surgery in 2005. More recently, he was shelved in both ’08 and ’09 with elbow ailments. VandenHurk has never come close to a full starter’s workload: his 121.2 IP last season between Florida and the minors was a career high.

In 2009, he had 7.69 K/9, 2.41 BB/9 and a 3.05 FIP in 59.2 innings at the Triple-A level, and 7.52 K/9, 3.22 BB/9 and a 4.78 xFIP in the majors. VandenHurk will miss bats, but health, control issues and extreme fly ball tendencies (27.6 GB% in the majors) make him unreliable. CHONE predicts a 4.66 FIP next year, with 8.54 K/9, 4 BB/9 and 1.38 dingers per nine innings.

R.J. Anderson covered Miller’s journey from highly-touted Tar Heel and Tiger to aggravating underachiever. The lefty is still just 24, and his career xFIP in the majors (4.70) is considerably lower than his ERA (5.50). Even so, scouts expected much more than mediocrity from the 6th pick in the 2006 draft.

First, the good: Miller has 7.22 K/9 in the major leagues, and he keeps the ball on the ground, too (48.1 GB%). The bad is, well, everything else.

Miller has generously handed out 5.09 walks per nine innings, tossing a first pitch strike just 52.1 percent of the time (58 percent MLB average). Batters aren’t chasing his low-90’s fastball, slurvy upper-70’s breaking ball or low-80’s changeup out of the zone (20.6 outside swing%, compared to the 25% MLB average).

When the 6-7 southpaw isn’t getting behind in the count, he’s hurt: he hit the DL in 2008 with a right knee injury and missed time last year with oblique and right ankle problems (injury info from the Fantasy Pitch F/X DL Tool).

As R.J. suggested, Miller might be best served by going to Triple-A and working out the kinks. He logged just 131 innings in the minors. CHONE still sees Miller through powder blue-colored glasses though, forecasting a 4.30 FIP, 7.62 K/9 and 4.79 BB/9 in 2010.

Hensley, 30, posted a 2.1 WAR season with the Padres back in 2006. The next few years wouldn’t be nearly as kind. Hampered by a shoulder injury (requiring labrum surgery after the ’07 campaign), Hensley was smacked around in the majors and became known as “the dude who gave up Barry Bonds’s 755th home run.”

The former Giants prospect briefly passed through Houston’s minor league system last year and then latched on with Florida. In 114 innings with the Zephyrs, Hensley had a 3.73 FIP, 6.47 K/9 and 3 BB/9.

Hensley’s something of a slop-ball pitcher, featuring a fastball that might crack 90 on a good day, a low-80’s slider, a mid-70’s curve and a low-80’s changeup. He’s not a great source of strikeouts, and he doesn’t have the sort of control that one usually associates with a finesse type. However, he does keep the ball on the ground. CHONE calls for a 4.79 FIP next year, with 6.3 K/9 and 4.5 BB/9.

Like his fellow competitors, Penn is no stranger to strains surgical scars. The former Orioles prospect has a promising minor league dossier. But you name it, and Penn has hurt it: surgery to remove his appendix in 2006, elbow surgery in 2007 and shoulder soreness in 2008. The 25 year-old righty is projected to post a 5.04 FIP next year, with 7.53 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9.

Volstad, VandenHurk and Miller remain mildly interesting fantasy options, though none should be on draft boards in mixed leagues.