Archive for Starting Pitchers

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.

Let’s take a look at our third group of fifteen starters, the SP3 tier. Predictably, by the time you are looking at your third or fourth fantasy pitcher, the candidates begin to thin out and the valuations of the players vary wildly. Consider that this tier goes all the way from Matt Garza (119.67 ADP) down to Wade Davis (306.98). One is a pitcher on the rise with plenty of reasons to for a fantasy manager to get excited, and the other is a youngster just battling for a spot on the roster. Let’s focus on two pitchers that stretch the range and might provide good return on your investment.

Scott Baker (148.34 ADP) is currently a relatively cheap pitcher, going in about the twelfth round of a twelve-team mixed league. You can denigrate his lack of strikeouts (6.88 K/9 career), but there are plenty of other things to like about this young man. Take his walk rate (2.05 BB/9 career), for example. It’s been virtually identical over the past two years, even (2.19 in 2008, 2.16 in 2009), so he’s got that going for him. If you’re looking for flaws, he’s certainly a fly ball pitcher (33.7% GB, 45.4% FB career) and he’s had troubles with the home run (see last year’s 1.26 HR/9) that have inflated his ERA from time to time. Those that follow the Twins might have heard this record before (see: Kevin Slowey).

It’s a little worrisome that he’s moving to a new park, but at least one person thinks will play as a pitcher’s park (AL Petco!). Either way, if the park plays at all similarly to the Mall of America Field, which played between a 1.11 and .896 park factor for home runs over the past three years, he should actually be in for some regression in the home run department. That regression could even get him back to his excellent 2008 levels. (A note: all but nine parks played within that range last year, so it’s likely that Target Field will, too. Also, climate and altitude, not explicitly covered in the above study, are a big part of how a park plays. Those should be similar in the new park.) He still limits walks, he still has a good fastball/slider combo, and he’s still getting batters to reach on 30+% of his pitches outside the zone. The possibility of a high-threes ERA and low 1.2s WHIP is worth a 12th round pick.

It’s not often that a pitcher improves his underlying statistics and loses ground in his more visible numbers, but Gavin Floyd (185.06) pulled off that feat from 2008 to 2009. Here is the full list of component statistics that Floyd improved: strikeout rate, walk rate, home runs per nine, ground ball rate, fly ball rate, O-Swing rate, and contact rate. You got that? And yet somehow, his ERA went up to 4.06 from 3.84 – mostly because his BABIP normalized (from .268 in 2008 to .292 last year). Since his ‘luck’ stats were about where they should have been last year, most of the projection systems say that Floyd will repeat his year, perhaps with a little ERA inflation due to the difference between last year’s nice home run rate (.98 HR/9) and his career number in that category (1.37).

Here’s one thing, though: Floyd has not yet figured out the optimal mix of his pitches. His fastball is not a great pitch (-46.3 runs for his career), and so he’s using it less (47.8% last year, down from 66.7% in 2006). For the last three years, the pitch has begun to find a niche around the scratch level (-4.9 runs last year), and his other pitches have zoomed forward in productivity as he has relied on them. His slider (+7.5 runs) and curveball (+14.1 runs) both hit career highs last year. Even though Floyd threw his fastball ninth-least in the majors last year, he could throw it less (!) since he once threw his curveball regularly over 20% of the time before settling in around 18%. The point isn’t to say that Floyd will throw the fastball less and the curveball more and succeed – the point is that he’s a pitcher available in the fifteenth round that has a floor around the low fours in ERA, should put up a WHIP lower than 1.3, and is not finished figuring out the optimal mix of his pitches. There’s value there, no?

Sunday was my final day with the FanGraphs crew in Arizona. We tried to see the Cubs-Angels game but it was sold out. So, to make Matt Klaassen happy, we ended up seeing the Royals for the second time, as they took on the A’s. Leaving aside the question if watching the Royals makes a fan of their team happy or not, the game did provide a nice opportunity to see two pitchers vying for a spot in the rotation.

The Royals are set at the top of the rotation with Zack Greinke and Gil Meche. But after that comes a host of interchangeable pitchers. The depth charts at MLB.com, CBS Sports, ESPN and Yahoo! each show Kyle Davies as having a starting spot. Davies got the start today but was ineffective. He allowed 6 ER, 7 H and 3 BB (no Ks) in 2.2 IP.

Davies was relieved by Robinson Tejeda, who did not make the top five in any of the above listed depth charts. Tejeda cleaned up the mess left by Davies and pitched 2.1 scoreless innings. He allowed just one hit and struck out two. Tejeda was much more effective, although he was helped greatly by two nice catches by center fielder Jarrod Dyson.

It is never a good idea to read too much into Spring Training outings, but is there any reason to believe that Davies is a better option for the rotation than Tejeda? In two-plus seasons with the Royals, Davies has never had an ERA below 4.06 or a WHIP below 1.451, both of which he posted in 2008. That season, Davies’ numbers look good due to a 6.9 percent HR/FB rate. His xFIP for that season was 4.82, right in line with his 5.08 career xFIP.

Meanwhile, in 60 games for the Royals covering 113 IP, Tejeda has a 3.42 ERA. Last year Tejeda had a 4.07 ERA as a reliever and then in six games as a starter, he went 3-1 with a 2.84 ERA. Overall, he posted a 3.54 ERA, right in line with his 3.60 FIP. Tejeda’s xFIP checks in at 4.47, as he had a 4.7 HR/FB mark. In 373.2 IP in the majors, Tejeda has a 7.8 HR/FB mark.

But even if his xFIP is indicative of his true talent (it was 4.46 in 2008), that still makes him a better option than Davies. With a mid-90s fastball, a slider and a change, Tejeda racks up the strikeouts because he can produce swings-and-misses. He had a 10.63 K/9 last year and a 71.7 Contact%. In 2008, Tejeda had a 70.7 Contact%. If he could do that over an entire season of pitching, that would be among the best marks in the majors, if not the best.

With Tejeda, the big thing is his control. He had a 6.11 BB/9 mark last year and in his career he has a 5.23 BB/9. Even in his successful stint as a starter last year, Tejeda allowed 20 BB in 31.2 IP. The danger is with all of those baserunners that Tejeda could implode with an unlucky year in HR/FB rate. The potential for disaster is even greater because he is a fly ball pitcher. Last year Tejeda had a 0.69 GB/FB ratio.

But he has never had a season like that in the majors. In five seasons in the bigs, Tejeda’s worst HR/FB mark was the 10.7 percent ratio he posted in 2007. In order to justify starting Davies over Tejeda, one has to assume that Tejeda will have a season like he’s never had before while also assuming the same for Davies, just in the opposite direction.

Davies’ problem is that his fastball is not an effective pitch. While he averaged 91.6 with his heater last year, he was 9.5 runs below-average when throwing his fastball. In his five seasons in the majors, his fastball has never been even an average pitch. Last year he tried throwing it fewer times but the results did not change.

Very few pitchers can throw a fastball 50 percent of the time or less and be successful. Those that are able to usually feature a cutter as their second main pitch. Only James Shields used his changeup as his second main pitch, as Davies hopes/needs to do. And even Shields throws his cutter nearly 20 percent of the time the past two seasons. Last year Davies introduced a cutter for the first time in his career and threw it 11.1 percent of the time. By Pitch Type Values it was a neutral pitch. If Davies is to succeed going forward, he will have to throw more cutters and have it be a plus pitch.

The odds are against Davies succeeding, based both on his past history and the lack of success with his fastball. Fantasy players would be better off drafting Tejeda hoping he gets a shot at the rotation and that he can at least curb his walk rate a little bit. While Tejeda is unlikely to be a star, he has a more likely path to success than Davies does.

Saturday the FanGraphs crowd caught the Texas-Cleveland matchup and saw strong performances from starting pitchers Justin Masterson and Brandon McCarthy. Masterson struck out six batters in 3.2 IP while McCarthy had 3 Ks in 3 IP and did not allow a run. Masterson solidified his place as one of the Tribe’s top pitchers while McCarthy helped his chances to land a spot in Texas’ starting rotation.

Over at Mock Draft Central they give an ADP for the top 454 players. McCarthy does not make the list. Some of the pitchers who are on the list ahead of him include Oliver Perez and his 6.82 ERA, Luke Hochevar and his 1.49 WHIP and John Lannan and his 3.88 K/9. McCarthy did not even get a write-up in FanGraphs Second Opinion. I think it is safe to say that he is not on most people’s fantasy radar at this point in time.

McCarthy has two things working against him: his injury history and his gopher ball tendencies. Last year McCarthy had his second stress fracture in his right shoulder and missed nearly three months of the season. He has been on the DL four times in the last three years, including two 60-day stints. In 2009, McCarthy had a 1.20 HR/9, a rate that would have ranked among the worst in the majors if he had enough innings to qualify.

While it remains to be seen if McCarthy can stay healthy, he got better as the season progressed last year in allowing homers. In April, McCarthy surrendered 6 HR in 22 IP. For the rest of the season he gave up 7 HR in 75.1 IP. McCarthy was at his best in September, after he came back from the stress fracture. In his final 33.1 IP, he allowed just 2 HR.

Now this could easily be just the results of a small sample. But one interesting note is McCarthy’s batted ball profile after he returned from the DL. He had a 49.1 GB%, nearly double of his mark in April (26.4%). McCarthy posted a 1.44 GB/FB mark, compared to a 0.92 GB/FB mark overall in 2009 and a 0.82 lifetime mark in the category.

After his return from the disabled list, McCarthy threw fewer fastballs and more of his off-speed pitches. His FB% was 40.3 percent in September, compared to 64.9 percent overall. He threw more of each of his remaining three pitches, with his change seeing the biggest increase. In the final month, McCarthy threw his change 23.6 percent of the time.

With an average FB velocity last year of 88.8 and a Pitch Type Value of -7.6 runs with his heater, McCarthy can afford to throw fewer fastballs. One thing to keep in mind is that there is some confusion about which pitches he actually throws. In the Associated Press story following Saturday’s outing, McCarthy said, “I really wanted to work on the cutter.” Meanwhile, neither FanGraphs nor BrooksBaseball.net show him throwing a cutter last year. Also, there was talk at the beginning of 2009 about McCarthy throwing a “slurve,” which further muddies the water.

Regardless of the terminology used, the bottom line is that McCarthy threw more grounders in the final month of the season last year. It’s too soon to draw any conclusions, but fantasy players should keep in mind that McCarthy may be a different pitcher going forward. If he continues with these ground balls, he could be a candidate for an early waiver wire claim.

Earlier today, R.J. Anderson took a gander at Kevin Hart, a fifth starter candidate for the Pirates picked up from the Cubs last summer. Hart’s main competition for that fifth spot is Pittsburgh’s far less famous McCutchen, Daniel McCutchen.

The 27 year-old heard his name called in four separate drafts before he finally signed on the dotted line. The Yankees popped McCutchen out of Grayson County (Texas) Community College in the 47th round back in 2003, but he didn’t come to terms with the club. Tampa Bay took a flyer in the 29th round in 2004. Daniel didn’t make a deal with the (Devil) Rays, though. St. Louis fared no better after selecting him in the 12th round in 2005. Finally, the fifth-year senior (having transferred to Oklahoma) came full-circle and inked with the Yankees as a 13th-rounder in 2006.

McCutchen’s career prospects perked up following a July 2008 trade that sent him from the Yankees to the Bucs. In the Bronx, the 6-2 righty was approximately eleventieth on the starter’s depth chart. In Pittsburgh, he has a far better chance to carve out a significant role.

McCutchen has generally mowed down hitters on his way to the majors. In 261 career innings at the Triple-A level, he has whiffed 7.2 batters per nine innings, while issuing just 1.6 walks per nine frames. His FIP in the International League is 3.80.

This past year, McCutchen managed to post the second-lowest percentage of balls thrown in the IL, while boasting the fourth-highest swinging strike rate to boot.

Pittsburgh called McCutchen up last August, and he posted a 5.19 FIP in 36.1 innings covering six starts (19/11 K/BB ratio, 6 HR surrendered).

While his work in Triple-A is promising, there’s a schism between McCutchen’s stats and scouting reports. His four-seam fastball sits high in the zone at 90-93 MPH, and he backs it up with a decent low-80’s slider and changeup. In ranking McCutchen as the #21 prospect in the Pirates’ system, Baseball America mentioned that he’s an “extreme fly ball pitcher” who lacks “a true swing-and-miss pitch.”

Those fly ball tendencies are troubling. During his minor league career, McCutchen has gotten grounders just 39.1 percent of the time. In Triple-A this past season, he burned worms at a 33.6 percent clip. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that PNC Park does a number on home run production. According to the 2010 Bill James Handbook, PNC has decreased dingers by 12 percent compared to a neutral venue over the past three seasons.

For 2010, CHONE projects McCutchen to compile a 4.66 FIP, with 6.26 K/9, 2.52 BB/9 and 1.4 HR/9. Whether he cracks the rotation out of Bradenton or not, McCutchen will likely take the hill as a starter at some point.

The “other” McCutchen won’t draw any rave reviews, though he could be useful in NL-only leagues if injuries leave you scurrying to the waiver wire. He’ll miss a modest number of bats and will occasionally get clobbered by the long ball. However, McCutchen’s stinginess with the walks and homer-suppressing home ballpark should make him an average, cheap starter.

This spring, Madison Bumgarner will compete with the likes of Todd Wellemeyer, Kevin Pucetas and Joe Martinez for the right to open the 2010 season in San Francisco’s starting rotation. Truth be told, it wouldn’t be much of a contest if ability were the sole consideration. But because workload and service time concerns also play a part in the decision, Bumgarner could end up back in the minors when the Giants head north.

Regardless of whether he cracks the roster from the get go, the 6-4, 215 pound lefty figures to see significant time in the big leagues this season. Is Bumgarner worth targeting on draft day? And, given the disagreement over his ceiling, is he an upper-echelon keeper league target, or merely a good one?

Plucked out of a North Carolina prep school with the 10th pick in the 2007 draft, Bumgarner was a prototypical projection pick: tall and lanky, able to pump premium gas in the low-90’s, and in the early stages of developing breaking and off-speed stuff.

In its draft coverage, Baseball America noted Bumgarner’s 92-94 MPH fastball (occasionally popping the mitt at 97 MPH). But BA also noted that he “tried multiple grips and shapes with his breaking ball, and at times has flashed a fringe-average pitch that has tilt and late snap at 81 mph,” and that his changeup was “a below-average pitch that should improve when and if he throws it more often.”

In 2008, Bumgarner made his pro debut in the Low-A South Atlantic League. He went all Randy Johnson on those poor Sally League hitters. Logging 141.2 innings, Bumgarner whiffed 10.42 batters per nine frames, while looking anything but raw in issuing just 1.33 BB/9. A very low homer rate (0.19 HR/9) contributed to the figure, but his FIP (1.71) looked like a typo.

Bumgarner shot to the top of prospect lists. Baseball America claimed that “there may not be a lefthander with a better fastball than Bumgarner’s.” He sat 93-94 MPH, again touching the upper nineties. BA said that his secondary pitches remained “a work in progress,” but they rated him as the ninth-best talent in the minors.

Bumgarner earned gushing reports from all of the prospect gurus:

Baseball America

“Bumgarner has all the gifts to be a No. 1 starter.”

Kevin Goldstein: #3 overall

“A tall, power left-hander with mid-90’s heat, a plus breaking ball, and impeccable command, Bumgarner was the best pitcher in the minors last year…”

Keith Law: #6 overall

The rudimentary secondary stuff plus his low arm slot had scouts — including me — assuming he was a long way away from the majors. His slider made enormous strides in his first full year in pro ball, and his changeup is now solid-average, no small feat for a pitcher who throws from a low 3/4 slot.

John Sickels: #14 overall (A Grade)

“Health is a risk as with any young pitcher, but incredible performance at a young age and improved secondary stuff stands out.”

This past year, Bumgarner began the year in the High-A California League, where he again made quick work of the opposition (24.1 IP, 23/4 K/BB, 2.05 FIP). Bumped up to the Double-A Eastern League, he posted a minuscule ERA (1.93). For the first time, though, his peripherals weren’t otherworldly.

In 107 innings, Bumgarner struck out a tame 5.8 hitters per nine innings, with 2.52 BB/9 and a 3.56 FIP. His searing fastball lost its second gear, sitting in the high-80’s during the second half of the season (some attribute the drop to too much throwing on the side). Called up to the majors in September to make one start and three relief appearances, Bumgarner tossed his heater at an average of 89.2 MPH.

Over the off-season, Bumgarner seemed to lose some of his luster with prospect evaluators:

Baseball America: #14 overall

“At his best, Bumgarner has shown a mid-90s fastball, a slider with good tilt and an average changeup…Bumgarner pitched at 88-90 mph for most of the second half of last season…His slider still isn’t a finished product and his changeup isn’t entirely trustworthy.”

Kevin Goldstein: #21 overall

“Scouts noted a consistent velocity drop that by the end of the year amounted to a full 5 mph.”

Keith Law: #28 overall

“Bumgarner took a big tumble this year when his velocity gradually declined the deeper he went into the season.”

John Sickels: A- Grade (no top 100 ranking yet)

“Almost went with B+, but strikeout rates aren’t everything. More concerned about dropping velocity.”

As Harry Pavlidis showed recently, concerns over Bumgarner’s lack of zip persist. It doesn’t seem unusual for a pitcher to show less-than-optimum velocity at the beginning of spring training. But given his sapped fastball speed last year, Bumgarner’s radar readings bear watching.

I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to grab Bumgarner for 2010. CHONE is circumspect, projecting 5.93 K/9, 3.76 BB/9, 1.29 HR/9 and a 4.99 FIP. Given his good-not-great slider and changeup, Bumgarner would need to rediscover his ’08 heat in order to make waves in the majors.

For all of “the sky is falling” rhetoric surrounding Bumgarner, it is important to remember that A.) he’s just 20 and B.) he still ranked highly on all prospect lists. True, it is troubling that a pitcher known primarily for his lively fastball is having a hard time hitting 90. However, this could be a good time to nab the southpaw in a keeper league from an owner fretting over the curious case of Bumgarner’s velocity.

Keep an eye on the radar gun when Bumgarner pitches, but don’t abandon ship in keeper leagues while getting 70 cents on the dollar in return.