Archive for Chad Gaudin

Everyone is happy when one of their pitchers is scheduled for two starts in a week. But that is not always a good thing. Here are five pitchers you may be on the fence about (or should be on the fence) putting into your lineup for Week 16

Nick Blackburn – This season Blackburn is 5-0 at home and has allowed just one HR in 57.1 IP. On the road he is 3-4 and he has allowed nine HR in 66 IP. With road starts at Oakland and at Anaheim, it might be a good time to pull him from the lineup if you have a reasonable alternative.

Brett Cecil – The rookie has appeared in nine games for Toronto this season, making eight starts. The overall numbers do not look very good, but he has five Quality Starts. In his three bad outings, one came on the road in Fenway Park and the other came on the road in Yankee Stadium. I like him for a guy to pick up this week for his two home starts against the Indians and the Rays.

Chad Gaudin – You have to like the 9.58 K/9 ratio. Unfortunately, that comes with a WHIP-killing 4.95 BB/9. However, in his last six starts, Gaudin has a 1.115 WHIP and a 3.11 ERA. And with a home start versus Florida and a road start at Washington, Gaudin has a chance to pull out a win or two if he continues his recent strong pitching.

Kyle Lohse – This year Lohse is 4-3 with a 3.20 ERA and a 1.068 WHIP at home and is 0-2 with a 6.14 ERA and a 1.727 WHIP on the road. Last year in his first year with the Cardinals, Lohse was 8-2 with a 3.32 ERA at home and 1.140 WHIP while away from Busch Stadium he was 7-4 with a 4.43 ERA and a 1.524 WHIP. With road starts at Houston and at Philadelphia, put Lohse on the bench this week.

Ervin Santana – He got his second win of the season in the Angels’ first game back from the All-Star break, as he allowed just two walks in eight innings. Santana has been on the DL twice this season, first with an elbow injury and more recently due to a triceps injury. But Santana hit 94 on the radar last night and is rounding back into the pitcher he was last year when he posted 16 wins. Get him in the lineup this week.

Other scheduled two-start pitchers in Week 16 are listed below. Please remember that these are projected pitchers and changes can and will happen between now and next week.

Lee, Danks, Lowe, Braden, Floyd, Millwood, Scherzer, Pettitte, Hanson, Price, Smoltz, Meche, Lannan, Davis, Galarraga, Porcello, De La Rosa, Sanchez, Moyer, Niemann, Ohlendorf, Wellemeyer, L. Hernandez, Sadowski, Moehler, Olson, Owings, Richard, Gonzalez, V. Vasquez, D. Hernandez, Jeff Weaver, Swarzak, Lopez, O’Sullivan, Banks.

Check back Sunday for an update of two-start pitchers.

Now, I would like to take a step back and provide some accountability for previous picks. There needs to be a two-week time lag because last week’s pitchers have yet to complete their second start. So here are my selections for Week 14 and how they did.

Contreras – Advised to start. W, 1.42 ERA, 5 K, 1.00 WHIP (1 start)
Garland – Advised to sit. W, 2.57 ERA, 9 K, 1.29 WHIP (2)
Pelfrey – Advised to start. W, 6.30 ERA, 8 K, 1.80 WHIP (2)
Romero – Advised to start. W, 3.77 ERA, 8 K, 1.40 WHIP (2)
Zimmemann – Advised to sit. 4.35 ERA, 9 K, 1.84 WHIP (2)

Hopefully you were able to pick up Lance Berkman and trade Adrian Gonzalez last week. But even if you stood pat there are still plenty of acquisition targets and trade bait guys out there for you. So, here are five guys to pick up and five guys to move.

Acquire

Adam LaRoche – In 2008 he had a .764 OPS in the first half of the year and a .975 OPS after the break. In 2007 the numbers were .763 and .854. In his MLB career, LaRoche has a .787 OPS pre-AS break and a .907 OPS after the break. He has had a very solid first half of the season and if he maintains his career averages after the break, LaRoche could challenge for his best season yet, when he batted .285-32-90.

Luke Hochevar – His strikeout rate is poor (3.57) and his BABIP sits at .231 for the season. But Hochevar has hurled a Quality Start in four of his last five outings, pitching into the seventh inning in all four of those games, including one route-going performance. Hochevar has decent control and does not allow many fly balls. And he should improve upon his 60 percent strand rate going forward.

Willie Harris – Since taking over the CF job 10 days ago, Harris has 3 HR and 3 SB to go along with a .308 AVG. Harris has never been a star, but he did hit 13 HR a season ago. If you need a stopgap option in the OF, he is a waiver wire pickup to consider, with the ability to help in multiple categories. Also, he has played 10 games this year at 2B, which may make him eligible there in some formats.

Chad Gaudin – Back as a SP after spending most of last season in relief, Gaudin is piling up the strikeouts and maintaining a serviceable WHIP (1.39) despite a dismal 4.58 BB/9 mark. His FIP is over a full run beneath his ERA while his strand rate has room for improvement from its current 65.2 percent mark. Early in the month, Gaudin was forced into bullpen duty in an 18-inning game. He got rocked in his next start but has followed up with three Quality Starts. In that span, Gaudin has a 28/5 SO/BB ratio in 21 innings.

Garrett Atkins – Through his first 53 games, Atkins had a .189 AVG and was in the discussion for the worst player in fantasy baseball. Since then, he’s hit .519 in his last 10 games, although none of his other fantasy numbers have been noteworthy. But one category production is better than none and Atkins has a .240 BABIP despite a career .314 mark in the category. RoS ZiPS shows him with a .288-12-52-44-1 line the remainder of the season.

Trade

Ichiro Suzuki – There may be no more polarizing figure in fantasy baseball than Ichiro. Proponents point to his ultra-high AVG and SB and strong R numbers. So far, the proponents have been right. Ichiro’s .372 AVG has him as the 14th-best fantasy player, according to CBS Sports. He has a .391 BABIP. Ichiro had a .390 mark in 2007 and hit .401 in the category in 2004. Still, his career mark is .358 so some regression should not be a surprise. Also, Ichiro already has as many HR as he hit in the past two seasons and his HR/FB rate is double what it was a season ago.

Derek Lowe – His last three outings have really dragged down his overall numbers. Some may consider Lowe a buy-low option as a solid #2/3 fantasy pitcher simply going through a rough patch. But he is also a 36-year old with declining K/9 and BB/9 numbers. Lowe is getting fewer swings outside the zone and the famed sinkerballer has a career-worst GB%. The numbers could be even worse if Lowe did not have a career-best 4.4 percent HR/FB rate, roughly one-third of his career mark in the category. His velocity is down and Pitch Type Values shows his slider, which was such an effective pitch for Lowe last year, has been a below-average pitch this season.

Mark Reynolds – Fantasy players mostly avoided Reynolds on Draft Day this season, making him a late-round pick or waiver-wire fare. The conventional wisdom was that his power was not worth the low average. Whoops. Reynolds has raised his AVG 29 points, shown even more power than a season ago and added SB to his game. But it is time to sell high. Reynolds is unlikely to maintain his 28-SB or 45-HR pace. He has already surpassed his professional career high in steals and the 28 percent HR/FB rate is 10 points above last year’s mark.

Joel Pineiro – He has gained a lot of publicity lately for being the latest Tony LaRussa/Dave Duncan reclamation project. But Pineiro features a career-low 3.81 K/9 ratio and he is unlikely to maintain a 0.27 HR/9 rate.

Scott Rolen – His .332 AVG has been almost as big of a surprise as Rolen playing in 66 games so far, even with his bad back. He has a 17-game hitting streak with 10 multi-hit games. But he is a one-category performer, with just 5 HR and 29 RBI to go along with his gaudy AVG. And not surprisingly, Rolen has a .360 BABIP, which would be his personal best and is 46 points above his career mark.

Earlier today, we profiled Sean Marshall (a five-pitch lefty with shelf life, if not upside) and Aaron Heilman (solid reliever, dubious starter) as candidates for Chicago’s vacant fifth starter’s job. Let’s continue to examine that competition by putting Jeff Samardzija and Chad Gaudin under the microscope.

Like Heilman, Samardzija is a former Fighting Irish star. The Cubs lured the potential NFL wide receiver to the mound from the gridiron with a five-year, $10 million big league contract back in 2006. Since then, the 6-5, 220 pounder has authored an inscrutable stat line in the minors. In his full-season debut in 2007, Samardzija scarcely missed any bats (3.77 K/9) in 107.1 innings at High-A Daytona, though his control was fair (2.93 BB/9) and he posted a 52 GB%. Bumped up to AA Tennessee for the second half of the season, Samardzija still didn’t smoke many batters with the Smokies, punching out 5.24 batters per nine in 34.1 frames.

Sent back to Tennessee to kick off the 2008 campaign, Samardzija continued to compile mediocre numbers. He K’d just 5.21 per nine innings, while walking nearly five (4.97 BB/9) in 76 innings of work. Despite that dubious performance, Samardzija was promoted to AAA Iowa. In the corn fields, Samardzija actually began to show some of the skills that earned him such a hefty bonus. In 37.1 innings, he posted rates of 9.64 K/9 and 3.86 BB/9.

Promoted to the majors in late July, Samardzija tossed 27.1 innings for the North Siders. He missed bats (8.13 K/9), though his control was erratic (4.88 BB/9). The powerful repertoire which caused the Cubs to open the coffers was on display, as Samardzija’s fastball sat around 95 MPH out of the ‘pen. He supplemented the heat with a low-80’s slider and a mid-80’s split-finger/changeup.

Lou Pinella recently called Samardzija the club’s “sixth starter”, suggesting that the 24 year-old could be headed for AAA to stay stretched out if he doesn’t claim the fifth-starter’s role. Opinions of Samardzija’s future role (starter? reliever?) and ultimate level of success diverge wildly. Some feel (and perhaps justifiably so) that the power righty is still relatively new to the craft, having split his time in college between two sports. Others look at his mixed track record and big bonus, concluding that the Cubs spent grandly for a raw pitcher in his mid-20’s. Given Samardzija’s progress this past season, he’s certainly worth keeping an eye on as the season unfolds.

Gaudin, soon 26, has really been around for a useful pitcher in his mid-20’s. Originally selected by the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays in the 34th round of the 2001 draft, Gaudin has since been involved in three trades (including last summer’s Rich Harden swap), passing through Tampa, Toronto, Oakland and Chicago. The chances of Gaudin earning the job are very remote (he appears headed for the bullpen), but he did make 34 starts for the A’s back in 2007. The results were mixed, as he posted rates of 6.95 K/9 and 4.52 BB/9, with a 4.69 FIP. The 5-10, 188 pounder is coming off of his best season in the majors. In 90 frames out of the ‘pen for the A’s and the Cubs, Gaudin whiffed 7.1 batters per nine innings while keeping his walks in check (2.7 BB/9). Gaudin provides adequate coverage in the event of an injury.

The thing to keep in mind with all of Chicago’s fifth starter candidates is that each could end up seeing some starts at some point during the season. Teams never go through an entire year using just their top five guys; often, upwards of ten hurlers will take the mound to start a game. Chicago in particular could need such depth: Rich Harden is exceptionally talented but notoriously frail, and Carlos Zambrano is starting to show some signs of fatigue from a heavy workload at a young age.