Archive for Cole Hamels

Here are seven players for your consideration to either acquire or send packing.

BUY

Zack Greinke – Last Player Picked has Greinke’s 2010 season valued at $0 so far this season, the same as Brandon League and Hisanori Takahashi. Clearly, that is not what owners expected when they spent a second or third-round pick on him. He is underperforming in every category, especially Wins, where he really has a chance to turn things around from here on out. Many fantasy owners abhor chasing Wins but with Greinke we have a player with a .200 winning percentage who has an outside shot to finish above .500 for the season. (R) ZiPS sees him going 8-6 and while that won’t get him to .500 it will make him a much more valuable pitcher going forward.

Pablo Sandoval – Coming into 2009, most fantasy owners thought Sandoval would hit for a good AVG but not give much in HR. Then he went out and put up a .330-25 season and expectations went through the roof for 2010. Sandoval has not met those expectations, instead putting up numbers more in line with preseason 2009 projections. Currently, Sandoval is struggling on the road, where he has a .261 BABIP and a .100 ISO. He is also scuffling versus LHP, with a .229 AVG. Last year Sandoval hit .379 versus southpaws. Sandoval is not going to revert to 2009 levels but there is room for growth in both power and especially AVG.

Matt Wieters – Subjectively, Wieters looks terrible at the plate. Objectively, Wieters has been similar to what he was in 2009 except for poor luck on BABIP. His ISO of .115 is right in line with the .124 he put up last year. His BB/K of 0.38 is similar to last year’s 0.33 and his HR/FB rate of 9.1 compares favorably to last season’s 8.4 percent. But last year Wieters had a .356 BABIP while this year it checks in 90 points lower. Any owner who has watched him play will be happy to trade him. Anyone who believes in regression could see him being a serviceable fantasy catcher the rest of the year.

SELL

Cole Hamels – One of the most common questions asked in these columns is “What could I get for Player X in trade?” That’s an impossible question to answer because there are so many variables involved, not the least of which is an individual owner’s trading skills. But since he was listed as a “buy” above, how about trading Hamels for Greinke? Here are the current numbers:

CH – 6 W, 3.75 ERA, 85 Ks, 1.31 WHIP — $3
ZG – 2 W, 3.94 ERA, 83 Ks, 1.20 WHIP — $0

And here are the (R) ZiPS projections:

CH – 7 W, 3.98 ERA, 109 Ks, 1.23 WHIP
ZG – 8 W, 3.41 ERA, 121 Ks, 1.18 WHIP

Kevin Kouzmanoff – After a slow start, Kouzmanoff has been raking in the month of June, with a .402 AVG, 5 HR and 13 RBIs, and a week still to go to pad the counting numbers. Kouzmanoff has a good chance to reach 20 HR but he has never been very good with his BABIP, which currently sits at .320 for the season. His current AVG seems inflated and this feels like the right time to execute a sell-high move.

Ty Wigginton – Perhaps a bit past the peak time to sell high, Wigginton still has good overall numbers. He has additional value due to his position eligibility. He has played over 20 games at both 1B and 2B, which combined with his eligibility at 3B from last season, makes him available to fill multiple holes for potential owners. While the forecast is not pessimistic for Wigginton going forward, owners have to be concerned about playing time. He is a butcher in the field and with the Orioles going nowhere, he could easily lose ABs down the stretch to younger players.

HUNCH

Alfredo Simon – Earlier in the year it looked like Simon was grabbing hold of the closer’s role. But an injury put everything in flux and the Orioles have David Hernandez and Mike Gonzalez as immediate and future competitors for the position. But I like Simon’s chances to nail down the role. (R) ZiPS really can’t be used as a comparison in this case, as it sees him making some starts the rest of the season. But Simon has 7 Saves currently and has a shot to finish the year with 20.

Reader G. Azama submitted this question to me directly, but it’s a mailbag question nonetheless:

I’m in a 14 Team mixed keeper league. We get to keep any 7 players and as far as I know, there’s no limitation on how many years we get to keep the players.

Positions are C,C,1B,2B,3B,SS,CI,MI, 5 OF, bunch of pitchers and long bench.

Stats are the basic 5×5 plus OPS and Holds. Because of the holds, Closers are hard to come by, in fact very hard to come by if you don’t draft them.

I had a pretty good team and got nip at the end and came in second. My potential keepers are Chase Utley, Tim Lincecum, Joey Votto, Kung-Fu Panda, Kendry Morales, Jonathan Broxton, Andre Ethier, Tommy Hanson, Cole Hamels.

Straight up keepers. Draft position from last year is not a factor.the draft will be done in the reverse order of the finish in every round. In other words, I will be drafting thirteenth on every round, since I came in second last year.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what makes sense. As you can see I’ve got quite a few good young players! Hard decision. I think the top 4 are keepers for sure. It’s after that that I have a hard time deciding.

I completely agree that Timmy, Utley, Votto and Pablo Sandoval are instant keepers in this case. I also think that you need to keep Broxton to at least have one closer on your roster. That leaves us with Kendry, Ethier, Hanson and Hamels to fill two spots.

Kendry provided owners with more power than they could have ever hoped for, with a fantastic average to boot. For the most part, his 34 homers came out of no where, but he did have a brief history of power in Triple-A during the 2008 season, hitting 15 homers in 340 plate appearances. However, a .335 BABIP is likely to drop bringing his average down below the .300 mark. Also, Kendry doesn’t draw many walks so his value drops in OBP leagues, but an OPS league keeps his value high.

Ethier’s power last year was also a pleasant surprise, but his .272 average was a disappointment. He isn’t likely to hit 31 homers again, but 25 homers is not out of the question. Unlike Kendry, Ethier draws a walk and can keep his OPS high even when he is in a “slump”. His average should rise back to around .285, and a solid lineup around him means good production all around.

David Golebiewski already did quite the workup on Hanson in December, so I’m not going to step on his work and repeat what he said. Cole Hamels had a career year in 2008, and then posted career worst fantasy numbers in 2009. However, his FIP was exactly the same in both years, coming in at 3.72. Will the real Cole Hamels please stand up? 2010 is likely to be an average of 2008 and 2009, with his ERA coming in around 3.70 with good wins, strikeouts and WHIP.

I really like Kendry, but with Votto and Kung-Fu Panda already on the roster he is expendable. In a league with five outfielders, I’m keeping Either, that much I’m sure about. Now we are down to Hanson and Hamels for one last spot. Because there is no limit on how long you can keep players, I’m keeping Hanson.

To recap, I’m keeping Timmy, Utley, Votto, Panda, Broxton, Ethier and Hanson.

Have a question for the mailbag? Send it to rotographs+mailbag@fangraphs.com.

Over the offseason we’ll take a look at each position on the diamond and see how the past season affected the positional rankings and where there might be some potential bounceback value picks going into next year’s drafts. (See shortstops, catchers, second basemen, first basemen, third basemen, right fielders, left fielders and center fielders.)

Of course, when it comes to pitchers, the format suffers. We’re not about to do tiered rankings for the top 75+ pitchers that get drafted every year in mixed leagues – that would be one long post. Instead, we’re doing starters by tiers. Tier one, otherwise known as SP1, was last week. SP2 is below.

Imagine if, on offense, you were just able to pick whomever regardless of position? Or, more correctly, what if there were only two positions on offense in fantasy baseball? Infield and Outfield? That’s what it’s like on the pitching side. So, not surprisingly, the second tier of fantasy starting pitchers looks pretty nice. (It’s also reason #36,978 to draft pitching later!)

All of the hurlers in the first tier could easily end up as fantasy aces next year. Matt Cain and Javier Vazquez were probably even SP1s last year… we just doubt their ability to repeat those seasons. Jake Peavy got a demotion from the first set of pitchers because of his health and move to the stronger league. Yovani Gallardo and Tommy Hanson are young, exciting, and ascendant: pick one of them as your SP1 and follow it up with a possible bounce-back veteran like Cole Hamels, and your likelihood of having two fantasy aces is high.

The next tier just has more question marks. Clayton Kershaw has some awesome pitches, and an equally terrible walk rate to go with them. Jair Jurrjens just had too many stranded runners and too many bouncing balls go his way to trust him to be anywhere as good as he was last year. Wandy Rodriguez has now sustained his excellence two years in a row – but his fastball barely cracks 90 miles per hour, and throwing all those curveballs (almost 40%) has to catch up with you some day, maybe. John Lackey brings multiple question marks (rising walk rate, dropping strikeout rate and innings totals) with him into a new stadium. Chad Billingsley looks like he got a little unlucky last year and may return to grace, but given his walk rate, his WHIP may never be elite.

The final tier includes some semi-controversial pitchers, since we all seem to love Brett Anderson more than his major league numbers perhaps bear out. It could be because of his unique stuff, as Dave Allen showed us a while back in a great post. Then we have numbers that seem to suggest that Ricky Nolasco was very unlucky last year and should be in line for a good season as the luck pendulum swings back for him. We also see two former aces that have ridden injuries to the bottom of the SP2s in Roy Oswalt and Brandon Webb. Webb’s injury is a bigger deal because it was in his shoulder, but Oswalt is a slight guy with declining innings totals that has talked of an early retirement.

And then we have the two toughest names to place on this list. James Shields never had plus strikeout rates, and with the walk rate and WHIP rising slowly, you have to wonder if he’ll just always be a high-3s ERA guy that won’t get you much more than 160 Ks. Joining him is fellow low-WHIP meister Scott Baker. Both pitchers actually have okay strikeout rates, good walk rates, poor home run rates, and high-3s FIPs. Their low WHIP makes them attractive, and they are good pitchers. But who do you move off the list to get them on?

Before the season we wrote a lot of player profiles here at RotoGraphs. The ones I wrote focused on fantasy impacts, frequently mentioning if a player was under or overvalued compared to his ADP. Now that the season is over, I would like to focus on ones that were particularly notable, both for good and bad.

The Poor Predictions

Mike Pelfrey
Prediction: “It’s not out of the question for Pelfrey to be a 15-game winner with a 3.50 ERA and a 1.275 WHIP. If he can maintain a 6.00 SO/9 rate, that would give him 133 strikeouts in 200 innings. And that makes him a top-25 starting pitcher.”

Reality: 10 W, 5.03 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 5.22 K/9 (107 Ks in 184.1 IP)

Notes: In six games in May, Pelfrey was 2-1 with a 2.92 ERA and a 1.200 WHIP. His next lowest ERA month was July’s 4.84 and his next lowest WHIP was the 1.50 he posted in September.

Derrek Lee
Prediction: “Lee is a fringe fantasy starter in a 12-team mixed league. … What HR power Lee does possess at this point seems to be a Wrigley Field illusion.”

Reality: Last Player Picked has Lee as the sixth-best first baseman in 2009. He hit 35 HR this season, with 15 of those coming in road parks.

Notes: At the end of May, this forecast was right on, as Lee had a .248/.325/.411 line through 38 games. From June 1st to the end of the year, Lee hit .327 with 30 HR and 92 RBIs in 103 games.

Garrett Atkins
Prediction: “[I]t makes sense to target Atkins either at the end of the sixth round or beginning of the seventh. This is in line with what he did last year and if he just duplicates what he did in 2008 you are in okay shape. Yet you still have the upside potential of a healthy player not far removed from a $31 season.”

Reality: Atkins was one of the worst players in fantasy this year, with a .226-9-48-37-0 fantasy line.

Notes: There was one brief bright spot this year for Atkins, who hit .327/.393/.509 in June but the rest of the season was horrific.

Jorge Posada
Prediction: “Because of his previous level of performance, Posada has more upside than only a handful of catchers. But he is much more likely to repeat his 2008 numbers, which means fantasy players should look elsewhere.”

Reality: Last Player Picked had Posada as the fifth most valuable fantasy catcher.

Notes: Posada made 88 starts at catcher, his fewest (injury-shortened 2008 aside) since 1998.

Carl Crawford
Prediction: “Before you spend a late-second, early third-round pick on Crawford, be sure you are comfortable projecting the stats for him to return that value…. And before you decide he is a lock to steal 50 bases because of his fabulous success ratios, ask how likely it is that Tampa Bay will allow him to attempt the 60-70 steals he has previously in his career, especially since he no longer slots in as the team’s leadoff hitter.”

Reality: Last Player Picked had Crawford as the 10th-best fantasy hitter. Crawford attempted 76 steals and ended up with 60 SB.

Notes: Crawford had 668 of his 672 PA in the second spot in the lineup.

But there were many good predictions, too, even if the above are the ones that jump immediately to mind.

More Successful Ones

Asdrubal Cabrera
Prediction: “Cabrera will be an afterthought on Draft Day in most mixed leagues next season. But by the end of the season he will be on an active roster in most leagues. He is definitely someone to consider in the final rounds of your draft.”

Reality: He was owned in 84 percent of CBS Sports leagues at the end of the year after starting with an ESPN ADP of 260.

Notes: Cabrera will once again have eligibility at both 2B and SS in 2010.

Ryan Zimmerman
Prediction: “Because of last year’s injury problems and his lack of big HR numbers throughout his career, he’s likely to be under-valued in many drafts. And with a decent chance to approach triple-digits in Runs and RBIs, Zimmerman offers a lot of upside for a player apt to be available in the bottom half of most drafts.”

Reality: Zimmerman ranked as the 17th-best fantasy hitter according to Last Player Picked and finished with 110 R and 106 RBIs.

Notes: After three consecutive seasons of nearly identical HR/FB rates, Zimmerman had a career-best 15.9 percent mark in the category, which led to 33 HR, a personal best.

Prince Fielder
Prediction: “Fielder may be slightly undervalued by the mock drafting crowd (ADP: 26). The mockers prefer Justin Morneau, who on average is going six slots ahead of Fielder. Morneau provided much more value in 2008, but I would prefer Fielder’s power over Morneau’s RBI bat this season.”

Reality: Last Player Picked had Fielder as the fouth-best fantasy hitter while Morneau finished outside the top 50 after his mid-September injury. Fielder finished with 46 HR.

Notes: Fielder led the NL with 141 RBIs.

Cole Hamels
Prediction: “Hamels will have to improve on last year’s outstanding season to be worth a fourth-round pick. And there are enough warning signs around him to make passing on him in that slot an easy choice.”

Reality: Hamels fell off in all four categories from 2008 and was outside of the top 30 pitchers.

Notes: Hamels had an ADP of 41.

Jacoby Ellsbury
Prediction: “Would a 60-SB, 110-R season from Ellsbury be a surprise? Ellsbury is not going to be a big threat in either HR or RBI. But with above average production in runs along with one of the best SB totals in the game he should provide great value for fantasy players, especially given his current ADP (67).”

Reality: Ellsbury finished with 70 SB and 94 R en route to being the 14th-best fantasy hitter, according to Last Player Picked.

Notes: Ellsbury outearned Ichiro, with his 44 SB edge being more valuable than Ichiro’s 51-point AVG advantage.

Other predictions that turned out well included ones for Markakis, Bay, K. Johnson, Victorino, A. Soriano and Haren. I was more bullish than the ADPs for Choo and Mauer although both outperformed my expectations for them.

There are a couple of day games set to get underway around the baseball world. Let’s dive into some fantasy links before the action starts.

Matt Stroup of Rotoworld likes the Rangers’ Chris Davis, the Cardinals’ John Smoltz and, surprisingly, the Rays’ Pat Burrell in this week’s version of “Waiver Wired.” Burrell, as Stroup notes, is 14-for-35 (.400) since receiving two days off in mid-August with a sore neck. He has mashed two homers and seven RBI in that span, and is available in most fantasy leagues.

Charlie Saponara of Fantasy Baseball 365 takes note of the possible fill-ins if closers Chad Qualls and Trevor Hoffman are moved before the August 31 waiver trade deadline. “Though there is a better chance that nothing happens than a trade actually being made (both GM’s would expect a decent return), we should be prepared to add replacement closers should something go down,” writes Saponara.

Eric Cunningham of RotoTimes.com is still monitoring platoon situations throughout the league, including the Rangers’ catching depth and the Cardinals’ interchangeable outfield.

R.J. White of AOL Fanhouse thinks Cole Hamels may be righting the ship, using the left-hander’s impressive outing against the Pirates Wednesday night as evidence. “Hamels actually has been better than his ERA and WHIP indicate, as he now has 126 Ks versus just 33 BBs this season,” writes White. “I’ll take that K/BB ratio from my pitcher any day, as nine times out of ten, the ERA and WHIP will be sparkling.”

Alex Geshwind of Fantasy Bullpen is ready to discuss the 2010 fantasy baseball season (must be a Cubs fan), and begins with a look at the catching position. Here’s an interesting question he poses: “Is Joe Mauer a first-rounder?”

Scott Pianowski of Yahoo! Sports reviews the status of closers around the league, including the frustrating developments in Philadelphia. In case you’ve lost track, Brad Lidge now has nine blown saves and Ryan Madson, his likely backup, has blown five. “Madson is in the middle of a strong campaign (3.00 ERA, 1.17 WHIP) so there’s no need to pile on with him,” writes Pianowski, “but you have to wonder if the Phillies will try to get creative as they angle for the playoffs.”

Have an article or column you think others would like to see? Shoot me an e-mail or find me on Twitter.

Philadelphia Phillies fans are a little uneasy these days. Sure, the defending world champs sit atop the NL East standings, but by the narrowest of margins. Florida is just one game out, with New York and Atlanta each three paces back. Jimmy Rollins’ bat has gone the way of Jimmy Hoffa, and-gasp!- ace Cole Hamels holds an unsightly 4.98 ERA.

Before the Philly Phanatic (no doubt frustrated) resorts to another mascot beat down, I come bearing good news on the Hamels front. The 25 year-old changeup artist might have troubling surface numbers, but he’s arguably pitching better than he did during that magical 2008 season. Here are some reasons to believe Philly’s ace is headed for a big second half:

Hamels’ FIP is well below his ERA

Cole has punched out 8.15 batters per nine innings, while issuing just 1.91 BB/9. That 4.28 K/BB ratio has led to a sparkling 3.58 FIP, which ranks 20th among starting pitchers tossing at least 80 innings. Hamels has been victimized by a .371 Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP), the highest mark among starting pitchers by a wide margin (Minnesota’s Kevin Slowey is a distant second, at .352).

The Phillies largely have the same players on hand that let the majors in team Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) in 2008, but they rank more toward the middle of the pack this season (11th). Even if Philly isn’t scooping up balls put in play at least year’s vacuum-like pace, one would expect Hamel’s BABIP to regress heavily in the second half.

Cole’s career BABIP is .297, and flyball pitchers (his career GB% is 40.3%) tend to have lower BABIP figures in general. According to Baseball-Reference, the NL BABIP for flyballs is .222 in 2009, compared to .230 for groundballs. Hamels, by comparison, has allowed a .268 BABIP on grounders and .314 BABIP on flyballs. He is allowing line drives at an elevated clip (25.7%), which in part explains the higher overall BABIP (line drives tend to fall for hits around 73% of the time), but given his strong peripherals it would be difficult to say that opposing batters are squaring up his pitches all that often.

The 1.4 run difference between Hamels’ FIP and ERA is the second-highest among starters. Only Cleveland’s Carl Pavano (5.36 ERA, 3.75 FIP) has more to gripe about in 2009.

Cole’s contact rates are down from last season

Overall, opposing batters have made contact with 76.2% of Hamels’ offerings, below the 80.6% MLB average and slightly lower than last season’s 76.9% mark. On pitches within the strike zone, Hamels’ contact rate is 80.1%. That’s well below the 87.7% MLB average, and more than three percentage points below 2008’s rate (83.4%).

Hamels’ stuff is the same

Here are Hamels’ 2008 and 2009 figures for horizontal (X) and vertical (Z) movement (a positive X number indicates tailing action in on the hands of lefty hitters, while a negative Z number indicates that the pitch breaks downward more than a ball thrown without spin):

(FB=fastball, CH=changeup, CB=curveball)

2008

FB: 1.9 X, 12 Z
CH: 6.2 X, 7.9 Z
CB: -1.7, -4.0 Z

2009

FB: 3.1 X, 12.5 Z
CH: 7.5 X, 8.2 Z
CB: -1.1 X, -4.0 Z

Hamels’ fastball is tailing in on southpaws a little more, but the differential between his fastball and changeup, in terms of horizontal and vertical break, is basically unchanged. The difference in horizontal break between the fastball and changeup was 4.3 inches in 2008, and 4.4 inches in ’09. In terms of vertical movement, the changeup dropped 4.1 inches more than the fastball in 2008, and 4.3 inches in ’09. Velocity-wise, the gap between fastball and changeup was 10.5 MPH in 2008. In 2009, it’s about 9.7 MPH.

This would be a great time to try and pry Hamels away from a vexed owner, who expected big numbers and might be willing to part with him for a lower sum. Hamels is the same superb starter he has always been, and his surface stats should begin to align with his peripherals in the coming months.

Hopefully you were able to pick up John Danks and trade Bobby Abreu 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

Lance Berkman – It has been a disappointing season for Berkman so far, as he has failed to keep pace with last year in four of the five fantasy categories. Surprisingly, HR is the one category he is currently outperforming last year, as he has both a slightly higher FB rate and HR/FB mark than in 2008. It was unrealistic to expect him to match last year’s career best in SB and R. But his AVG and RBI numbers have been disappointing. But Berkman has just a .248 BABIP (he’s never been below .303 since becoming a full-time player). The past two years Berkman has been a different player before and after the All-Star break. There is a strong possibility we will see that play out for a third straight season as he should experience regression with his BABIP, leading to a better average and more R and RBI.

Cole Hamels – Few imagined that Hamels would be sitting with just four wins and a 4.24 ERA after 13 games but that is where we are. However, Hamels has Quality Starts in three of his last four outings. His K/9 and BB/9 are both improved over last year. Hamels has been dinged by the long ball and is suffering from a .355 BABIP. His FIP is slightly lower than it was last season and is 60 points lower than his current ERA. RoS ZiPS sees him getting eight wins and a 3.60 ERA from here on out, making him a nice buy candidate.

Vernon Wells – Coming into the season the big question with Wells was could he stay healthy. So far, the answer has been yes. But while he’s been a regular in the lineup, his production has been a disappointment. Wells has been hitting for neither AVG nor power. His FB% is a normal 40.3 percent but he is hitting only 5.8 percent HR/FB, compared to a career average of 12.1 percent. Also, his BABIP checks in at just .266. Wells is finally showing signs of life with a modest six-game hitting streak, with three multi-hit games. Hopefully, this is the beginning of an extended hot streak for him.

Javier Vazquez – Year in and year out, probably no pitcher confounds those who carefully monitor statistics more than Vazquez. Currently, he has a brilliant 5.85 K/BB ratio, a 0.91 HR/9 mark, a 1.05 WHIP and a losing record. At least this year Vazquez is able to translate his fine peripherals into a good ERA. Given his history, there is no guarantee that he will get more wins from here on out, but even if he does not, Vazquez is still a fine contributor in three categories and worth investigating if his current owner is fed up with him.

Daniel Murphy – All the injuries suffered by the Mets this year have helped Murphy keep regular playing time, despite his poor start with the bat. Last year in the majors he had a .386 BABIP and a 33.3 percent LD rate. This year he has an 18.6 percent LD rate and a .265 BABIP. There is room for growth in his AVG and Murphy has displayed more HR pop this year than previously. With the uncertainty surrounding Carlos Delgado’s return, Murphy is likely to have at least another month of regular ABs for his BABIP to stabilize.

Trade

Brad Hawpe – Throughout his major league career, Hawpe has used above-average BABIP to post good AVG and solid HR numbers. This year he has a .389 BABIP and a .335 AVG, which is 47 points above his career AVG. And even with that elevated AVG, Hawpe has a career-best .276 ISO. Either Hawpe has moved into elite company or the time has come to sell high on him. I am banking on the latter.

Dan Haren – Throughout the off-season, I encouraged everyone to draft Haren. So, I feel a little bad about declaring him a trade candidate now. But he has a 0.82 WHIP (the lowest mark in the majors for qualified hurlers), a .238 BABIP (again, the lowest mark in the majors for qualified hurlers) and an 86 percent strand rate (the second-best mark). Haren should remain an elite pitcher the rest of the season but his trade value will probably never be higher.

Adrian Gonzalez – According to ESPN, Gonzalez is on a pace for 55 HR this season. If he keeps that up it would be a mistake to trade him. But Gonzalez has a HR/FB rate of 29.5 percent, which dwarfs last year’s career-best 20.7 percent. Also, his .326 ISO is 95 points above last year’s career-best mark. Here is another guy we are trying to sell at the height of his value who will nevertheless be a very productive player the rest of the season.

Ted Lilly – The past three seasons, Lilly has been very good for W and K but with his ERA and WHIP (two of the three years) dragging him down somewhat. So far this year, Lilly sits with a 3.04 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP, both of which would be career-best marks. He has a lifetime 3.26 BB/9 mark and this year it stands at 1.96 so far. And his BABIP checks in at .256, 30 points below his career average. He is still likely to finish with 15 W and 175 K but both the ERA and WHIP figure to rise significantly the rest of the season.

Alexei Ramirez – A brutal start has dragged Ramirez’ overall numbers down but he has been hot in June with a .280 AVG and five HR so far this month. Owners were bullish on Ramirez, giving him an ADP of 70 (just a few spots behind Gonzalez). They were expecting him to build on last year’s numbers but instead Updated ZiPS has him merely repeating or falling short of last year’s fantasy output. Use his hot June to sell now and minimize the damage.

Cole Hamels will be a lightning rod figure between two camps this year. Sure, there is the whole Mets-Phillies thing, with Hamels implying the Mets were chokers, but I was thinking of a rivalry of a different sort. In the scouts versus stats conflict, Hamels should be a test case for the validity of each side.

From the traditional point of view, Hamels put up his second straight outstanding season. He finished 2008 with 14 wins and set career highs in ERA (3.09), strikeouts (196) and WHIP (1.082). Last year Hamels was the seventh-best fantasy starter. He earned an $18.89 dollar value according to the RotoTimes Player Rater. And if that wasn’t enough, Hamels thrived in the post-season, going 4-0 with a 1.60 ERA for the World Champions.

But things do not look so rosy for Hamels in another context. His K/9 dropped for a second straight season and checked in at 7.76 last year. Hamels’ FIP was 63 points higher than his ERA, the 16th-highest mark in the category. He also had a .270 BABIP despite allowing a career-high 21.8 percent LD%. Hamels placed 13th in Baseball Prospectus’ Pitcher Abuse Points list, with only two hurlers ahead of him, Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, younger than the Phillies’ lefthander.

And the 25-year-old Hamels also is one of the pitchers susceptible to the “Verducci Effect” in that he increased his workload by 44 innings from the year before.

So far, mock drafters have sided with the traditionalists, as Hamels has an ADP of 41 and is the fourth SP off the board.

Hamels will have to improve on last year’s outstanding season to be worth a fourth-round pick. And there are enough warning signs around him to make passing on him in that slot an easy choice. Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb and Roy Halladay are all being picked behind Hamels in the fourth, with Dan Haren available a round later.