Will Jhonny Peralta Remember to Drink His Standard-Issue Year-27 Magic Potion?

If all of the top ten shortstops from 2008 were to put up the same exact stats in 2009, Jhonny Peralta would be the only one of the ten to outplay his 2009 Average Draft Position (ADP). (Although, as I discussed earlier, one could argue that Alexei Ramirez will “tie” his ADP.)

Little Jhonny had a good year in 2008. But it wasn’t an out-and-out where-the-heck-did-that-come-from year. He stats were mostly in line with his ’05-’08 four-year average. See for yourself:

Jhonny Peralta’s four-year (2005 – 2008) average:
89 R, 20 HR, 77 RBI, 2 SB, .274 AVG.

Jhonny Peralta’s 2008 campaign:
104 R, 23 HR, 89 RBI, 3 SB, .276 AVG.

The slight (or, more accurately, minorly sizeable) uptick in R and RBI can be attributed to the fact that the injuredness / poor play of Pronk and V-Mart meant that Peralta was frequently batting in the cleanup spot. I don’t know where he’ll hit in the 2009 order, but in his first spring training game he hit third. It should also be mentioned that if you decide it is okay to throw out the stats from Peralta’s stinker 2006 season, Peralta’s 2008 season looks even more legit. Just for kicks, let’s look at Peralta’s average stats from 2005 – 2008, throwing out his 2006 season:
91 R, 23 HR, 80 RBI, 2 SB, .279 AVG.

As the list below shows, Peralta is currently being drafted about 40 picks below his 2008 value:



So what sort of stats does he need to get in 2009 in order to be worth his 2009 ADP?

Well, J.J. Hardy was the 126th ranked player in the Y! game last year with these stats:
78 R, 24 HR, 74 RBI, 2 SB, .283 AVG.

Conclusion: As long as Peralta plays somewhat close to his average stats from the last four years, he’ll be better than his 2009 ADP. And that’s saying something because as you can see from all the red in the above list, there are very few shortstops who are capable of outplaying their ADP. More optimistically, if Peralta remembers to drink his standard-issue year-27 magic potion and plays at the top of his ability, he will easily be the best deal among fantasy shortstops. Putting it another way, you can safely draft Peralta as if he were the ninth best SS (and it is unlikely that he isn't at least a top ten SS in 2009), and in doing so you have the chance to make yourself a sweet profit on your initial ADP investment if Peralta happens to once again be the third best SS.

Oh, and as I’ve already mentioned here and here, I’m a sucker for multiple position eligibility, and it looks like Peralta might have some this season, as it is possible he plays some 3B in 2009.

Other Peralta Readables:

A Quick Hit on Peralta over at Rotoprofessor.

Peralta's run totals disproportionately influences his value.

Indians Insider: Jhonny Peralta says he steered clear of controversial trainer Presinal

Bill James' 2009 projection for Peralta: 97 R, 23 HR, 84 RBI, 3 SB, .274

Want more draft strategy? Click here for 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, C, SP, and RP position primers.

A Third Base Primer That Strangely Focuses On, Wait For It, Mark DeRosa

Mark DeRosa turned 34 years old two days ago. Happy belated birthday, Mark. For your birthday I am going to give you something that no one else has given you recently: a post all of your own.

Let's get to it: DeRosa was the 9th best third baseman last year. He also qualifies as a 2B in all leagues and he was 5th best at that position in 2008. If you draft him, you want him in your 2B slot.

I know, I know. The fact that I’m talking about DeRosa in what is ostensibly a post about 3B is a little confusing, but I already talked about Alexei in my 2B post (even though I probably should have discussed him as a SS). But remember, this post isn't about doing things in a logical way so as to avoid confusion. This post is about being a birthday present to Mark DeRosa.

DeRosa has really had two separate careers. In his first career, which ran from 1998 to 2005, he was a teen pop idol. No. Wrong wikipedia page. Ah, yes. Here we go: in his first career, he never had more than 309 at bats. When a guy is unable to find a starting gig in the majors for seven years, it usually is a sign that you don’t want him on your fantasy team. But in DeRosa’s second career, which is heading into its fourth season, he has had 520, 502, and 505 at bats and was a 70-80 R, 10-13 HR, 70-80 RBI, 2-4 SB, .290 type guy.

The most popular thing to say about DeRosa right now is that he had a “career year” in 2008. Is this true? The answer, it seems to me, is yes and no. DeRosa had more hits and a better batting average in 2006 and 2007 than in 2008. But when people say “career year” what I think they really mean to say is that in 2008, DeRosa more than doubled the amount of home runs he hit in his previous year. DeRosa had 13 HR in 2006, 10 HR in 2007, and 21 HR in 2008. Incidentally, the second most popular thing to say about DeRosa is that “his power numbers should decline in 2009.” And they might, as DeRosa led the league with nine "lucky" home runs in 2008. So I would argue that DeRosa's entire statistical 2008 season wasn't "career," it was just that his home runs were league-leadingly "lucky."

So that’s the background. Let’s get to the numbers:



As you can see from the list above, DeRosa was the 67th best player in the Y! game last year and is being drafted, on average, 134th this year. So my question is, what sorts of stats does DeRosa need this year in order to be better than his ADP?

Well, the 134th best player in the Y! game in 2008 was Kelly Johnson. Here are his stats:
86 R, 12 HR, 69 RBI, 11 SB, .287 AVG.

Can DeRosa top those numbers? To help answer this question, I will show you DeRosa’s 2008 stats, an average of the stats DeRosa generated over the last three years, and Bill James’ 2009 projection for DeRosa:

DeRosa in 2008:
103 R, 21 HR, 87 RBI, 6 SB, .285 AVG.

Average of DeRosa’s 2006-2008 stats:
81 R, 14 HR, 77 RBI, 3 SB, .291 AVG.

Bill James’ 2009 DeRosa projection:
87 R, 17 HR, 78 RBI, 4 SB, .273 AVG.

Conclusion: Some people will read this post and think that DeRosa is STILL going too high in drafts. Others will read it and think that nabbing DeRosa as the 134th pick overall is a great idea, because you are essentially making a low-risk bet that he hits somewhere around his three-year average. And if he happens to hit better than that? Gravy.

Personally, I probably wouldn’t target DeRosa, but knowing the above information will make me feel comfortable picking him up if he slips much more than his 134 ADP (which is in the 11th round of 12-team mixed-league drafts...in my last few 12-team mock drafts, he has gone in the 11th, 12th, 7th, and 13th rounds). I’m only a moderate fan of DeRosa, but I’m a complete sucker for position flexibility, and DeRosa has a lot of that. DeRosa’s 3B/OF flexibility gives daily leaguers the ability to get a few extra counting stats on days when regulars at those positions aren’t playing (assuming your league doesn’t have 162-game position limits). Plus, having a DeRosa makes it easier to figure out a way to get starters in all positions without dropping valuable guys onto the waiver wire when folks on your team start getting injured.

There is very little Mark DeRosa reading out there. The stuff below is the best I could find. If you find something you think is interesting, feel free to post it in the comment section.

As Razzball says, maybe now that he is in Cleveland people will "no longer overrate a player that was underrated."

DeRosa quick to become team leader.

Lou, DeRosa deny recent report of rift.

A Fake Teams piece on Mark DeRosa from back in early October.

Want more draft strategy? Click here for 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, C, SP, and RP position primers.

Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: Which First Basemen Will Exceed Expectations?

What if every single player in baseball were to put up the same exact stats in 2009 as he did in 2008? If that were to happen, which first baseman would outplay his 2009 Average Draft Position (ADP) in Y! mock drafts by the widest margin?

And no, this is not the plot of a new movie starring Bill Murray. The intent here is merely to see if jumping through some mental hoops helps us get a better sense of which first basemen might outperform their 2009 Average Draft Position. If you don’t happen to know the answer offhand, or if you don’t know the name of the player pictured on the right, use this list to find the answer:



That’s right. Carlos Delgado. You know, the guy who hit 38 home runs last year and has hit more than thirty home runs in eleven of the last twelve seasons.

Delgado will be turning 37 this season, so while he might be hard pressed to continue to hit more home runs than this age, he is being drafted so far below his 2008 value that even if he were to regress a bit in 2009, it is not unimaginable that he might still outplay his 2009 ADP.

Let’s put some numbers to this hypothesis. If, in 2009, Delgado were to duplicate his worst season since 1995, would he still outplay his 2009 ADP of 135?

Delgado’s worst season since 1995 was his 2007 season with the Mets:
71 R, 24 HR, 87 RBI, 4 SB, .258 AVG.

The 135th-best hitter in the Y! game in 2008 was Jason Giambi:
68 R, 32 HR, 96 RBI, 2 SB, .247

The answer? It’s close. So assuming Delgado can stay healthy in 2009 (which might be a big assumption), he can outperform his 2009 ADP as long as he plays slightly better than how he played in his worst season of the last thirteen years. And yes, I'm as surprised as you are that this post turned into an episode of Pimp My Delgado.

Want more draft strategy? Click here for 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, C, SP, and RP position primers.

Is Alexei Ramirez worth his ADP if he duplicates his 2008 stats?

There are countless ways to determine the value of a player in fantasy baseball, but a common and relatively unscientific method is to glance at a players’ stats and then rely on gut in deciding if that player is going to improve, regress, or simply maintain his current rate of production.

For example, it seems many owners think Alexei Ramirez—who hit .290 with 65 R, 21 HR, 77 RBI, and 13 SB in only 480 at bats in 2008—will improve in 2009, which explains why he is currently being drafted in the fourth round of Yahoo (Y!) mock drafts. While participating in a recent mock draft, I witnessed an owner bragging about getting Alexei with the 54th overall pick. “Getting Alexei here with this pick is amazing value. He’s gonna mash this year,” the proud owner wrote. “At worst, he’ll duplicate his stats from last year, which would easily make him a top 50 pick.”

Which got me thinking. If Alexei were to duplicate his stats from last year, would he be a top fifty pick? Turns out, the answer is no. Alexei was the 114th-best player in the Y! last year, which puts his value somewhere in the middle of the ninth round.

Part of the reason his value was suppressed in the end-of-year 2008 Y! rankings was his 480-at-bat total limited his potential in the counting stats (R, RBI, HR, SB). So what if we were to extrapolate his stats for a 580-at-bat season? How would this change his value?

Your wish is my command:

Alexei Ramirez’s 2008 stats extrapolated out for 580-at-bat season:
79 R, 25 HR, 93 RBI, 16 SB, and a .290 AVG.

The player closest to having these same stats in 2008 was Vlad Guerrero:
85 R, 27 HR, 91 RBI, 5 SB, and a .303 AVG.

Vlad was the 56th-best player in the game in 2008. If Alexei were to duplicate a extrapolated version of his 2008 stats in 2009, he would be almost exactly worth his 50th-overall draft value. No more, no less.

This list should help give you a better sense of which second basemen might outperform their 2009 Average Draft Position (ADP):



(Note: my explanation of this list is a little convoluted, but hopefully it makes sense.)

Other required Alexei Ramirez reading:

Bill James projects Alexei to hit .289 with 88 R, 24 HR, 97 RBI, and 14 SB.

Turns out FB Junk also played around with this same data: Who is Really Under/Over Valued?

Razzball likes Alexei better than that likeable wood gnome, Dustin Pedroia.

Want more draft strategy? Click here for 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, C, SP, and RP position primers.

Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: HR/SB Dual Threats

One draft strategy is to target hitters who are adept at both hitting home runs and stealing bases. Some managers take this strategy to such an extreme that they won’t draft players who can’t steal at least ten bases and hit at least ten home runs. This probably explains why Russell Martin’s Average Draft Position (ADP) is currently somewhere in the 42 range.

In an effort to help owners that prefer this strategy, I have generated a quick cheat sheet that lists all the dual HR/SB threats. The players on this list met the following three requirements:

10+ stolen bases in 2008

10+ home runs in 2008

30+ combined HR/SB in 2008

I call it the Ten-Ten Thirty Plus (TT30+) Club. Nobody else calls it this, so don't go bragging to your friends about how nearly all the players you just drafted are members of the TT30+ club. They won't know what you are talking about. But even though it is a make believe club, this list might help you to target some of the more underrated power/speed players for your 2009 fantasy baseball draft.

Note: the number to the left of each player name is the combined total of each player’s 2008 home run and stolen base output.


Any names surprise you? I’ll leave you with a list of players that just missed being included in the above list. Some of these players will probably be joining the TT30+ club in 2009.


What player from the "just missed" list do you think is most likely to go Ten-Ten Thirty Plus in 2009?

If it helps, here is the cheatsheet I used in my actual draft.

H2H Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: The Pitching Heavy and the Average Challenged (PHAC)

• A 2010 H2H Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: C.R.A.S.S
  

If you had the 8th pick in a Yahoo 12-team daily H2H roto (not points) fantasy baseball draft, would you consider drafting a starting pitcher with your first pick? Perhaps? How about this: would you consider drafting a starting pitcher with your first four picks? I call this the Pitching-Heavy-AVG-Challenged (PHAC) strategy. So the question is, will PHAC frick up your team?

Nearly every reliable fantasy baseball source will tell you that this strategy will lead to disaster. ("Santana is a beast, but pitchers simply shouldn't be taken this early.") FB Junk, for example, makes a great case for pursuing hitters that have high home run totals and hit for high average. The PHAC strategy requires you to pick home run hitters that do not hit for high average, which is certainly cause for pause.

Still, I thought it might be interesting to do a quasi thought experiment and see if taking starting pitchers in the early rounds can work. To make this thought experiment more concrete, we'll pretend that the categories for this hypothetical league are a typical 5x5, with the exception of Quality Starts being substituted in for Wins. The pitcher categories are SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, P, and P, and the inning limit each week is 19 innings.

(Note: Razzball does make a case for snagging some pitchers in rounds 3 through 8, although FB Junk suggests that zigging while everyone else is zagging might not work as well as you might think. Also note that Fake Teams accidentally followed a version of the PHAC strategy in this draft.)

If you were to attempt the PHAC strategy madness, the challenge would be to see if you could assemble a decent group of hitters in the later rounds. One way to try to accomplish this would be to target players who project to have high home run totals but are available later in the draft because of low batting average concerns:

1.Pick #8 Johan Santana (ADP = 17)
2.Pick #17 Tim Lincecum (ADP = 25)
3.Pick #32 Cole Hamels (ADP = 41)
4.Pick #41 Roy Halladay (ADP = 46)
5.Pick #56 Adam Dunn (40 HR in 2008)
6.Pick #65 Dan Uggla (32)
7.Pick #80 Ryan Ludwick (37)
8.Pick #89 Carlos Pena (31)
9.Pick #104 Hardy (24)
10.Pick #113 Closer or Delgado (38)
11.Pick #128 Closer
12.Pick #137 Napoli (20)
13.Pick #152 Burrell (33) or SP
14.Pick #161 Ankiel (25) or Cantu (29)
15.Pick #176 Weeks (14) or SP
16.Pick #185 Chris B. Young (22)
17.Pick #200 Thome (34)
18.Pick #209 Swisher (24) or SP
19.Pick #224 Beltre (25)
20.Pick #233 Giambi (32) or SP
21.Pick #248 Closer or Cust (33)
22.Pick #257 Reynolds (28) or Mike Jacobs (32)

(Note: the players in the above team should be understood as placeholders of sorts, merely to give you a better idea of what this draft strategy might look like if it were to be carried out in the present fantasy baseball market. During your draft, you can always target other pitchers or home run hitters that you feel are more likely to be available in your league or more likely to perform at a high level during the 2009 season.)

In a roto league, it would be difficult (read: impossible) to win without at least a few steals and a decent batting average. Still, you might be able to pull this off in a H2H league, as you could reasonably hope to win HR and RBI, as well as three of the five pitching categories each week. It is also worth mentioning that this might be a decent strategy for owners who don’t have a lot of time to do research. All you need to do is take the top four pitchers off the board, and then target the highest home run threats in each round, regardless of batting average. I know that owners usually don't want low-average, home run hitters in H2H leagues because these players tend to be extremely streaky, but perhaps having an entire team filled with these low-average types will make it so that at least a few of your low-average players are on a hot streak during any given weekly H2H matchup.

Conclusion: while PHAC would be fun to do in a draft with friends (they will all think you are crazy), the strategy is ultimately fraught with risk as you are essentially giving two categories away each week (stolen bases and batting average), which is even risky to do in a H2H league as it makes it harder to make in-season adjustments if your initial strategy bombs. If your starting pitchers get injured or regress, for example, you will be hard pressed to assemble a team that can win a majority of the categories each week. To hedge your risk somewhat, you could consider using only three of your first four-to-six picks on starting pitchers, but this will probably result in a pitching staff with less depth.

Anyway. The strategy might work, especially if this is the year Johan Santana wins 30 games.

Interested in a SB, AVG, CL draft strategy (SAC)? Click here.

Want even more draft strategy? Click here for 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, C, SP, and RP position primers.

If it helps, here is the cheatsheet I used in my actual draft.

Sinkhole Vertical Leaps: 2009 Slam Dunk Contest

How high can the 2009 Slam Dunk contestants—J.R. Smith, Nate Robinson, Rudy Fernandez, and Dwight Howard—jump?

Truth is, it’s hard to say because it is difficult to believe any vertical jump / vertical leap data that's out there. But let’s pretend that all the vert data we find on the net is true. Here are the standing vertical leaps of the 2009 Sprite Slam Dunk contestants:

Rudy Fernandez’s vertical leap: 120 cm

What does 120 centimeters mean to you inch-lovers? Well, it converts to 47 inches. Do I believe it? Not really. (That picture feature in the link above isn't helping his case.) I mean, his draft profile said that he needed to “work on his vertical leap.” So unless he really worked on it, I’m guessing it isn’t 47 inches (note: other pre-draft sites said he had a "nice" vertical, so clearly the information is conflicting). But maybe he surprises us during the contest and and makes some "so so awesome dunks." Sort of like how he surprised Dwight Howard on this play.

J.R. Smith's vertical leap: 44 inches

He’s a very good in-game dunker, and he supposedly had a 44 inch vertical coming out of high school.

Nate Robinson’s vertical leap: 43.5 inches

This is, of course, according to wikipedia. Incidentally, he also set the Washington state record in the 110 hurdles, keeping up his trend of playing sports that most short people avoid. Nate Robinson's official height (and I believe these numbers) is only 5 feet, 7.75 inches, and his standing reach is only 7 feet, 7.5 inches. So he has to jump almost three feet just to dunk the ball in a non-fancy way.

Dwight Howard’s vertical leap: 38 - 40 inches (and a standing reach of 9'3 1/2)

Fast forward to the 2:39 mark of this video to see Baby Dwight touching 80% of the way up the backboard.

Click here for more vertical leap information, as well video of some of the dunks Dwight Howard didn't get to use in the Slam Dunk Contest last year.

A-Rod, Steroids, and The Eddy Curry Lineage

In the 2007 – 2008 NBA season, Eddy Curry epitomized my biggest fan dilemma, as he was my least favorite NBA big man and he was playing for my least favorite coach alongside my least favorite point guard on my most favorite NBA team. On any given play, I found myself rooting for Eddy Curry to miss a shot and then rooting for David Lee to hit Marbury with a stray elbow as he put back the resulting offensive board for a score. This added complication ruined the experience of watching the Knicks play, so much so that I briefly considered pretending I liked the Charlotte Bobcats. Things got so bad that I even tried to postulate that Walter “Dub R Dub N” Herrmann was the most exciting player in the NBA.

As many of you probably know, a few years ago the “Eddy Curry Line” was established by Matt Buser, a former Y! fantasy sports writer who currently runs busersports.com, as a measure of futility. The standard: a player must average more turnovers than assists, steals, and blocks combined. In order to qualify, a player must have appeared in at least half of his team's games and averaged at least 20 minutes of playing time.

As a direct result of being forced to watch the ’07 – ’08 Knicks play, I transmuted Buser's idea of the Eddy Curry Line so that it became a way for me to determine my amount of dislike for a given player. Among friends, I called it The Eddy Curry Lineage—I don't know why, it just felt natural, maybe because The Lineage was a descendant of The Line.  Anyway, when a player is under The Eddy Curry Lineage, I root against them even if they are on my favorite team. If Barry Bonds ever becomes a Yankee, for example, I would root against him. Barry Bonds is below The Eddy Curry Lineage.

I understand that the timing of this post isn’t perfect, given the recent events that Curry has gone through in his personal life, but my intent is not to slander Curry. I’m not sure that rooting against Curry was ever productive, but it certainly isn’t productive now, as so much has changed with the Knicks in the last year: Thomas is gone, Marbury is gone-ish, and Curry is injured, out of shape, and probably heartbroken.

But I was reminded of The Eddy Curry Lineage when the A-Rod / steroids story broke. Given my status as a Yankee fan, I've tried to keep A-Rod above The Eddy Curry Lineage. And I have, barely. I cheer for him, defend him, and generally tolerate him. To my mind, there is no denying that he is an incredible baseball player and saying otherwise is folly.  At the same time, my feelings for him have alternated between ambivalence and mild dislike. Perhaps what has saved him for me is that I find his complete inability to control how he is perceived to be uniquely interesting.

To help me deal with A-Rod being on my favorite team, I developed a theory about it. Essentially, I decided that A-Rod had “chancha,” which I defined as a strange sort of melancholy in which an incredibly successful person who has everything feels sad because he is terrified that at some point his amazing luck will run out and things will start to suck. I suggested that A-Rod had an inability to enjoy the good times of his life because he was constantly obsessing about where or when the guillotine of ills would drop. This affliction is a subtle emptiness and brings with it a self-centeredness mixed with insecurity that makes the afflicted pretty annoying to be around.

(I have no idea if any of this is true. These are just some of the mental hoops I jump through and rationalizations I make in order make rooting for the Yankees possible.)

So while the recent steroids news about A-Rod has certainly injected an element of uncertainty into my already fragile A-Rod fandom, the silver lining of it all is that perhaps A-Rod will finally be able to shake his self-absorbed chancha affliction—he no longer has to fear the worst because baseball-wise, steroids are pretty much as bad as it gets—and become someone to root for unreservedly.

Thinking of switching from Wins to Quality Starts?

Here are the three main reasons I can see to make the change:

1. When Dice-K plays the Yanks, it is possible for him to get a QS for your fantasy team but also a loss to the Yanks.  Or Sabathia can get a Quality Start but a loss to the Sox.  My point is that it makes being both a fantasy baseball player and a fan of baseball a little easier.  This point might be less obvious to those of you who hate the Sox and the Yanks.  But you get the idea.

2.  Todd Jones can no longer blow your wins.  Actually, this is only partly true.  He can still let inherited runners score. Actually, that's not true either: Todd Jones is retired.  But you get the idea.

3. While handing out Quality Starts (AKA six innings pitched with three or fewer runs given up) isn't a perfect way to reward a pitcher, it certainly seems better at rewarding good pitching than Wins.  One is green beans cooked in butter and the other is green beans cooked in margarine.  Or is margarine worse than butter?  I can never remember.  But you get the idea.

3b. As RotoTommy notes in the comment section, switching to QS eliminates the RP win vultures because you need to actually start the game to get a QS.  So don't forget to adjust your setup men, middle relief, LOOGY, and closer rankings accordingly.   Can there be a 3b without a 3a?  No, not really, but you get the idea.

Assuming you do make the change, which starting pitchers should get bumped up your draft board?  I thought you'd never ask.  Here is a list of the starting pitchers from 2008 who had the biggest positive W/QS differential (minimum ten QS):

Here are the starting pitchers that were least helped by the switch from W to QS (minimum ten QS):

I'll leave you with a list of the 2008 starting pitchers who had the best QS% (minimum ten QS):

Trying to convince your league to make the switch?  Email them the link to this post.  And then also email them this picture of Todd Jones blowing a save.  Hopefully they'll get the idea.

Go Get Greinke

Likely overlooked because of the Royal(s) blue uniform he dons, as well as his general underachievement leading into the 2008 season, 25 year old RHP Zack Greinke is about as good a bet as any to be a 2009 fantasy breakout pitcher.

The Royals' 2002 first-round pick, Greinke was The Sporting News' 2003 minor league player of the year after winning 15 games and posting a 1.94 ERA.

In 2006, he was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. He was placed on the 60-day disabled list, which gave him the opportunity to get away from baseball entirely, and presumably helped him manage his condition.

In 2007, he returned to Kansas City, but because of his erratic performances, he alternated between the bullpen and the rotation.

The Royals gave him another opportunity to start last year, and he finally did something with it. In April, he was 3-0 with a 1.25 ERA and 1 CG in 5 starts.

He returned to his bad habits the next three months, posting a 5-7 record with a 4.93 ERA. He bottomed out in July when batters hit .301 against him.

But perhaps this bad stretch was simply the final hurdle for a pitcher with the weapons to be an ace.

He went 5-3 the rest of the way, 4-1 in September, with a 2.32 ERA and 58K's to 14 walks.

Overall, he was 13-10 with a 3.47 ERA, 183 strikeouts to only 56 base on balls, and a 1.28 WHIP. He also was one of the league leaders in QS (23).

Greinke is one of the rare pitchers who has the command to locate his pitches, and the heat -- a mid-nineties fastball -- to blow hitters away, evident by his 8.14 k/9, and 3.27 k/bb ratios, respectively.

At only 25, Greinke is only going to get better. Pitching in the AL, he may still take his occasional lumps, but the guess here is he'll have many more April's than he will July's.

If you can nab him anywhere after the ninth round, you may have found a gem fit for a king. (Sorry, I felt obliged.)

The Prognosticators: