Top 10 Pitching Busts

Carlos Zambrano is no longer a top fantasy pitcher. He has never had the best head on his shoulders and has always walked too many batters (2nd in majors in walks last season). Now, there are a couple of more red flags that should be associated with Zambrano. Last year, Zambrano threw more pitches than anyone else in the majors. Couple that with the fact that he may have been overthrowing in an attempt to prove that he deserved a large contract and you have an injury risk on your hands. His K/IP dropped from .981 to .818, which is certainly alarming. Also, Zambrano received 18 wins in spite of the fact that he was 56th in quality start percentage among pitchers with 120 or more IP. Nothing here indicates that Zambrano will be anywhere near a top ten fantasy pitcher in 2008.

I know I'm picking on the Tigers pitching, but there is just too much hype surrounding Willis. Often when a player gets traded, he receives a lot of unwarranted attention. It seems that people forget how mediocre or below-average that player was before. This is the case with Willis. He was awful last year; opponents hit .294 off of him in the lowly NL where you face a pitcher instead of a DH. Imagine what AL hitters will do to him (last year the NL hit .268 and the AL hit .272). On top of that, only 6 pitchers walked more batters than Willis last season. Willis' funky delivery will be new to AL hitters and might grant him some early success, but that will be nothing more than fool's gold.

Matsuzaka was not a star pitcher last year, but he did relatively well for his first season in the major leagues. However, he was over-hyped last year and he is again this year. Matsuzaka struggled to adjust to the American 5-man rotation. He also had some control issues, walking 80 batters. Not much should change this year for Dice-K. Expect another high WHIP and an ERA around 4, although it should be lower than the 4.40 ERA he posted last season. He should be inconsistent once again, but with good run support he will win around 15 games. All in all, Dice-K will give you good win totals and strikeout totals, but his ERA and WHIP will prevent him from being a top level fantasy pitcher.

Last year Ian Snell finished the year with a 3.76 ERA, despite having an expected ERA of 4.07; that is not a good sign. Also, his BABIP was slightly lower than his career average. Snell's second half drop-off in performance is also very concerning. After the all-star break, Snell posted a 4.83 ERA, while winning only two games. All these signs indicate a step backwards for Snell during the 2008 season, not a step forwards as some are predicting. Furthermore, Snell will once again be playing for the lowly Pirates, so even if he does pitch well, he is unlikely to have a high win total.

Don't expect Lackey to remain in the highest tier of starting pitchers this year. His expected ERA indicates that his 3.05 ERA was nearly half a run lower than it actually should have been. Historically speaking, Lackey has never had a good WHIP and that expects to rise from his 2007 total of 1.21 back up to around 1.3 (his career average before 2007 was 1.33). Also, Lackey's BABIP in play was 8 points lower last year than his career average, suggesting he was at least somewhat lucky. Interestingly, Lackey actually gave up fewer hits, less homeruns, and struck out more batters in 2006 while posting an ERA of 3.56 and winning 13 games. Those are the numbers we should expect to see for 2008.