2011 Fantasy Baseball Weekly Pitching Profile Rankings: Yovani Gallardo On The Rise

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· April 6, 2011

Quite often I find myself at odds with the masses. For example, the four most watched shows on TV last week (not counting NCAA tournament games) were American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Grey’s Anatomy, and NCIS, none of which I would ever consider watching.

Likewise, Subway just became the world’s largest fast food chain, and I can almost guarantee you can find a better sandwich in any city.

And when it comes to baseball most fans prefer offense over pitching and home runs over strikeouts. But my type of game is the 2-1 pitching duel we got from Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum on Opening Day. For that reason, I will be here every Wednesday ranking the top 50 starting pitchers for standard mixed leagues and profiling a few different guys I am keeping an eye on for deeper leagues.

I thought about calling my new weekly beat “The Rosin Bag Rankings,” but it really does not get much cheesier than that. But because it seems like a weekly article should have a name and in the interest of alliteration, I give you the first installment of “The Pitching Profile.”

Guys To Watch

Each week fellow Fix writer Corey Herron and I record a podcast for the site. In this week’s podcast (give it a listen here) we talked about several starters who were not expected by many to match their 2010 production yet started 2011 strong with good first starts.

One guy we mentioned was Milwaukee’s Chris Narveson (1.5% owned) who is quickly becoming one of my many fantasy boyfriends. Planting my flag on Narveson may not be the safest prediction I have ever made, but you cannot ignore these numbers: From 7/28 on last year, Narveson was 4-3 with a 3.65 ERA, a 1.19 WHIP, and a 7.8 K/9. On Monday, Narveson picked up right where he left off with six scoreless innings in which he allowed three hits and three walks while striking out five.

Another guy who fits into this category would be Seattle’s Jason Vargas (1.0% owned). Vargas provided some unexpected ratio help to AL-only owners last season with a sub-4.00 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP. Vargas continued his good work on Saturday with the following line: 6.2 IP, 1 ER, 5H, 1BB, 6 K, and a W. His next start will be Friday at home against lowly Cleveland. This should be a very solid spot start option for those in shallow mixed leagues.

Although Michael Pineda (18.4% owned) is unlike Narveson and Vargas in that he is a rookie and has no stats from last year with which to base expectations, the prospect certainly has expectations placed upon him. And I would be remiss if I did not discuss Pineda in this week’s profile because I had the chance to see him in person against the Rangers on Tuesday (17 rows behind home plate, it was sweet).

Pineda took the loss but pitched well against a Texas team that is as hot as an offense can be right now. He allowed five hits and one walk while striking out four over six innings.

I am no scout, but the twenty-five scouts sitting in my section were all man-crushing on Pineda in a major way. He was hitting 97-98 on the gun and used a nasty, nasty, filthy, filthy breaking ball on the outside half of the plate to freeze right-handed batters like Ian Kinsler and Adrian Beltre. It is probably still too soon to recommend adding Pineda in shallow mixed leagues, but those in deeper leagues should absolutely take a chance on his enormous upside.

The Top 50

1. Roy Halladay | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned

2. Felix Hernandez | Seattle Mariners | 100% owned

3. Tim Lincecum | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned

4. Cliff Lee | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned

5. Jon Lester | Boston Red Sox | 100% owned

Two words: Not worried.

6. Justin Verlander | Detroit Tigers | 100% owned

7. CC Sabathia | New York Yankees | 100% owned

8. Josh Johnson | Florida Marlins | 100% owned

9. Ubaldo Jimenez | Colorado Rockies | 100% owned

10. Jared Weaver | Los Angeles Angels | 100% owned

11. Clayton Kershaw | Los Angeles Dodgers | 100% owned

12. Dan Haren | Los Angeles Angels | 100% owned

13. Matt Cain | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned

14. Yovani Gallardo | Milwaukee Brewers | 100% owned

Gallardo had a bizzaro-gem against Atlanta on Tuesday night. Usually Gallardo struggles with walks and racks up the K’s, but he issued only two walks and struck out only two in route to a complete game shutout. If he can keep the walk rate down, Gallardo could be a lot higher than #14 on this list by the end of the year.

15. Tommy Hanson | Atlanta Braves | 100% owned

16. Francisco Liriano | Minnesota Twins| 100% owned

17. Chris Carpenter | St. Louis Cardinals | 100% owned

18. David Price | Tampa Bay Rays | 100% owned

19. Cole Hamels | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned

20. Roy Oswalt | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned

21. Mat Latos | San Diego Padres | 100% owned

22. Shaun Marcum | Milwaukee Brewers | 100% owned

23. Chad Billingsley | Los Angeles Dodgers | 100% owned

24. Tim Hudson | Atlanta Braves | 100% owned

25. Ted Lilly | Los Angeles Dodgers | 100% owned

26. Max Scherzer | Detroit Tigers | 100% owned

After being sent to the minors for two starts in May last season, Max Scherzer came back and had a 2.46 ERA while striking out over a batter per inning over his final 23 starts. But this season Scherzer posted an ERA over 10.00 and a WHIP over 2.00 during Spring Training and gave up six earned runs over five innings in his first start of the regular season. Will the real Max Scherzer please stand up?

27. Ricky Romero | Toronto Blue Jays | 100% owned

28. Wandy Rodriguez | Houston Astros | 99.3% owned

29. Dan Hudson | Arizona Diamondbacks | 100% owned

30. Zack Greinke | Kansas City Royals | 100% owned

As soon as Greinke can get healthy (he is still expected to miss a few more weeks), he will shoot up this list. But for now I would rather have the four to six extra starts from all of the guys listed above.

31. Hiroki Kuroda | Los Angeles Dodgers | 100% owned

32. Gio Gonzalez | Oakland Athletics | 96.3% owned

33. Jaime Garcia | St. Louis Cardinals | 100% owned

34. John Danks | Chicago White Sox | 100% owned

35. Clay Buchholz | Boston Red Sox | 100% owned

36. Ryan Dempster | Chicago Cubs | 100% owned

37. Gavin Floyd | Chicago White Sox | 27.4% owned

38. Jonathan Sanchez | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned

39. Matt Garza | Chicago Cubs | 100% owned

40. Josh Beckett | Boston Red Sox | 100% owned

Check out these game lines from Player A and Player B:

Player A: 4.2 IP, 5 ER, 8 H, 3 BB, 1 K, L

Player B: 5 IP, 3 ER, 5H, 4BB, 4 K, L

Both lines come from Beckett. A was his first start of 2010, and B was his first start of this season against Cleveland on Tuesday night. Line B was nothing spectacular, but it was better than last year’s first start. And I, for one, am choosing to believe that this arbitrary comparison is a sign of better things to come.

41. Ricky Nolasco | Florida Marlins | 100% owned

42. Colby Lewis | Texas Rangers | 100% owned

43. Jorge de la Rosa | Colorado Rockies | 35.7% owned

44. C.J. Wilson | Texas Rangers | 100% owned

45. Ervin Santana | Los Angeles Angels | 55.1% owned

46. Brett Anderson | Oakland Athletics | 100% owned

47. Jhoulys Chacin | Colorado Rockies | 100% owned

48. Anibal Sanchez | Florida Marlins | 67.1% owned

49. Trevor Cahill | Oakland Athletics | 100% owned

50. James Shields | Tampa Bay Rays | 100% owned

All ownership percentages from ESPN.com

Written by Brett Talley exclusively for thefantasyfix.com. Brett is a law student in Dallas who would be ranked much higher in his class if he devoted as much time to reading text books as he does to reading box scores. You can follow him on Twitter @therealTAL.

(March 30, 2011 – Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images North America)

Tags: The Fantasy Fix, 2011 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Advice, 2011 Fantasy Baseball Rankings, 2011 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings, Brett Talley, The Pitching Profile

2011 Fantasy Baseball Weekly Pitching Profile Rankings: Yovani Gallardo On The Rise