The ace, Ubaldo Jimenez, actually pitches better at Coors than when he is on the road.  In ’08 and ’09 his ERA was lower at home, and in ’10 his road ERA was only lower because his BABIP was almost 70 points higher at home.  So, the home ballpark is no reason to shy away from Ubaldo.  

More positives are that his strikeout rate has risen in each of the past two seasons and the reality that a guy who will throw around 220 innings on an above average team is a pretty safe bet for at least 15 wins.  

It must be pointed out that his BABIP was a little low last year, his walk rate is still closer to four than it is to three, and he was lucky that an increase in fly balls last season did not lead to more home runs.  With all that in mind, Ubaldo is still a definite top-15 guy if not borderline top-10.  That’s exactly where I have him in my rankings, no. 10.

Last year Jorge de la Rosa was only being drafted somewhere between the 16th and 18th rounds in most ten-team leagues despite coming off a 16 win, 190+ strikeout season.  Because of the time he spent on the DL last year, it is hard to see him being drafted that high again.  

ERA and WHIP aside, if healthy, de la Rosa could easily approach 15+ wins and around 200 strikeouts again which most certainly makes him worth at least an 18th round pick.

A 3.28 ERA and a 9.04 K/9 are numbers we can all agree are pretty damn good, right?  Well, those are the numbers Jhoulys Chacin put up in his rookie season over 28 games (21 starts) and 137 innings.  

Unfortunately, an increase of around 30-40 innings is probably all Chacin can take without seeing a significant drop in production.  As a result, we are likely looking at about 170 innings with an ERA in the mid-to-high three range and close to a strikeout per inning from Chacin in 2010.  The probable high WHIP and low win total take some of the shine off the previous sentence, but Chacin should be drafted as a top-60 pitcher (which is to say he should be drafted as a starter in standard ten-team, six starter leagues).

The final spot in Colorado is a bit up in the air at this point.  Aaron Cook will probably start the season in that role, but as mentioned before, he sucks.  Just to drive that point home, you know a pitcher sucks when his ERA is higher than his K/9 number.  Aaron Cook in 2010: 5.08 ERA, 4.37 K/9.  So yeah, Aaron Cook is completely undraftable in any and all formats.  

The other guy who might get a crack at the last spot is Felipe Paulino.  Paulino has a big arm and might be useful as a spot starter in deep NL-only leagues only if you get desperate for strikeouts.  Just make sure you do not spot start him when he is throwing at Coors.  Last year, Paulino was in the top 25 percent of fly balls allowed at 41.8 percent.  If that keeps up (and it will), Paulino is going to see a lot of balls fly out of the park and another +5.00 ERA.

Written by Brett Talley exclusively for thefantasyfix.com.  Brett is a law student in Dallas who would like to use this tag line to say how absolutely kick ass fangraphs.com is and to thank those guys for making fantasy baseball so much more fun and so, so much easier.  You can follow him on Twitter @therealTAL.