Pitchers are the theme of this piece with some time being spent on what the heck is going on with Tommy Hanson and Ricky Romero?

Tommy Hanson gave us one hell of a ride Wednesday. In the end he picked up the “W” after allowing just one run in five innings. However, it was 7′s alive in the outing. Hanson struck out seven batters but still had a 1:1 K/BB ratio as he also walked seven batters. The Marlins also managed to swipe seven bases against him. As a result of that effort the Marlins became the first team since the 1914 St. Louis Browns to steal seven bases while scoring one of fewer runs while Hanson became the first hurler since 1900 to allow seven walks/steals and just one run. All of that history is great, but Hanson has looked awful in his last three outings allowing 15 runs in 14.1 innings as his ERA has gone from 3.71 to 4.39. He’s also seen his WHIP climb to 1.42 while his K/BB ratio has dipped to 2.16. All of that paints Hanson as a league average arm, something I’m surprised to be saying given that he’s stayed healthy virtually all year.

Derek Lowe is 8-9 on the year with a 5.09 ERA an a 1.64 ERA for the Indians. That’s 54 starts, dating back to last season, with this guy going 17-26 with an ERA of 5.07 an a WHIP approaching 1.60. How in the worst is he convincing teams to continue to run him out there? Do yourself a favor. No matter how deep your league is, don’t start him. I mean if you’re in a 20 team mixed league maybe, though even then I’d still call you bonkers to start him blindly each time he takes the hill. Moreover, I don’t even know how you could trust him in an AL-only league. I certainly wouldn’t. He’s just awful. Period. How awful? It’s bad enough that Lowe has 40 Ks this season in 20 starts leading to a 3.09 K/9 mark. Honestly, that’s embarrassing. But how about this – Lowe has actually walked 43 batters meaning he’s walked three more batters than he’s whiffed. Good luck with that.

Paul Maholm is working on the greatest 5-start run in the history of the Cubs. He’s the first left in team history to win each of five consecutive starts while going at least six innings and never once allowing more than one earned run. Thanks to that run of historically good pitching Maholm has lowered his ERA a full run from 4.88 to 3.88, and his WHIP has also plummeted to 1.24. It can persuasively be argued that at the moment there isn’t a more locked in pitcher on the planet. Given this historic nature of his recent work you can’t simply write him off, but on the other hand doesn’t that run of out of nowhere excellence make you think it’s all going to come crashing down, soon? Even with the marvelous work on the hill of late his K/9 rate is poor at 6.02 and his HR/9 mark of 0.95 is about average. He’s also right on the league average with his 19.5 percent line drive rate, and his .285 BABIP is only slightly below the league average. My worry with suggesting you pick him up is that once you do he reverts back to the pitcher he has always been, and that’s merely a league average arm.

Bud Norris had a 3.77 ERA, 1.33 WHIP an a 8.52 K/9 mark last season. He also cut his walk rate way down, at 3.39 it was a batter better than 2010, causing many to push Norris as a potentially strong option on draft day this year. Well, not so much. Through 18 starts for the Astros Norris has actually upped his K/9 mark to an elite level (9.41), but the walks have gone up half a batter per nine from last season with the result being a 0.06 reduction in his K/BB ratio. He’s also seen a minor step back in his HR/9 mark (1.16 to 1.22), his HR/F (11.7 to 12.0), his BAA (.250 to .258), his BABIP (.294 to .316), his line drive percentage (21.2 to 22.2) and his GB/FB ratio (1.01 to 0.95.). Nothing major here of course, but that across the board regression paints Norris as someone to not be counting on heavily for the rest of the 2012 season. At the same time he really hasn’t pitched appreciably worse than last year so clearly that 5.05 ERA isn’t indicative of his works (his xFIP is a run lower at 4.06).

Ricky Romero had two impressive seasons in 2010-11 that painted him as a hurler to have high hopes for in 2012 (his effort last year led to 15 victories, a 2.92 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 178 Ks). This season he’s looked nothing like that hurler. Is he hurt? Are his mechanics screwed up? Is his personal life falling apart? Whatever is going on the end is result has been one unmitigated disaster after another for a solid month. Over his last six starts he has gone 0-6. That isn’t even close to be the worst news. In those six starts he’s allowed art least six earned runs four times. In total, 33 earned runs have crossed the plate in 28.1 innings leading to a 10.48 ERA. Honestly, it’s nearly impossible to pitch worse for a period of time that long. What makes that ERA so scary is the fact that on July 7th and 13th Romero allowed just three earned runs over two starts. He can’t be started in any league right now, any league, and his 2012 outlook is totally in the crapper right now.

Stephen Strasburg  improved to 11-4 in his last start as he lowered his ERA to 2.76 and his WHIP ti 1.12. In 37 career starts Strasburg is 17-8 with a 2.67 ERA, 1.-6 WHIP and 267 Ks in 209.1 innings. With all the focus on the strikeouts people may have overlooked the fact that in addition to the 11.48 K/9 mark that he also owns a HOF worthy K/BB ratio of 5.24. In fact, only one other hurler has ever thrown 200-innings in his career with a K/BB ratio of 5.20 or better other than Strasburg in the modern era (since 1901), and that’s Sergio Romo. Still the Nationals continue to baby the hell out of Strasburg. In his last start against the Mets he allowed one run in seven innings as he racked up 11 Ks and not a single walk, but he was still pulled from the game. We are now up to 37 career starts and not a single game with 22 outs recorded. Wednesday’s effort was the 5th time in 20 starts this year that he had gone more than six innings.

Ray Flowers can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Radio on The Fantasy Drive on Sirius 210 and XM 87 from 5-8 PM EDT, Monday through Friday. Ray’s baseball analysis can be found at BaseballGuys.com and his minute to minute musings can be located at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2012 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.