"It was the "Year of the Pitcher, Part II."
Major League Baseball continued to gravitate toward pitching in 2011, more so, in fact, than ever before. The game's 3.93 ERA in 2011 (through the games of Sept. 21) was noticeably lower than its 4.08 ERA of 2010 -- that year also called the "Year of the Pitcher" -- and in fact is its lowest number since 1992 (3.75).
The ever-shifting baseball landscape has spawned countless debates about the worth of pitchers in fantasy. Are you among those who believe that, as the tides turn toward pitchers, you should follow suit and shift more of your investment to pitching? Or are you of the mind that increased richness in pitching means more bargain-bin candidates to bolster the patchwork-pitching strategy, thereby detracting from the overall value of the game's elite?
There are valid points on both sides, but one thing has become clear: Make sure you add more "fine teeth" to your comb, because success on the pitching side has become all the more critical in this "Era of the Pitcher," a time when workloads have come under careful scrutiny, and advanced statistics have given us an edge on evaluating pitchers that was never present before.
In this final 2011 edition of "60 Feet 6 Inches," what better topic than to help get you started on your 2012 planning? As with "Relief Efforts" and "Hit Parade" before it, today's edition provides preliminary rankings for next season and next season alone. Player value encompasses standard ESPN rules: rotisserie 5x5 scoring, traditional rosters.
In addition, let's make some early predictions on some expected 2012 trends, some of the same ones discussed in "Hit Parade," with a few new wrinkles:
Questions
Three pitchers who cracked my top 50 for 2012 finished this season prematurely -- or, in one case, at least appears done for the year -- due to injuries. In order of ranking, here are their prognoses:
Tommy Hanson, Atlanta Braves: While there is a chance he might return to the Braves in time to pitch in the postseason, you can be sure they won't risk anything if he experiences a flare-up of the shoulder injury that first landed him on the disabled list in June, then returned him there last month. His keeper-league -- and prospective 2012 -- owners would love to see him make a few October outings. He'll enter next season facing more questions if he doesn't, especially considering the risky long-term nature of shoulder issues. Hanson's upside when healthy, however, is immense. Consider this: Over a 33-start span between the 2010 and 2011 All-Star breaks, he had 22 quality starts, a 2.47 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 7.87 strikeouts-per-nine-innings ratio. The Braves might be more cautious with him in 2012, considering he'll still be 25 years old and coming off a season of only 130 innings pitched, but his top-10 upside remains apparent.
Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals: So far, nary a whisper of any problems with his rehabilitation from Feb. 28 Tommy John surgery. In fact, things have gone so well that all indications are that the Cardinals will pick up the two-year, $21 million option on his contract this winter, despite his not having thrown a single pitch in a competitive game this season. That decision might have a huge bearing on Wainwright's fantasy outlook; if the Cardinals are confident in him, then we should follow suit. The track record of pitchers returning from the surgery is also encouraging, as so many in the past have recaptured peak form, if not immediately thereafter then a few seasons down the road. But here's the primary reason Wainwright earned only a No. 39 ranking, quite a bit lower than his No. 2 ranking among starting pitchers on the 2010 Player Rater: Since the one-year anniversary of his surgery comes at the beginning of the 2012 exhibition season, Wainwright might be a candidate for a DL stint to open the regular season, and it's possible that he won't immediately return to must-start status once activated. This is a pitcher who might not be his true self until June 1, so understand that if you pick him, you'll need to exercise patience."
