Fantasy Baseball: Starting Pitchers

Opening Day is within 3 weeks. The weather is warming up and the snow is finally melting. It's getting closer to the pursuit of the 2011 world championship, so our preseason rankings need to wrap up soon. With Fantasy Drafts ongoing, Burga and I are hoping our input about each position is helping even a little bit. Here's our take on the Starting Pitchers for 2011.

Burga’s Rankings:
Roy Halladay
Felix Hernandez
Tim Lincecum
Cliff Lee
Jon Lester
CC Sabathia
Clayton Kershaw
Ubaldo Jimenez
Josh Johnson
Justin Verlander
Cole Hamels
David Price
Tommy Hanson
Zack Greinke
Chris Carpenter
Franciso Liriano
Mat Latos
Dan Haren
Roy Oswalt
Jered Weaver

• Roy Halladay tops both of our rankings and with good reason. He’s got everything you could want in a pitcher. Dominant stuff, experience, a potent offense behind him, and he’s outside the AL Beast now. If Felix Hernandez could only get a better offense behind him he would challenge the Doc for number 1, but right now it belongs to Halladay.
• Zack Greinke would be a sure-fire top ten option, playing for a much stronger team with an offense led by Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. However, as recently stated, he’s suffering from a rib injury that he got playing a pick-up basketball. He’ll miss about a month, so he falls a few spots in the rankings accordingly and he’ll likely get off to a slow start after missing most of Spring Training.
• Josh Johnson and Chris Carpenter share similar stories when ranking them. When healthy and producing, they’re as good as any pitchers in baseball. Period. However, both come with injury concern. Carpenter had Tommy-John surgery a few years back and rebounded to a fantastic season. With Wainwright out for the season, he’ll need to be the man in St. Louis for the Cardinals to contend. Johnson’s season ended early last year with surgery, but he’s reportedly healthy for now. The upside is great, but draft with caution.
• Jered Weaver is one of the most underrated starters in fantasy baseball. Last year, he won 13 games, sported a 3.01 ERA and a fantastic 233 strikeouts. He’s being drafted much lower than his stats deserve and if you can land him as your number 2, your pitching staff is in great shape.

Average Joe's Rankings:
Roy Halladay
Felix Hernandez
Cliff Lee
Josh Johnson
Jon Lester
Tim Lincecum
CC Sabathia
Ubaldo Jimenez
Clay Buchholz
David Price
Zack Greinke
Clayton Kershaw
Mat Latos
Justin Verlander
Chris Carpenter
Cole Hamels
Matt Cain
Tommy Hanson
Francisco Liriano
Trevor Cahill

• Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in baseball right now. Arguably the first 8 pitchers can make a case for that claim (if Halladay wasn’t pitching, that is). He works quickly, he’s accurate, his array of pitches is superb. He’s the best. Go for him first.
• A lot would argue Buchholz is high on this list. Heck, Burga didn’t include him. But if he had pitched a full season, he’d be right in the hunt for the 2010 Cy Young. After rebounding from a couple rough years, and finally showing his real potential, he could keep moving up this list.
• Greinke is out. Latos has had a rough start to Spring Training. But don’t ignore them. If you can wait a little, however, try to take another pitcher over them.
• Hamels is the third starter from Philly on the list. I think he’ll put up good numbers, but be careful. The Red Sox arguably had 3 starters on this list last year (Beckett, Lester, Lackey), and 2 out of the 3 underperformed. Proceed with caution, especially after Hamels rough 2009 campaign, lacking motivation.
• Trevor Cahill quietly had an outstanding season in 2010. With a somewhat better team out in Oakland this year, Cahill may get some more wins to support his solid ERA (not that an 18-8 year is a bad thing at all).