Last week in a barrage of me making sense, I looked at fantasy starters whose ERAs will get worst. Well, do onto others or turnabout is fair play or some other cliché leads me to this post — the inverse of last week’s or fantasy baseball starters who will get better. If you weren’t around last week, I mentioned what FIP is; don’t really feel like going into it again and regular readers will tire anyway, so go back and read last week’s. Anyway, here’s a list of pitchers with the biggest difference between their actual ERAs and their FIPs. (If your guy is on the list, it’s a good sign. Some would even say you could go out and trade for some of these guys, you educated fantasy baseball owner you!) (Note, Part Deux: Because the list didn’t reveal enough buy lows amongst the biggest differences between ERA and FIP, I skipped down the list after Randy Johnson for the last two.)
Ricky Nolasco – Difference between ERA and FIP is 3.45. Nolasco was a preseason “sleeper” from some fantasy ‘perts. (I put the unironic, toolbaggy quotes around sleeper because Nolasco was talked about so much by some that he really wasn’t much of a sleeper anymore.) Nolasco also showed up on Rudy’s risky pitcher post. At this point, he’s a bargain because he can probably be bought for a tall boy of Schlitz.
Gavin Floyd – 2.71. That sounds purdy! Yeah, until you realize his ERA is at 7.71 so a correction of less than three isn’t all that great.
Andy Sonnanstine – 2.63. Falls into the same category as Floyd. Sure, he should be better, but not really anything worth getting caca-cuckoo over.
Carl Pavano – 2.26. Hmm… Maybe I should’ve ignored some of these schmohawks. Guess I’m gonna have to turn this sucker to 14.
Justin Verlander – 1.93. His ERA is at 4.29 and his FIP is at 2.36. He has the fifth lowest FIP behind Greinke, Lincecum, Johan and Wandy. Zoinks! (That’s a good zoinks, FYI.)
Tim Lincecum – 1.91. Last week, we saw Johan was due for a slight correction, now we see on the other side Lincecum’s going to meet him somewhere in the middle.
Jon Lester – 1.76. After last week’s buy/sell, I’ve spoken enough about Lester for at least two months.
Gil Meche – 1.72. This one was surprising to me, so I went to look closer at his numbers and it does seem like he should be much better. If you take nothing away from this post, I’d grab Meche off waivers. He should be much better.
Josh Beckett – 1.71. This doesn’t surprise me. Beckett’s numbers are terrible. He’s not a terrible pitcher.
Scott Olsen – 1.61. Blech.
Randy Johnson – 1.35. Sorry, Mr. Mullet Man, but Randy Johnson has a better chance of winning an Edward James Olmos look-a-like contest than having a huge turnaround with a FIP of 5.51.
Javier Vazquez – 0.83. Not a huge difference between his ERA and FIP, but, when you realize his ERA is at 3.71 and his FIP is below 3, it’s enough to get you very excited about Vazquez moving forward. If his owner is fed up with his One Bad Inning Syndrome™, I’d try and buy him.
Ubaldo Jimenez – 0.78. His FIP is 3.52, his K/9 is 8.02 and his BABIP is .332. Coors is scary like Roseanne Barr sans makeup, but I’d take a chance on Ubaldo.
