Pitchers In The Mix

Interesting article by Jeff Gordon over at rototimes.com regarding pitchers who are coming back into the mix. He specifically discusses Roger Clemens, and how we might expect his ERA to increase due to the Yankees need for Roger to pitch further into each game than Houston had needed. Go check out the article, it gives you a good perspective on these returning hurlers.

With the calendar flipping to June tomorrow, it's time to take a look at the men on the mound who excelled in the month of June one year ago. It's Fantasy Baseball Central's "Moneyball" take on pitchers by month. With a critera of a minimum 20 innings pitched (except for saves,) in June of 2006 here are your leaders in each 5x5 pitching category:

Strikeouts

• 44 - Johan Santana and Jeremy Bonderman
• 40 - Jose Contreras
• 39 - Erik Bedard and Daniel Cabrera
• 38 - Jason Schmidt

ERA

• 1.05 - Johan Santana
• 1.17 - Chris Young
• 1.60 - Gil Meche
• 1.77 - Jeremy Bonderman
• 1.78 - Josh Johnson

WHIP

• 0.67 - Johan Santana
• 0.83 - Francisco Liriano
• 0.88 - Scott Olsen
• 0.95 - Chris Young
• 1.00 - Dave Bush

WINS

• 5 - Mark Redman and Johan Santana
• 4 - 13 different pitchers

SAVES

• 10 - Bobby Jenks and Houston Street
• 9 - Joe Borowski and B.J. Ryan
• 8 - Trevor Hoffman and Derrick Turnbow

So looking at these historical statistics, a few things jump out. First of all, several of these players are off-limits either due to the fact that they are injured or they are no longer in such a position to gather these statistics (i.e. B.J. Ryan and Derrick Turnbow respectively.) Some of them you would have a very tough time trading for, and would have to give up an awful lot for (i.e. Johan Santana.)

The one pitcher that you may want to take a long hard look at from this list is Scott Olsen. He currently has 47 Ks in 61.2 innings pitched, but he's on this list from 2006 due to his low WHIP. His WHIP to date in 2007 is fairly high at 1.59 (as his ERA at 5.11.) Let's take a step back to May of 2006 however. Scott's ERA in May of 2006 was 7.98 and his WHIP in the same month was 1.60. One month later in June of 2006 his ERA was 2.12 and his WHIP was 0.88 as mentioned in the list above. This went along with 29 Ks in 34 innings pitched. He may be due for a similar performance in June of 2007, so keep an eye on him.