The best three Detroit Tigers are really easy to identify - 1B Miguel Cabrera and OFers Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez. The next two are not so easy.
SP Justin Verlander comes in at number 4. His under-performance last season is a major concern because his walks went from 3 per nine to 3.7 along with a decreases in K/9. His IP remained the same, though.
The 5th best fantasy player on the Detroit Tigers went to 2B Placido Polanco over last year's pitching find, Armando Galarraga, and Carlos Guillen. Polanco is as solid an AVG play as one can find at 2B while Guillen has lost is SS-eligibility and finds himslef grouped with 1B and 3B for 2009 fantasy baseball drafts. Not exactly the place to take 10 HRs is it?
As for Armando Galarraga, he was one of fantasy baseball's enigmas in 2008. His walk rate was over 3 and his K rate was under 6.5. Additionally, he had one of the higher HR/9 of 1.41. Yet his ERA and WHIP of 3.73 and 1.19 helped his owners make-up for any number of disappointing/draft mistake starting pitchers.
I want to believe so I approached him under the hypothesis that I am wrong, and he is the pitcher his ERA and WHIP say he is. I compared him to pitchers who had thrown 100 or more innings in 2008 and allowed similar HR/9, BB/9 and K/9 to see whether my focus on his peripherals was a fair way to judge expected production.
The comparables speak for themselves, no?
| NAME | HR9 | BB9 | SO9 | BABIP | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Backe | 1.94 | 4.16 | 6.86 | 0.328 | 6.05 |
| Tom Gorzelanny | 1.71 | 5.98 | 5.72 | 0.31 | 6.66 |
| Jason Bergmann | 1.61 | 3.03 | 6.19 | 0.299 | 5.09 |
| Jeff Suppan | 1.52 | 3.39 | 4.56 | 0.308 | 4.96 |
| Miguel Batista | 1.49 | 6.18 | 5.71 | 0.318 | 6.26 |
| Jo-Jo Reyes | 1.43 | 4.14 | 6.21 | 0.332 | 5.81 |
| Armando Galarraga | 1.41 | 3.07 | 6.35 | 0.239 | 3.73 |
| Nate Robertson | 1.39 | 3.31 | 5.76 | 0.343 | 6.35 |
| Vicente Padilla | 1.37 | 3.42 | 6.68 | 0.306 | 4.74 |
| Scott Olsen | 1.34 | 3.08 | 5.04 | 0.262 | 4.2 |
| Tim Redding | 1.34 | 3.21 | 5.93 | 0.299 | 4.95 |
| Kyle Kendrick | 1.33 | 3.3 | 3.93 | 0.312 | 5.49 |
| Jeff Francis | 1.32 | 3.07 | 5.89 | 0.312 | 5.01 |
| Gavin Floyd | 1.31 | 3.05 | 6.32 | 0.261 | 3.84 |
| Scott Feldman | 1.31 | 3.33 | 4.4 | 0.29 | 5.29 |