By The Jersey Hitman
League 6
League 17
We are just about halfway through the 2008 baseball season - it has gone by very fast, and I find myself looking at players and wondering what they will do in the second half. Two pitchers interest me. Can one keep the injury bug away and can the other rebound and put up the type of numbers many expected but did not get in the first half?
One thing I hate to do anytime is admit I was wrong. I am not ready to do that just yet, but I have to face a fact: I may have been wrong. Worse than possibly being wrong is the chance that Gabriel Lundeen may have been right. UGH!
The Good: Rich Harden
You hear it every year: when Rich Harden is healthy, he is one of the best pitchers in baseball. But the guy is just never healthy. Well, he has been healthy of late, and he has been nothing short of awesome.
He is 5-0 with a 2.15 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP. But it is his eye-popping 83 Ks in 67 innings that tell us just how dominating he can be. The big question is: will he stay healthy? If the past is any indication, then the answer is no - hell, he has spent time on the DL already this season.
I don’t have Harden on any of my fantasy teams. He is one of the players I try to stay away from on draft day because of all the injuries. If you own him, and he stays healthy the second half of the season, he will really help your team. But what are the odds of that happening?
So, what do you do? What do the A’s do? Sell high? Keep him around and hope he stays healthy? What can you get for him? What can the A’s get? What team might he end up with? All very interesting questions. Just cross your fingers and hope for the best.
The Bad: Johan Santana
Almost immediately after the Mets made the trade to acquire Johan Santana, his mock draft ADP began to rise. By the time leagues were drafting for real, he was
getting picked in the late first or early second round - sometimes even sooner. So far, he has not been worth it at all.
Moving from the Twins to what was perceived as a better team in the Mets was part of the reason for all the pre-season hype. Certainly the Mets would win more games than the Twins, meaning more Ws for Santana. Predictions of 22-25 wins were common. But, so far, the Twins have the better record at 41-36 while the Mets are 38-39 … and Johan is 7-6.
Probably the biggest reason for the high expectations was the move from the AL to the NL. With lineups not as deep, and the pitcher batting, his ERA was supposed to plummet while his K’s were supposed to rise. In fact, some people thought he could approach 300 Ks this season. So far, he is eleventh in ERA at 2.93 and in a three-way tie for ninth in K’s with 95.
While his stats are not horrible, they fall way short of expectations. He will make his next start this weekend and the season will be half over. 20 wins will be very hard to get. He is on pace to get 200 K’s, but that is on pace to have his lowest K total in five seasons.
There is still an entire half of a season to play, and Johan still has time to turn it around. Maybe he will start striking out the pitchers he faces … unlike in his last start when Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez took him deep for a grand slam.
The Ugly: Gabriel Lundeen may have been right …
It pains me to write this, but Gabriel Lundeen may have been right after all. In his column last week, he analyzed a trade that I made in the Mafia Writers League with our chief editor Bob from Cleveland. I sent Tampa Bay starting pitcher James Shields to Bob for Yankee outfielder Hideki Matsui.
In his column, Gabriel wrote that he felt Bob got the slightly better end of the deal. I strongly disagreed with his assessment and told both Gabriel and Bob this through an e-mail. They discussed my e-mail and my feelings on last week’s edition of “Inside The Trader’s Studio”. Gabriel stood his ground and stood by his assessment.
The conversation on this subject continued on Sunday night. I tuned in live to listen to “The Wire Tap” and found Gabriel and Tony discussing the trade and my e-mail. I couldn’t believe Gabriel continued to state he thought Bob got the better end of the deal.
One of the reasons Gabriel gave for his assessment was he felt Matsui was a possible injury risk - given his age. That just seemed silly to me, and I had told him so in my e-mail. Well, it looks like he was right: Matsui hasn’t played since Sunday with a bad knee and a stint on the DL is possible.
Now, I don’t know how he knew it - maybe he has a crystal ball? No, that can’t be it, because if he does, his teams would be doing much better than they currently are. Perhaps he has a little Matsui voodoo doll? Nah. That’s not it - even Gabriel has better things to do with his time.
Bottom line is: Matsui hasn’t played all week while Shields just got a win throwing seven innings of four-hit ball. Great … just great!