Let me guess: The 2012 MLB season is about to begin in earnest, and you’re still scrounging around for starting pitching to fill out your fantasy baseball team.
First of all, what were you doing during your draft? Did you sleep through it? Did the dog eat your homework?
Secondly, everything’s going to be OK. Just as you missed out on selecting the best players in your draft, so too did these once-and-former studs find themselves (and their average draft position) buried by arm injuries.
Luckily for you, they should all be well within reach and ready to do you proud well beyond Opening Day.
Speaking of Opening Day, Stephen Strasburg will be back on the mound for the Washington Nationals when they start their presumably resurgent season against the Chicago Cubs, albeit to more real fanfare than that in the fantasy world.
There’s certainly reason for prospective fantasy owners to be concerned about Strasburg’s value, too. His Tommy John’d elbow aside, Strasburg hasn’t been particularly sharp in spring training, having given up 23 hits, six walks and 11 runs in 23 and 1/3 innings and will see his innings purposefully limited by the big club.
Then again, those few innings he pitches should be supremely productive. By all accounts, Strasburg’s stuff is still sensational, if not better than ever, now that he’s 19 months removed from reconstructive surgery. He figures to put that ability to good use for a good Nats club this season, especially after posting an earned-run average of 1.50 with 24 strikeouts in 24 innings of work to close out 2011.
Adam Wainwright
Adam Wainwright hasn’t had quite as long to recover from Tommy John as has Strasburg, though he should still be in fine form after a 13-month recovery period.
At least the St. Louis Cardinals hope he will, seeing as how they’ll be trotting him out to the mound against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday despite his having not pitched in an actual game since his elbow went bunk.
And if the Cards, the defending World Series champions, have that sort of faith in Wainwright’s ability to bounce back, then so should you. He was nothing short of an ace prior to his injury, with top-three finishes in Cy Young voting in 2009 and 2010.
If Wainwright’s arm is still anything close to that caliber, then he’ll be an absolute steal for your fantasy team.
Johan Santana
The same can’t exactly be said for Johan Santana, though the fact that a series of serious shoulder injuries have dropped his stock to near-waiver-wire status make him a valuable pickup. At 33, he’s unlikely to return to the form that earned him two Cy Young Awards and three other top-five finishes in a five-year span between time with the Minnesota Twins and the New York Mets.
Nonetheless, he’ll start on Opening Day for the Mets as much because of a fastball that touched the mid-90s at times this spring as the sad state of of New York’s pitching staff.
Still, don’t discount what Santana brings to the table as a low-risk, high-reward addition. Injuries or no, he remains one of the foremost power lefties in the National League, one with uncanny command of the strike zone whose stuff may not be as electric as it used to be, but who should be able to crank out more than a few solid starts anyway.
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