Zito/Pedro Stiaght up?!?

[BillyMadison]

OK... Fantasy baseball... I've been offered Zito for Pedro... my team is in the basement... and I ain't winning this season(Keeper)... do I make the tradE?

[McSweeny]

nope... i wouldn't do it, but i'm a huge red sox fan so i'm probably biased. It might end up being a good move if Pedro continues to have injury problems. But unless he does, I don't see Zito out performing him

[Blackadar]

Never.

[condors]

i would take zito since you mentioned its a keeper league

when was the last season pedro didn't have injury problems?

[Travis]

Hell, to be honest, right now I take Halladay over either. 2 and a half seasons since he rejoined the big club, and he has been one of the best pitchers in all of baseball easily. Had Toronto been a better run producing club for him last year, he hits 20 wins easily and he has a shot at hitting 14 before the all star break this year. He's even durable enough that Tosca is considering going to a 4 man rotation (which I would love).

That being said, and to remove my sad attempt at a threadjack, I'd take Zito for reliable numbers. Pedro can have the monster game, but really, how much longer does he have left? Added plus is that you're not really looking at winning huge this year, so I'd try to negotiate a draft pick or something to help you out for next year, then pull the trigger.

[RendeR]

What are you people thinking?? Pedro is old and injury prone and not even dominating any more when he's healthy. TAKE ZITO!!!!!!

[Havok]

i say take Zito aswell. He's young and healthy. He'd be a good pitcher to build on since your team is so bad.

[Hammer755]

Originally posted by Travis
Hell, to be honest, right now I take Halladay over either. 2 and a half seasons since he rejoined the big club, and he has been one of the best pitchers in all of baseball easily. Had Toronto been a better run producing club for him last year, he hits 20 wins easily and he has a shot at hitting 14 before the all star break this year. He's even durable enough that Tosca is considering going to a 4 man rotation (which I would love).

Yikes, I could tell you were from Canada before even looking at your profile.

Halladay is having a nice year, but to even remotely suggest taking him over Pedro or Zito is ludicrous.

Look at the stats, and Halladay falls far short of the other two. Wins are probably the least reliable statistic in terms of determining pitcher value, as a pitcher has no control over the number of runs scored by his team. I'm not saying it's a useless stat, but that the difference between 15 wins and 20 wins is largely luck.

Looking at some of the more relevant stats:
Career ERA:
Pedro - 2.62
Zito - 3.06
Halladay - 4.02 (just considering his last 2 'breakout' seasons, it's still around 3.20)

Career OBA:
Pedro - 0.205
Zito - 0.217
Halladay - 0.264 (Career best 0.244 in'02, but back to 0.264 in '03)

WHIP:
Pedro - 1.01
Zito - 1.18
Halladay - 1.36 (Down to aroun 1.20 the past few years)

K/BB:
Pedro - 4.35
Zito - 4.08
Halladay - 2.20 (Up to 3.30 the past two seasons)

Halladay's win streak is nice, but with Toronto's offense behind him, he hasn't had to pitch that well to attain it. There are a handful of pitchers beyond Zito and Pedro who I would also take over Halladay in a heartbeat (Hudson, Mulder, Prior, Oswalt, Morris).

[Travis]

Career stats are a tad misleading as well as you stated. When Halladay started out, he had pretty much 2 miserable years straight out of the gate that he's having to make up for now.

A 19 game winner last year, and a guy who hasn't lost in 13 straight starts isn't 'lucky' anymore, he's good and reliable. That being said, I'd be a homer if I was trying to convince you that Kelvim Escobar was better than either of those two. World of talent, but just can't put it together for more than 3 appearances in a row.

Again though, my point with Halladay is his worth in a keeper league. Toronto is scoring runs by the handful this year (and will hopefully keep most of their lineup in tact) and Halladay is in prime position to benefit from that for quite a while, as I just can't fathom them letting him go.

[Hammer755]

Originally posted by Travis
Career stats are a tad misleading as well as you stated. When Halladay started out, he had pretty much 2 miserable years straight out of the gate that he's having to make up for now.

A 19 game winner last year, and a guy who hasn't lost in 13 straight starts isn't 'lucky' anymore, he's good and reliable. That being said, I'd be a homer if I was trying to convince you that Kelvim Escobar was better than either of those two. World of talent, but just can't put it together for more than 3 appearances in a row.

Again though, my point with Halladay is his worth in a keeper league. Toronto is scoring runs by the handful this year (and will hopefully keep most of their lineup in tact) and Halladay is in prime position to benefit from that for quite a while, as I just can't fathom them letting him go.

You honestly don't think there's a ton of luck involved in a long winning streak by a starting pitcher? Halladay has allowed 5 or more earned runs in a game four times during the streak, and has 2 wins and 2 no-decisions in those starts (including a win vs. BOS where he allowed 7 ER in 6+ IP). Those wins are solely the result of Toronto's offense, not Halladay's ability.

While I won't argue that Halladay is not 'good and reliable', I will argue that if you look at the rest of his stats, he is having a just above average, but not great season. He's allowing a 0.264 OBA and his ERA - 3.64 - is now about as low as it's been all season. Those are not numbers of an elite pitcher.

My point was that while Halladay may be worthy in a keeper league (since starting pitching is at such a premium), he is nowhere near as good a pick as Zito or Pedro, which is what you claimed in your initial post. When comparing them to Halladay, I separated out his last 2 seasons, and even they don't compare with Zito and Pedro's career numbers, so I think I provided a valid comparison, probably even giving Halladay an advantage.

[Travis]

Midseason This Year

Halladay: 12-2, 3.64 ERA, 136.0 IP, 103 K, 20 BB
Martinez: 6-2, 2.53 ERA, 89.0 IP, 93 K, 25 BB
Zito: 7-5, 3.17 ERA, 113.2 IP, 69 K, 46 BB

Last Year

Halladay: 19-7, 2.93 ERA, 239.1 IP, 168 K, 62 BB
Martinez: 20-4, 2.26 ERA, 199.1 IP, 239 K, 40 BB
Zito: 23-5, 2.75 ERA, 229.1 IP, 182 K, 78 BB

So last year, you have Zito leading in wins, Halladay in IP, Pedro in K's and least amount of walks as well as an ERA edge with Zito and Halladay being tight. This year, thus far, Halladay has nearly twice as many wins, albeit a higher ERA (which has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the season, so I expect it will be under 3 shortly after the All Star break, if not before). He also leads in IP (even with Tosca pulling him early in a lot of starts imho), the most K's and least amount of walks (even though he has the most IP of the three).

Again, his ERA is the highest of the three, but is definitely on a downward spiral. He won 11 games in a row, had 1 no decision. He has allowed more than 2 runs only twice in his last 11 starts.

In summary. I would take him over Pedro in a keeper league because of his age and Pedro's injury problems. I would take him over Zito because I believe Halladay is on the same level, and has a better offense to support him (though that could change at the end of the year, I'm hoping most of the starters return in tact). Either way, I'd love to have Zito on my team, and I would take either of them over Pedro.

The problem with just looking at career stats is that Halladay had an absolutely horrendous 2nd full season in the bigs, after which he was seriously demoted, reworked a lot of his mechanics and came back a different pitcher.

His career stats since returning to the big club you ask (2 full years plus the start of this season)?

36-12, 4 CG, 2 SO, 480.2 IP, 3.19 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, .251 OBA and a 3.43 K to BB ratio.

[Hammer755]

Your concerns about Pedro's injury history are valid, however, even with all the nagging injuries he's suffered the past few years, only one time in his career has he failed to reach 190+ IP (2001), and he's on pace to log that many again this season. I'll take 190 Pedro innings over 250 innings from nearly any other starter. You cite his age as a negative mark, but he is still only 31, which is pretty young for today's starting pitcher.

36-12, 4 CG, 2 SO, 480.2 IP, 3.19 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, .251 OBA and a 3.43 K to BB ratio.

Zito's numbers over that same time:
47-18, 6 CG, 3 SHO, 557.1 IP, 3.12 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 0.221 OBA, 2.25 K/BB

More similar than what I expected, but Zito still has better overall numbers. The only thing that points toward Halladay is his impressive (and greatly increased) K/BB ratio. This may be an indicator that he truly has turned the corner toward being a dominant pitcher. I would love to see another young ace pitching in the league, but at this point I think it's far to early to anoint Halladay with that title.

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by Travis
Midseason This Year

Halladay: 12-2, 3.64 ERA, 136.0 IP, 103 K, 20 BB

This year, thus far, Halladay has nearly twice as many wins, albeit a higher ERA (which has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the season, so I expect it will be under 3 shortly after the All Star break, if not before)

Um, at this point he'd need to pitch 29 scoreless innings to get his ERA to 3.00.

[Travis]

And another checkmark to Pedro is that he has an offense behind him that is one of the top in the league.

My question mark on him is how much longer he has until one of these injuries really messes him up. He is only 31, but he's had more injuries than most pitchers at that age which subtracts some years off of the end mark of his career (I would guess). Not a big factor in redraft leagues, but in a keeper, a very valid concern if you have a chance to get a comparable point getter that doesn't have those concerns.

Really though, you can't go wrong having any of these guys on your starting rotation, this would be a nice problem to have.

[Hammer755]

Originally posted by Travis
Really though, you can't go wrong having any of these guys on your starting rotation, this would be a nice problem to have.

Ditto, I would take Halladay on my team any day, but I enjoy these types of discussions.

[Travis]

Originally posted by cuervo72
Um, at this point he'd need to pitch 29 scoreless innings to get his ERA to 3.00.

Like I said, he's only given up more than 2 runs in a start twice in his last 11 games. He's averaging nearly 8 innings a start, so I give him another 10 games or so until he's flirting with the 3.00 mark.

And honestly, in today's baseball, managers are happy to have guys with under a 5.00 ERA (which sickens me, but that's another story). Our closer has an ERA above 6 for crying out loud. Sad thing is, anything under 3.50 is now a top flight pitcher in baseball.

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by Travis
Like I said, he's only given up more than 2 runs in a start twice in his last 11 games. He's averaging nearly 8 innings a start, so I give him another 10 games or so until he's flirting with the 3.00 mark.

And honestly, in today's baseball, managers are happy to have guys with under a 5.00 ERA (which sickens me, but that's another story). Our closer has an ERA above 6 for crying out loud. Sad thing is, anything under 3.50 is now a top flight pitcher in baseball.

My point is that that won't be happening before the all-star break But I won't deny that Halladay is one of the better pitchers in the AL.

[tucker342]

Take Zito, Pedro gets injured way to much...