Ervin Santana – buy! Improved his mechanics which added velocity to the fastball and bite to the slider. Consistently at 94 and lots of bite on the slider. His bad mechanics really became unraveled on the road causing his horrible h/r splits.

Cliff Lee – sell – Always gets oblique injuries. When he loses velocity he is done. When he tries to add velocity it’s even worse since he loses control.

Daniel Cabrera – sell. He’s a big gorilla. The guy doesn’t have co-ordination. Yeah he went to mostly fastballs to get better control. But what will happen when good teams adjust? He’ll get hit hard or will have to get back to secondary stuff – so lots of walks.

Phil Hughes – sell if you can get value. He is solid. But this will take some time and a learning curve. In most leagues his value is high and it will go lower before rising.

Gavin Floyd – sell. When the curve is on he’s nice. But he can’t live off the fastball.

John Danks – buy No real good reason. Just like him and how he consistently has done better than everyone expected him to do.

Kevin Slowey – sell. Again no good reason. Just think he’s crap.

Zach Greinke – buy I need a Zach Attach t-shirt.

ps: I do have to comment on this one:
Bannister – sell May lay down a mean interview, but just doesn’t have the stuff to keep this up. Strategy should allow him to constantly outdo his peripherals, but his peripherals are pretty awesome and he’ll probably be a solid #3

A solid #3 is a heck of a pitcher and no-one expects Bannister to be better than this. Based on that he is a buy to me.

Cabrera is never going to change. He’s a usable pitcher but expecting good things out of him on a consistent basis is just going to disappoint.

I’d buy on Gavin Floyd. Slowly breaking out of the nibbling habit, and he’s very effective when he stops worrying. Solid fastball and usable change, with a nice curve he can use to get both strikeouts and groundballs. Pitched great in AAA last year as a 24 year old and he looks like he’s starting to get things at the major league level. Is he a frontline guy? Not many are. Is he a solid mid-rotation guy? Oh yeah.

I’ve always liked Baker, but I’d wait and see what the groin injury is all about.

Owings had looked good until yesterday when he decided to lob 87MPH straight fastballs up there all day and then proceeded to twist his ankle on his third hit of the day. Overall I like him, but again, I’d wait and see what the injury results are before making a move.

Jurrjens is a high risk medium reward type. There are a lot of guys I like better, but a lot I don’t like as much. In my league he seems to be overvalued right now, but I could just as easily see him being undervalued in some leagues.

Smith isn’t 2.88 era in the AL good, but the peripherals are right in line with his minor league numbers. K rate a little low, but k/bb, h/ip, doesn’t give up a ton of homers, and of course he’s a lefty. He should have some rougher outings once they get the hang of him, but he could end up with an Andy Pettitte-esque career. Could. i think it is clear he has been vastly underrated. 3.27 e.r.a., 7.8 ks, 8.1 hits, 2.7 walks, 1.19 whip, 3.27 in his minors career. Sure, only 5.85 k rate in AAA, in 50+ innings last year. That matches his majors record roughly of 5.7 in a tiny smaple. But he was at 5.7 in his first stop at AA, one year out of college, but his next stint there, last year, his k rate was 8.

Of coyurse, i have never seen him pitch. Maybe he is an extreme soft tosser. But his peripherals look ok to pretty good all the way through the Pac Coast League and the major leagues.

I saw him. Saw him pitch well against the Yankees. He pitches a few good games or goes through a decent stretch every year. I doubt he finishes with an e.r.a of lower than, say, 4.25. OK, but not awesome. 7 walks is 7 walks.

Man, so hard tro keep going back to this thread. wish one could bump it up.

Anyway, that’s a good stretch. Albeit, 4 bb per 9 in his BEST career streak isn’t great. Yet a lot came yesterday, 7 in 6 1/3rd. You said coniditons were poor. Nevertheless, if that is what is suposed to cause the improvement, better control, then not a great sign. Still, he is hard to hit.

I await further data, but he is avaliable in my league. So is Greg Smith, Lohse, Silva, Burres, Floyd, Maholm…

I likeSmith best because, as a rookie, I can kinda see some upside, or rather, if he is just slightly worse tha thus far, he’s very good. Lohse, Silva et al have track records.

Cabrera does have upside. Will keep watching him.

Jeter after his start against the yankees said you had to tip your cap to him, and to paraphrase, he said something like he always had great stuff, he just has to control it, and that night he controlled it.

BTW, on the Santana home-road split, that’s pretty impressive. Wandy Rodriguez has had some bad splits, but not quite that bad.

Disagree on him being a #2 the rest of the way. He’s drastically better this year than last year, but don’t let the ERA fool you. His FIP is .88 points higher at 3.35 (still awesome) and xFIP dislikes him more at 4.10 (still great). However, those two stats still reflect that of a #2.

But keep in mind the small sample size here. Nobody should be making any conclusions on these numbers; just picking up clues and thinking about them. However, unless he learns Schilling-like command from his teammate Weaver, I still don’t see him becoming a #2. He’s primarily a 2-pitch starter and doesn’t change speeds as well as most #2s out there. If he keeps this up he’s still a fantastic #3 and very young, so there will be time to develop into a #2.

over at http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/28-scoreless-breaking-down-cliff-lees-streak/