When it comes to projecting pitchers' stats, chances are you're going to be way off. That's because there's so much more going on than just what the pitcher does. Wins are the most obvious example of this.
Last year, Justin Verlander won 19 games. Good stuff, right? Well, the Tiger offense was gracious enough to provide him with 7.3 runs per game that he started, compared with 5.5 runs per game over the course of the entire season. And what about their defense? Did they perform well for Verlander or were they busy dodging stray bullets from the mean streets of Detroit?
Strikeouts are the only pitching stat that is independent of the defense behind the pitcher and mostly independent of luck. If a pitcher strikes out a lot of batters one year, chances are he'll do something similar next year, whereas, you have no clue how lucky a pitcher will be when it comes to wins (and, to a lesser extent, ERA and WHIP).
Here's the point: you should always finish at or near the top in strikeouts in your league because you should have a really good idea about which pitchers will rack up the K's. And those pitchers have just as good of a chance (probably better) of winning games and posting a low ERA and WHIP.
With that said, here are the top starting pitchers by K/9 last year (min. 100 innings pitched). Some are obvious; some not so much.
- Erik Bedard - 10.9
- Scott Kazmir - 10.4
- Jake Peavy - 9.7
- Johan Santana - 9.7
- A.J. Burnett - 9.6
- Tim Lincecum - 9.2
- Javier Vazquez - 8.9
- Oliver Perez - 8.9
- Daisuke Matsuzaka - 8.8
- Josh Beckett - 8.7
Does this mean you should draft Oliver Perez before Josh Beckett? Of course not. What it means is that on Draft Day, when you're faced with the choice of Roy Halladay (5.6 K/9) or Daisuke Matsuzaka - both of whom are quality starting pitchers - choose Daisuke.
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