Cliff Lee, the Best Pitcher in Baseball? Hardly

Last night my fantasy baseball league finally held its draft.  I know, I know, we’re about eight weeks late.  Getting us all together at the same time was a project in itself.  Some of us are college students, others have work, but the one thing we all have in common is that we write about baseball through one medium or another.  I wouldn’t say that any of us have a profound baseball mind, I wasn’t dealing with Bill James or Rob Neyer, although I’d like to believe that each of us have enough common sense to distinguish between a player having a flukish April and someone that is truly legit. 

Anyone with half a brain knows the first four weeks of the season are basically irrelevant.  Well, I wouldn’t go as far as to say irrelevant, you just shouldn’t place too much stock in someone’s April numbers.   Even though we were a few months late getting started, the first ten rounds should have played out as they would have in March.

It would completely idiotic to suggest that Mark Reynolds is more valuable than A-Rod.  Even when Rodriguez is on the disabled list, as he is now, he’s more valuable than Reynolds.  Ok, that’s a bit of a stretch, but even though he’s been a little slow out of the gate, he’ll likely double Reynolds production by season’s end.  So to draft Reynolds ahead of A-Rod based off what we’ve seen would be insane.

This is where you expect me to say that Reynolds was selected in the first round.  That’s not what happened, though.  What occurred last night was far worst.  It was absolutely unbelievable, and what’s worst, I was the only one that went crazy when –ahem- Cliff Lee was the first pitcher selected.

Let me clarify.  There weren’t any limitations or strange rules.  Every pitcher on a Major League roster was available to be drafted.  Again, just so we all are on the same page,  Johan Santana, Jake Peavy, Erik Bedard, Cole Hamels, Bradnon Webb, Dan Haren, Carlos Zambrano, Josh Beckett and many others were readily available, and someone that gets paid to write about baseball for a newspaper selected Cliff Lee ahead of all of them.

Wow.

I never wanted to be the guy that wrote about his fantasy league.  Outside of those that are directly involved, no one cares about how my team is doing.  I hate it when writers subject us to the trials and tribulations of their roto league, so I promise I will never do it again, I just couldn’t let this go.

The truth is this isn’t even about fantasy sports.  This example perfectly encapsulates this mindset that people have about April numbers.  There are some things that you can take from April.  For example, anyone could see that there was something wrong with CC Sabathia, or that Troy Tulowitzki, Ryan Braun, and Hunter Pence might need to adjust their approaches at the plate.  It might even be adequate time to get a good read on a prospect, but as Dustin Pedroia proved last season, even those decisions are better left for May.  Then there are the things that you should withhold judgment on, like getting gassed up over a mediocre veteran player getting off to a hot start.

Lee’s April performance is one for the books, I won’t deny that.  His 0.28 ERA through his first four starts qualified him as the fourth AL pitcher in the last 20 years to post a sub-1.00 ERA through four, the others were:  Tim Wakefield (1995, .56 ERA), Bill Krueger (’92, .84), and Roger Clemens (’91, .28).

That isn’t the only place he is excelling, though.  Heading into his Wednesday night start against Seattle, Lee had effectively forced his name onto the American League Leader board in all but one category, strikeouts per nine innings. 

That’s a pretty impressive resume. 

I love to get swept up in the hype as much as the next guy.  Just a few weeks ago I was ready to hand Johnny Cueto the crown, thankfully I held off on publishing, as the next night he got rocked by Pittsburgh in his third start.  The difference is, it’s easy to get blinded by a young talent putting up ridiculous numbers.  We know plenty about Lee, at least enough to know that this start is a complete fluke.

No one expects him to continue producing at this clip; at least I hope we are smart enough to know that it would be completely impossible for him to maintain.  I do, however, hear a lot of premature talk about this guy forcing his way in the upper echelon and how he’s established himself as one of the game’s true elite starters.

Are we really ready to do that?  Excuse me for being pessimistic, but I’m more inclined to believe the numbers he’s put up over the last six years, you know the 125 starts he made prior to this season, as opposed to a four game sample. 

Remember, this is Cliff Lee.  The same Clifton Phifer Lee that struggled so badly last season after being activated from the DL in May that he was sent down to Triple-A Rochester by August after posting a 6.29 ERA.  In fact, the Indians thought so much of him that they left him off the postseason roster altogether.  This is the same guy that has given 105 homeruns in 124 career starts.  In other words, history suggests that there’s an 85% chance he’ll give up a bomb each time he takes the mound.  I’d just feel much safer employing the wait and see approach when dealing with a pitcher that has a career ERA of 4.46, which is seven points higher than what the league average has been throughout his career.

When Roger Clemens and Tim Wakefield ripped through the competition during their historical April’s they went on to have some of the best seasons of their careers, Clemens’ ending with his third Cy Young award.  Krueger had a stellar first half, but struggled after the break, posting a 7.20 ERA.

I don’t expect Lee to follow either mold.  He’s not going to be an Ace.  Not now, not ever.  He just doesn’t have the stuff.  His control is impeccable now, and that, along with his ability to go 200 innings, have always been his strong suit, but he’s been getting an inordinate amount of ground outs, and hitters are currently hitting .152 against him, which will not continue.  Although, if he can get back to where he was in 2005 when he posted a 3.79 ERA and 1.218 WHIP, that would be good enough.

Maybe not for his fantasy owners, but that would give the Indians one of the best 1-2-3 punches in the league.  At least on paper.