Javier Vazquez

[crazybob60]

What does he usually do in the second half. I just traded for him and since I have never had him on my team before I really haven't paid that close attention to him. I think I saw somewhere stated before that he is a second half pitcher or something. By the way, I traded Bagwell, Hinske, and Loaiza to get Vazquez, Fick, and Beltre. It really didn't hurt me that much because I already have Klesko/Dunn at first and Chavez at third and my rotation right now is Mussina, Pettitte, Miller, Lohse, Vazquez, Peavy, Seo, and Franklin. And yes this is a 12 team league. I think I did alright. Thanks in advance for responses.

[jdh]

I would actually be very worried about a huge second half drop off with Vazquez. If you look at his game log, his pitch counts have been ridiculously high, going over 120 pitches and going up to a high of 131 pitches. Robinson is running this guy's arm into the ground, and this makes him a huge risk to become ineffective or get injured. I'm not saying it will happen this year necessarily, but he will pay the price for the workload at some point.

As an example, look at the cases of Mark Buerhle (heavy workload in 2001 and 2002, huge dropoff this year), Freddy Garcia (heavy workload in 2001 and first half of 2002, massive dropoff since then), and AJ Burnett (ridiculous pitch counts last year, went out for the year with TJ surgery). If I had Vazquez, I'd probably trade him for a safer pitcher right now, especially in a keeper league.

[The Jury]

Vazquez has totally turned it up in the last 2 months of the season these past 2 years. I think he's one of the pitchers that heats up later in the year, but overall he's good but not close to great.