2nd Tier Starters (21-40); The ones who really matter

[Neato Torpedo]

OK so he's a huge injury risk and had two good years in a row a few years ago. What's your point?

More like two top-5 years in a row preceded by a good year. I can't imagine what would qualify as a "great" year in your eyes if that's merely "good".

He's pitched 21 innings in the last two seasons. OK, he had two great legendarily awesome supernatural-being-like years. Unless he really is announced as their closer, I wouldn't touch him. There's a difference between risk/reward and simply wasting a pick. It's not like he's Chipper Jones and actually plays part of the season and contributes. Why doesn't anybody talk about Jason Schmidt late then?

The time missed the last two years is due to one injury, and he hasn't yet pitched enough to assess how successful the surgery was. TJ surgery isn't career-ending like it was in the 80s, he could still come back and be effective. Dempster came back after TJ surgery and had an All-Star year his first season back as a SP. And what of pitchers like Burnett? Rivera? Rogers? Jury's still out on Josh Johnson, Liriano, and McGowan, but a lot of people seem to like them.

[Yoda]

The time missed the last two years is due to one injury, and he hasn't yet pitched enough to assess how successful the surgery was. TJ surgery isn't career-ending like it was in the 80s, he could still come back and be effective. Dempster came back after TJ surgery and had an All-Star year his first season back as a SP. And what of pitchers like Burnett? Rivera? Rogers? Jury's still out on Josh Johnson, Liriano, and McGowan, but a lot of people seem to like them.

Carpenter had a torn labrum in 2003 and TJ in 2007. He will be 34 and coming off another major surgery. The guys you mentioned had TJ (except for McGowan had labrum surgery) much earlier in their careers.

[Snakes Gould]

its utterly pointless to post your top 21-40 list without posting your 1-20.

[Grounded Polo]

its utterly pointless to post your top 21-40 list without posting your 1-20.

Pretty much, hard to really gauge anything without seeing the first part.

[kab21]

The time missed the last two years is due to one injury, and he hasn't yet pitched enough to assess how successful the surgery was. TJ surgery isn't career-ending like it was in the 80s, he could still come back and be effective. Dempster came back after TJ surgery and had an All-Star year his first season back as a SP. And what of pitchers like Burnett? Rivera? Rogers? Jury's still out on Josh Johnson, Liriano, and McGowan, but a lot of people seem to like them.

The other problem is that some of those guys pitched a half season of relative success (not a fan of McGowan personally). Carp hasn't shown that he's healthy or that his surgery was a success. As a matter of fact he had to have an additional surgery because of complications.

[Neato Torpedo]

The time missed the last two years is due to one injury, and he hasn't yet pitched enough to assess how successful the surgery was. TJ surgery isn't career-ending like it was in the 80s, he could still come back and be effective. Dempster came back after TJ surgery and had an All-Star year his first season back as a SP. And what of pitchers like Burnett? Rivera? Rogers? Jury's still out on Josh Johnson, Liriano, and McGowan, but a lot of people seem to like them.

The other problem is that some of those guys pitched a half season of relative success (not a fan of McGowan personally). Carp hasn't shown that he's healthy or that his surgery was a success. As a matter of fact he had to have an additional surgery because of complications.

Well, I'm not saying he'll be good necessarily, just that it's too early to write him off. So far it's almost as silly to say "oh, he's done, forget him" as it is to say that he'll be a solid fantasy contributor in '09, there's just not enough results to go on, unless you wanna count the 15 1/3 IP in '08.

[kab21]

Well, I'm not saying he'll be good necessarily, just that it's too early to write him off. So far it's almost as silly to say "oh, he's done, forget him" as it is to say that he'll be a solid fantasy contributor in '09, there's just not enough results to go on, unless you wanna count the 15 1/3 IP in '08.

I haven't written him off. I'm just not ranking him in the top 30 or something like that.

[KCollins1304]

Well, I'm not saying he'll be good necessarily, just that it's too early to write him off. So far it's almost as silly to say "oh, he's done, forget him" as it is to say that he'll be a solid fantasy contributor in '09, there's just not enough results to go on, unless you wanna count the 15 1/3 IP in '08.

I haven't written him off. I'm just not ranking him in the top 30 or something like that.

I don't think anyone has him in the top 30. I got him as the 58th pitcher in the cafe mock. He's worth the gamble there.

[Yoda]

He was a good gamble that late but I would still probably take Cueto, Sanchez, RJ, Hughes, Saunders, Smoltz over him.

[Dan Lambskin]

here are my top 20 and 21-40...i definately need to refine these still

1 Johan Santana 
2 CC Sabathia 
3 Brandon Webb 
4 Jake Peavy 
5 Cole Hamels 
6 Tim Lincecum 
7 Roy Halladay 
8 John Lackey 
9 Dan Haren 
10 Scott Kazmir 
11 Josh Beckett 
12 Carlos Zambrano 
13 Felix Hernandez 
14 Chad Billingsley 
15 A.J. Burnett 
16 Roy Oswalt 
17 Ervin Santana 
18 Daisuke Matsuzaka 
19 James Shields 
20 Justin Verlander 


21 Adam Wainwright 
22 Edinson Volquez 
23 Max Scherzer 
24 Jon Lester 
25 Erik Bedard 
26 Matt Garza 
27 Francisco Liriano 
28 Rich Harden 
29 Ben Sheets 
30 Yovani Gallardo 
31 Aaron Harang 
32 Ricky Nolasco 
33 Zack Greinke 
34 Cliff Lee 
35 Ryan Dempster 
36 Jered Weaver 
37 Josh Johnson 
38 Brett Myers 
39 Ted Lilly 
40 Joe Saunders