Is Volquez the the sublime talent the reds gave Josh Hamilton for, the pitcher who was as good as the #5 overall player in the entire league up until the all-star break, the guy with electric stuff or is he the second half pitcher who is going on average in the 14th round of many drafts?
I would say he's a top-15 starter for sure, maybe even top-10. I'd take him around the 3rd-4th round range probably, depending on how much a league favors pitching. He may fall around the 5th-6th though if people are a bit careless, seeing as he doesn't have the track record to be considered elite or a core guy, really. Being in the NL Central, he won't face really tough aces. Zambrano probably has him beat, but that's a toss-up, and so is a matchup against Oswalt. On top of it, the Reds overall offense seems better by adding Taveras and having Bruce for an entire year. Some of the tough losses from lack of run support you usually see with a Reds pitcher could be less reoccurring now. He won't be as great as his first half last year, but 15 Ws and a 2.70 ERA is a pretty good set of numbers. He could also get around 200Ks again, so a league that loves Ks is a great fit for him.
lilfrier wrote:I would say he's a top-15 starter for sure, maybe even top-10. I'd take him around the 3rd-4th round range probably, depending on how much a league favors pitching. He may fall around the 5th-6th though if people are a bit careless, seeing as he doesn't have the track record to be considered elite or a core guy, really. Being in the NL Central, he won't face really tough aces. Zambrano probably has him beat, but that's a toss-up, and so is a matchup against Oswalt. On top of it, the Reds overall offense seems better by adding Taveras and having Bruce for an entire year. Some of the tough losses from lack of run support you usually see with a Reds pitcher could be less reoccurring now. He won't be as great as his first half last year, but 15 Ws and a 2.70 ERA is a pretty good set of numbers. He could also get around 200Ks again, so a league that loves Ks is a great fit for him.
Ok what? You say top 15 or maybe 10 but he should go in the 3rd-6th rounds? Only the top 7-8 starting pitchers (through Peavy) go in the first 4 rounds so no way does Volquez fall in the 3rd-4th round. After that you have 2-3 starters per round going. I have Volquez as the 20th starter and got him in the mid-10th. I don't think it is at all reasonable to put him above 15th or so nor is it reasonable to take him before the 7th round. He will likely put up big K numbers but he plays for a team that stinks and he will likely continue to have control problems. Something like 15 wins, 200 K with a 4.00 ERA and 1.35 WHIP are reasonable expecations.
i concur. volquez's value lies somewhere in between his two halves last year, but i think it's actually quite a bit closer to his second half.
You should look at the month to month splits. Despite an ERA slightly above 4.00 in September he had an excellent BAA and great K/IP in the last month. It was June and July in which he really struggled. So that is some evidence that it wasn't just a fluke in the first half. The increase in ERA and WHIP during the season was due to more hits and not more walks though, so he struggled with command all season and there was some degree of hitters figuring out how to hit him as the season went on. I think September shows what he should do on average this year. If he does improve his command, which you would expect for such a young fireballer, he could put up numbers close to what he did last year. I would expect slightly less. Still a top 20 pitcher though.
Evin the first two months when his ERA was amazing, he had 36 walks in 68 innings and his ERA was propped up by a .145 BABIP and a 3% HR/FB ratio.
Volquez is a great K pitcher, but he was insanely lucky last year, most notably in terms of his home run rate. His ratios weren't much differernt than Cueto last year - Cueto was just as unlucky as Volquez was lucky.
I think both settle in to a low 4 ERA and low 1.3 WHIP. Volquez will have more Ks, but I think Cueto will have a lower whip.
I guess to be more accurate, I'd take Volquez over Cueto - surely, but my point is that Cueto is being ranked like 50th while Volquez is around 15th or 20th. I'd probably take both in the 30s.
I dont know what to make of Volquez. I obviously dont see a repeat of his 1st half last year but I still think there's a decent chance he ends up a top 10-15 SP this year; and yet another part of me thinks there's a decent chance he'll completely flop. I dropped him in my 6-player keeper league but with an early pick in the draft I cant decide whether or not I should roll with him again this year and hope he puts up semi-similar #'s, or go with someone safer like Shields or even Lester...
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by kylep15 » Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:46 am 
