Which injury prone SP is the best sleeper?

[Millhouse]

Anibal and Penny aren't worth owning even if they're healthy. Duke is a legitimate Cy Young candidate.

i wouldn't write off penny right away. watching that angels game last weekend he was consistently between 92 and 95 MPH, with only a couple gopher mistakes to napoli and a handful of other bad pitches. he's no stud by any stretch but i'd take him over many other low-rotation starters.

[jerkfries2000]

Thanks for the input everyone.

I pulled a 2 for 1 trade to open up two roster spots and picked up Penny and Sanchez.

Agree with all comments on Sanchez. As long as Penny doesnt loose his spot to Clay sometime this season, hes playing for a new contract, only 31 yrs old, and pitching for a team that will get 90-100 wins. I think hes good for at least 12-14 wins, low 4 era, and more K's than duchscherer.

[Ender]

I don't like Penny one bit this year, his one big year for the Dodgers was just a lucky HR/FB rate. He is moving to the AL into a nasty division to pitch in. I'll be more surprised by a sub 4 ERA than by a 5 ERA from him this year.

[horatio]

Not sold yet on Duke... If he is so Mr. Cy Young, its odd that it took him 5 years in Oakland to crack the starting rotation. I'm not saying last year was a fluke, but it was a weird year with Duke, Gavin Floyd, and Cliff Lee all exploding out of nowhere..

Duke didn't exactly "explode out of nowhere" last year. One of the reasons that he was left in the bullpen so long is because he was pure money as a middle and late reliever and quite valuable to the team in that role. Also if you look at the starting rotation the A's had prior to last year there really wasn't a whole lot of room for him there. He's got great control and a gutsy mentality. The only problem is his health, which was the contributing factor to his poor 2007, of course he only played in 17 games that year.

Obviously successful bullpen guys can have lower ERAs and WHIPs than most starting pitchers but just from watching Duke over the years I can tell you that he's a special talent.

Penny's had some real good spurts (for lack of a better word) but he's not really a high strikeout pitcher so even if he does manage to keep his ERA and WHIP to respectable levels (career ERA of 4.06 and WHIP of 1.34) he just doesn't strike me as being much better than a lot of other guys on the waiver wire and given his health and potential to get rocked I don't think he's worth the risk unless you're in like an 18 team league or something.

Anibal Sanchez looked pretty good when he came up in 2006 but he's been garbage the last two years. He's still pretty young and might have a bright future ahead of him but he'll have to show me something for a considerable length of time before I get too excited about a guy who tossed up an ERA of 4.80 in 07 with a WHIP of 2.07 and an ERA of 5.57 with a WHIP of 1.57 in 08, both years with limited duty.

In my 14 team H2H right now there are at least 10 other guys on the WW that I'd rather take a chance on than Penny or Anibal. I might use them for a spot start or two if they show me something but neither of them have nearly the talent Duchscherer's got.

[Grounded Polo]

Anibal's duty was limited enough to make those numbers pretty irrelevant. He combined to throw 80 innings in 2 years. If he put up garbage numbers with 200 innings in 2 years, then you would have justification for being less optimistic based on 07/08 numbers and not just the injuries.

[kab21]

Anibal Sanchez looked pretty good when he came up in 2006 but he's been garbage the last two years. He's still pretty young and might have a bright future ahead of him but he'll have to show me something for a considerable length of time before I get too excited about a guy who tossed up an ERA of 4.80 in 07 with a WHIP of 2.07 and an ERA of 5.57 with a WHIP of 1.57 in 08, both years with limited duty.

You don't think that injuring himself (which could have happened earlier than his final start in '07) and then coming back from TJ substantially affects those numbers in '07 and '08. There aren't many pitchers that are good right away coming back from TJ.

But I do agree even though I like him as a sleeper he's still a somewhat borderline choice in a 12-14 teamer.

[garf112]

IMHO, Penny should be turned into a setup guy. i think he is pretty worthless now as a starter.