Who are the sleepers of this years draft?

[Melo255]

Derrick Lowe -- National League & solid pitcher's park. Even if he isn't as good as his best AL season, I see him with an ERA right around 3.50.

No way. Dodger stadium isn't that magical where by a 5.00+ ERA pitcher can drop to 3.50. In fact, only one pitcher (Odalis Perez) of the 6 pitchers who had significant amounts of starts for the Dodgers last year had an ERA under 4.00. Another dimension of Lowe you have to recognize is that he had insane run support, 7.29 runs/9IP, with Boston. That's something that he won't remotely get with the Dodgers. I see Lowe posting last year's Jeff Weaver numbers at best. (13-13, 4.01ERA, 1.30WHIP)

Thank you. All of Lowe's value the last couple of years has come from his high win totals. As has been discussed on here a million times wins are not a reflection of a pitcher but rather the team as a whole. Moving from Boston to LA is not only not going to lower Derek Lowe's era or whip by any substantial margin, I agree with .25 at most, but it is also going to take away what gave him value to begin with. Namely run support. I wouldn't expect more than 14 wins at the absolute most. I've watched Lowe every start since he's been in Boston and people expecting a big year this year do not know him and his season long battles with his own psyche. My projections this year would be 9-14 wins 4.60 era 1.30 whip 125 k's.

[Absolutely Adequate]

A few things going in Lowe's favor.

1. He was the second unluckiest pitcher in the majors last year, just behind Jason Davis. 30.8% of the fair balls hit off him last year dropped for hits. That doesn't include home runs - that's just fair balls that dropped for hits. The league average pitcher only had 26% of his batted balls turn into hits. If Lowe returns to the league normal, that should substantially lower his earned runs.

2. He's moving from Boston, which adds .39 runs per game and moving to Los Angeles which takes away 1.46 runs per game. That's a swing of almost 2 runs a game.

3. He's moving from the AL's best hitting division into the NL's worst hitting division.



Now, he'll never be the ace of a fantasy rotation, but he will post a 3.5 era and he will strike out marginally more than a reliever. And he'll get his share of wins, especially if the Dodgers can score any runs.

Also, I should point out that I almost always agree with Registered Guest and think he's very smart.

[cannonarm21]

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