by Sam Brean

Created on: February 18, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Selecting a pitching staff, especially starting pitchers, is one of the more challenging aspects of drafting a fantasy baseball team. There are many starters to choose from, most are unpredictable from season to seasnon, and there are few to select.

The elite starters, those who will reliably outperform most others, will break the budgets of most fantasy teams. Johan Santana, Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter, Roy Oswalt, Jake Peavy and possibly Brandon Webb, fall into this category. Boston's Japanese import, Dais Matsuzaka, will be breaking fantasy budgets around the world, based mostly on hype, and he has yet to throw a pitch in Major League Baseball.

An efffective strategy for selecting starting pitchers is to "discover" pitchers who may be on the cusp of joining the elite group. They are not established veterans who may or not perform above their career norms. The types of pitchers to consider are those who provide the opportunity for elite results, but are available at reasonable fantasy prices, enabling owners to conserve money to build a quality offense.

The following nine starting pitchers have similar characteristics; they are young but not rookies, they have had success but not extended stretches of elite results, they are healthy and statistical analysis of their performance supports the elite physical skills talent evaluators have determined they possess:

Eric Bedard, Baltimore Orioles
Scott Kazmir, Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Cole Hamels, Philadelphia Phillies
Jeremy Bonderman, Detroit Tigers
Dan Haren, Oakland A's
Aaron Harang, Cincinnati Reds
Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners
David Bush, Milwaukee Brewers
Matt Cain, San Francisco Giants

(Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster,available at www.baseballforecaster.com, is an excellent source of fantasy baseball information, and was used as a tool in compiling this list.)

Each of these pitchers has the potential to win 15-20 games, depending on the success of their team, have ERA's (Earned Run Averages) much closer to 3.00 than 4.00, and WHIP's (Walks and Hits Per Innings Pitched) for starting pitchers that are among the best in baseball.

Will all nine pitchers emerge as elite starters during the 2007 season? Probably not. Will they perform as quality starters - better than average? Probably. If you have a few of them on your team, and they reach their lofty potential, and you have otherwise draftly wisely, you may just win yourself a championship!

Learn more about this author, Sam Brean.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.