By the Numbers: Not all K artists created equal

In a recent column I singled out some of the batters who are fueling the strikeout trend that has gripped Major League Baseball for the last four seasons. The lack of contact, along with stagnant power numbers, has been bad for offense, but has been a boon for pitchers, as the major league ERA has dropped from 4.53 in 2006 to 4.32 for each of the last two seasons. For every Bengie Molina who has killed his batting average with a more whiff-happy approach, there is an Adam Wainwright taking advantage of all those extra Ks.

What follows is a list of pitchers who have contributed to and benefited from the strikeout trend. While dozens of starting pitchers have been gorging themselves on the growing portions of whiffs, those featured here stand out because of the especially large strides each has made in his K/9 rate and the improvement each has shown in other areas of his skill set. The pitchers on this list should enter next year's Fantasy drafts with much greater value than they had this past spring, though some of the names may surprise more than a few owners.

Then there are those pitchers whose improvement in the strikeout category could easily be neutralized by decline in some other aspect of their game. Consider this your Surgeon General's warning: though their strikeout trends look enticing, the pitchers on this second list could be hazardous to your Fantasy team's health in 2010.

Finally, we will put the spotlight on pitchers who have bucked the trend and racked up Ks at a lesser rate last season than they did in 2008. Each of these pitchers deserves a downgrade from his 2009 draft status, though some could deliver value as Draft Day bargains.

Pitchers to Target for Upgrades

Finding Jon Lester, Justin Verlander, Adam Wainwright, Zack Greinke and Javier Vazquez on a list of pitchers with rising strikeout rates won't surprise many owners, as all finished the season with ERAs below 3.50 and K/9 rates of 8.0 or higher. The remaining six pitchers don't have quite as much value, but all are average strikeout pitchers or better, and all have made significant improvements in several skill areas. Owners who fixated on Joe Blanton's poor start missed a breakout season in which he shattered his personal best for strikeout rate while lowering his walk rate. Edwin Jackson and Kevin Correia also posted impressive seasons, upgrading their skill numbers across the board. Both righthanders increased their K rates, lowered their walk rates, increased their ground out-to-air out ratios (GO/AO), and yielded fewer line drives. If not for the uptick in line drive rate, we could include Gavin Floyd in this category as well.

Two names you probably didn't expect to see here are Barry Zito and Luke Hochevar. The former had been mired in a three-year funk that looked like the beginning of the end of his career; the latter was a Fantasy albatross in '09, registering a 6.55 ERA and 1.49 WHIP. Zito's return to the good side of league average was not merely cosmetic. He registered his highest strikeout rate since 2001, got his walk rate back to just a shade over his career average, and moderated a flyball rate that had surged in 2008.

Hochevar was much better than his Fantasy stats would indicate. He improved both his strikeout and walk rates substantially, and his 2.3 K/BB rate was better than the major league average. His .323 BABIP and 57 percent left-on-base rate destroyed his Fantasy value, and those indicators should improve vastly next season. Add in the continued skill development one would expect from a 26 year-old, and Hochevar could take an enormous step forward in 2010.

Pitchers to Approach With Caution

Not every pitcher with a surging strikeout rate looks primed for a big follow-up season. The seven players featured in the table below ended 2009 with a mixed bag of peripheral trends. While each saw his K rate jump by more than a strikeout per nine innings, every player on this list also increased his walk rate, and all but one experienced a decrease in GO/AO.

By all outward appearances, Clayton Kershaw had a superb sophomore season and would be better placed on the "Pitchers to Target" list. In addition to increasing his strikeout rate by 13 percent, he lowered his ERA by nearly a run and a half and knocked his WHIP down from 1.50 to 1.23. Kershaw's walk rate inched up from 4.4 to 4.8, but that's not terribly alarming, especially for a 21 year-old. More troubling is his flyball rate, which swelled from 30 percent to 40 percent. Only an extremely low home run per flyball rate and a below-average BABIP on flyballs kept Kershaw from having a nondescript season. We will need another year or two to see if he can keep this up.

Likewise, Matt Garza's season needed a little help from some suspicious-looking trends. The biggest warning sign for the 26 year-old is a line drive rate that jumped from 19 to 22 percent. With a rate that high, it is very unlikely that Garza can hold batters to a .233 batting average again. Ricky Nolasco did not have the good luck that Garza had, posting a .325 BABIP, as compared to Garza's .278, and he paid the price with a 5.06 ERA. Despite Nolasco's superb K/9 and K/BB rates, that ERA is not as fluky as you might think. All those line drives, in addition to difficulties with stranding baserunners, contributed to a disappointing performance that Nolasco could wind up repeating in '10.

Downgrade Alert

All six of the pitchers listed below experienced a precipitous drop in their strikeout rates this year, making each one a riskier pick in next year's draft. Ervin Santana, Micah Owings and Scott Kazmir all missed time with injuries, so there is hope for a healthier 2010 and a rebound. Santana and Kazmir both performed better after returning from the DL, but neither was able to bring his strikeout rate back to previous levels. In short, all three pitchers bear an extra degree of risk going into next season.

Ian Snell, Bronson Arroyo and John Lannan could be even more dangerous picks. To hear ERA and WHIP tell the story, Snell and Arroyo had comeback seasons in '09, while Lannan matched his surprisingly good rookie season. In all three cases, a lower-than-expected BABIP dulled the impact of allowing more frequent contact. Snell and Arroyo are strong candidates for ERA and WHIP surges next year, and both should be avoided in all but the deepest leagues. Lannan has managed to build back-to-back seasons in which he allowed a high proportion of ground balls and a below-average proportion of base hits on those grounders. It's not clear how he has pulled this off, but with his strikeout and line drive rates moving in the wrong direction, it's best to assume that Lannan has overachieved in his first two full big league seasons.

With strikeouts on the rise, it is easier than it used to be to pick up a couple of starters who can provide 180 Ks or more. The problem is that it is equally easy for your competitors to do the same. That's why it is especially important to separate the high-value strikeout artists like Jackson and Floyd from the risky ones like Garza and Nolasco. You certainly should avoid pitchers like Snell, Arroyo and Lannan, who are losing ground in this strikeout-powered arms race, regardless of what this year's Fantasy stats might tell you.

Al Melchior was recently a Fantasy columnist and data analyst for Baseball HQ and will be providing advice columns for CBSSports.com. Click here to send him a question. Please put "Melchior" in the subject field.