Pick Em' Part Two

Same premise as my last post, but this time I'm going into the deeper rounds.

Ninth Round - Chris Young (103) vs. Dan Haren (104)
Young - 11, 0, 164, 3.46, 1.13
Haren - 14, 0, 176, 4.12, 1.21

Interesting choice here. Young enjoyed a breakout 2006, no doubt. He led baseball with a .206 batting average against. To put that into perspective, he allowed 28 fewer hits last year, in 14 2/3 more innings pitched. Yet his ERA was a good-but-not-great 3.46 and he only won 11 times. The reason? His walk total per nine went up by more than 1, he allowed more home runs, and was awful at home (5-5, 4.61 ERA). What worries me about Young is that he doesn't pitch very deep into games. In the last two seasons, he's only averaging about 5.5 innings pitched per start. The Padres simply don't have enough offense, or enough arms in bullpen to make enough of his leads hold up. As for Haren, his ERA was nearly 5.00 in the second half, but he still cranked out another solid season. He's had two straight seasons of 34 starts, 215+ IP, 160+ K, and 14 W. Last season, his walks went down, strikeouts went up, but so did the homers and his ERA. He's also averaged a full inning more per start (6.5) over the last two years, than Young. That extra inning will mean extra wins and extra K's, enough to offset the slightly higher WHIP and ERA. Advantage: Haren.

Tenth Round - Eric Gagne (113) vs. Bob Wickman (115)
Gagne - 0, 1, 3, 0.00, 0.50 (2 IP)
Wickman - 1, 33, 42, 2.67, 1.22

Ah, aging closers with a history of arm issues and with plenty of competition for their jobs. Here's the thing, neither one of these guys is a particularly safe option. Gagne is coming off of one back and two elbow surgeries, plus the Rangers have Akinori Otsuka. And the 38-year-old Wickman has former Pittsburgh lefty Mike Gonzalez waiting for him to implode. But first let's look at the upside for both. If Gagne is completely healed, and he says he is so far, most fantasy owners would take even 75% of what he was with the Dodgers, when he posted save totals of 52, 55 and 45, with ERAs of 1.97, 1.20, and 2.19, with 114, 137, and 114 strikeouts from 2002-2004. As for Wickman, it seems like he's on the verge of losing his job every year, but never does. He saved 33 games for two clubs last year, and 45 the year before. He's never blown anybody away with his ERA or strikeout totals, but he always seems to get the job done. He's saved at least 20 games in a season 7 times, in 8 years as a closer. And he was great (1.04 ERA) with the Braves last year, after coming over from Cleveland. So that's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is they both lose their jobs due to ineffectiveness, injury or some combination thereof. Here's the kicker, the Rangers wouldn't have given Gagne $6 million this off-season to be a setup man. So with him, if he can get healthy and stay healthy (both big if's), the rewards could be huge. Of these two unsafe options, Gagne is slightly safer because of his deal and his secondary numbers. Advantage: Gagne.