Revenge of the pitchers who haven't been good in a decade

Earlier this week, I took a look at two pitchers who are currently experiencing success despite having posted subpar seasons every year since the invention of iPod -- Jarrod Washburn and Kevin Millwood -- and found another to pick apart: Randy Wolf.

Since being traded to Houston last season, Randy Wolf has pitched 113.1 innings of 3.34 ERA, 3.82 FIP, 1.22 WHIP baseball. Compared to his previous three seasons, the new and improved Randy Wolf has shaved the walks (3.02 BB/9), while maintaining a constant K/9 rate (7.39) and slightly decreasing his home run rate. He did all of this while posting a league average LOB%.

All of these factors signal sustainable improvement in Randy Wolf's game...until you consider the following:
1) Nothing in Randy Wolf's approach to the game has changed. According to Fangraphs, Wolf is using his fastball about 3% more (and his curveball 3% less), but his velocity, pitch selection, pitch mix and break have all remained constant against his career numbers (4.31 FIP, 4.22 ERA).
2) Randy Wolf's BABIP currently sits at .256. His career average BABIP is .298.
3) Randy Wolf's LD rate currently sits at 15.8%, the best he's posted since Fangraphs started cataloguing hit results since 2002. His LD rate average since 2002 is 21.1%.
4) Randy Wolf's GB/FB rate for 2009 is 0.80, down from his career average (0.95) and recent year rates (1.02 in '07, 1.00 in '08), and yet his HR/9 rate is also down. His 7.1 HR/FB% rate is 4.3% below the league average and 3.7% below his career average since 2002.
5) Randy Wolf is 32, soon to be 33, years old. If anything, he's at the end of his prime, not the beginning. Thus, the ceiling for improvement is -- mathematically speaking -- very limited.

So what does this all mean? This is certainly not to say that Randy Wolf isn't a very decent pitcher -- especially for fantasy. If one were to normalize his HR/9 rates, his FIP is still a tick below 4.00 -- in line with what it's been over the past 2+ seasons -- and an ERA below 4.00 is a very realistic expectation for Randy Wolf given his improved control over the past few seasons (his K/BB has been improving since 2006 -- two seasons of abnormally high BABIPs inflated Wolf's ERA well above his FIP).

However, one should not make the mistake of assuming Wolf to be any more than a Ted Lilly-like pitcher -- an above average #3 starter in front of a quality offense. He's going to have his rough outings from time to time, but over the course of 30+ starts he's going to put up solid numbers that will help your team's fantasy line. Don't forget that he plays for the Dodgers, who are averaging 5.6 runs per game (5.0 runs per game projected without Manny). If Wolf can continue to post a quality ERA, the wins will eventually come. Just expect a slight WHIP correction (his career hitability implies that he's more of the 1.3 variety) along the way.