Will Sheets Of Webb Give Bedard A Harden?

Boom, look at how my creative juices are flowing with that amazing title!

There will always be risks when you draft for any fantasy league. When you draft for your first eight picks in your upcoming baseball draft, you want to take the least risky guys who you want to be studs for your team. But as you start getting later in the draft, you can and should start taking risks. You of course always want to minimize your risks (which is just true as an everyday life lesson), but as the pool to draft gets slimmer and slimmer, that option becomes less likely for you. You of course want to draft sleepers- guys who you think are undervalued so there going later in the draft who aren't risky (a la Max Scherzer), but even still, that pool starts to get slimmer and slimmer. If you can get every single one of your picks be high reward, low risk- then by all means use that strategy. But my guess is that you need to take at least a few high risk, high reward players.

The best players to take for high risk, high reward guys are those who have been proven to good when healthy, but are injury prone. This is because you assure yourself good statistics to accrue as opposed to taking risky players who might end up hurting your team. I believe the quintessential offensive players like this are Carlos Quentin and Josh Hamilton. But the four best high risk/ high reward pitchers are: Ben Sheets, Brandon Webb, Erik Bedard, and Rich Harden.

1) Brandon Webb

High Reward: Everyone knows how good Brandon Webb can be when healthy. He's a former Cy Young winner. Webb has started at least 33 games between 2004- 2008, has never had an ERA over 3.59 (which occurred in his first full season) and has had an ERA under 3.30 the past three years (excluding 2009). While Webb is the greatest at striking guys out (7.26 career K/9), he still will help your team averaging a little over 177 SO every year. Webb has a career 3.50 FIP (3.23 from '06-'08) and a career 3.31 xFIP (3.18 from '05-'08) along with a career 1.24 WHIP. And although you can and should never really predict wins, Webb has averaged 17.5 wins over his last four healthy seasons.

High Risk: Webb is probably the least risky out of all the four players which makes him the most valuable. Throughout Webb's career, he has never been an injury risk (unlike Sheets, Harden, and Bedard) but will most likely start the year on the DL. ESPN reports that Webb will probably come back late April/ early May- which means you will probably get about 25 starts from him. But Webb's biggest issue, as Stephania Bell reported in the fantasy focus podcast, that doctors aren't still 100% sure what exactly is the source of Webb's problems. But despite that all, given Webb's past durability and strong showings during spring training, it seems to be in Webb's favor to stay healthy and be effective over the course of a full baseball season once he comes back.

2) Ben Sheets

Despite Sheets missing all of last year and having an injury prone career, I still put him as the second best of this group.

High Reward: If you exclude 2006 and 2009: Sheets still has started at least 22 games per season and started 31 games in his past full season in 2008. Sheets is essentially a lock for a minimum of 10 wins, 140 strike outs, a 1.15 WHIP, and 3.80 ERA- which is essentially what Sheets performs every year. Sheets has a career 7.60 K/9, 3.85 K/BB, 1.20 WHIP, 2.56 FIP, and a 3.55 xFIP. Added to that that Sheets is now playing most of his games in the cavernous Oakland Coliseum and SAFECO along with a Billy Beane build defense will help add to Sheet's stats.

High Risk: It's never a good thing when a consistently injury prone pitcher misses an entire year. Sheets has not started over 32 games since 2004 and has only started over 24 games once since 2004 (31 in '08). There's also a slight strike out risk with Sheets because in '06 Sheets only gained 116 SO in '06 (granted in only 17 GS) and only 106 SO in '07 (24 GS). But his constant stints on the DL and missing all of 2009 makes Sheets very risky.

However, I would not put too much stock in Sheets getting rocked a week or two ago. It's spring training and not indicative of how Sheets will perform during the regular season

3) Erik Bedard
Although Bedard has only started 30 games in the past two years as opposed to the 51 started by Harden, Bedard is the better pitcher with the better defense and more favorable ball park.

High Reward: Bedard has a career 8.77 K/9, 3.66 FIP, and 3.88 FIP which should mean you will get pretty good ERA and SO totals from Bedard. Added to that that Bedard has the same effect as Sheets where he gets to play most of his games (assuming his health will correspond to it) in the favorable ballparks of SAFECO and Oakland Coliseum and will have a top three defense behind him will help Bedard put up pretty good numbers.

High Risk: Like all these pitchers, the biggest risk is health. But this is even more so for Bedard. He has only started 15 games per season since being traded to Seattle. Only getting 15 games from a pitcher is pretty bad and this is most evidenced by Bedard's win totals (11 wins the past two years). Bedard's high career 3.56 BB/9 doesn't help anything either showing up in Bedard's somewhat high 1.32 WHIP.

4) Rich Harden

Harden has a lot of games started the past two years should give him a slight edge over Sheets and Bedard, but the Rangers favorable hitter's ballpark and Harden moving from the NL to the AL makes Harden the worst candidate out of these four pitchers.

High Reward: This biggest reward Harden will give you in strike outs. Harden has a career 9.35 K/9 had a 10.91 K/9 in '09 and a 11.01 K/9 in '08. His sub-4.00 career FIP and xFIP (3.58 and 3.75 respectively) and decently low career 1.24 WHIP are all positives in Harden's favor. And although Harden's ballpark could hurt his numbers, that ballpark with his offense behind could help his W totals.

High Risk: Rangers Ballpark is the best hitter's home park Harden has ever played at and that, along with the move back to the AL, should mean a slight decrease in Harden's numbers. And although the Rangers offense could help Harden's wins, the fact that Harden does not go deep into games means it's less likely that that win total will increase. And although Harden has started over 25 games the past years, Harden also only has started a total of 16 games in '06 and '07.

So what can you take out of this?
My advice is that you take at least one of these pitchers. Despite all the negatives that have been discussed about each player, having one is worth your while because of when you need to take these players in your draft/ the cost the players will go for will be worth the 15-25 starts from them. Now drafting two or three, or even worse, all of these players is EXTREMELY risky (Yes, I'm talking to you TBO who has Bedard and Harden in one league and Bedard, Harden, and Sheets in another) and will most likely backfire on you. But having one of these guys is a good risk to take.