The Thursday Hypness: Barry Zito: exposing a players true value every Thursday

I’ve been fortunate enough not to think too much about Barry Zito in the context of fantasy baseball for several years. See, myself and a few of the owners in our keeper league live in the Bay Area and four of them are hardcore Oakland Athletics fans. That of course means that some of them are homers, so for the betterment of the rest of the league they’ve overvalued the likes of Zito and Eric Chavez for years and kept them away from us. For that, I thank them. But nowadays it’s not so simple. Zito has signed with the cross-bay (estuary) rivals – and there is a likelihood that he could be left unprotected – and I am left evaluating his career and debating what he could be worth in 2007.
To me, Zito is an impressive force on the mound when his curveball is breaking 11 to 5. When it breaks, he rolls to victory. But when the ball is slow-rolling, he falls off the table -- like his pitch should -- and that’s when he looks like a Little Leaguer throwing batting practice to Manny Ramirez. (Take that, A’s fans)
For that fact alone, I’d usually write him off because he’s too much of a wild card to justify spending a high pick on him. But the reality is you can’t just dismiss him. He’s got a career ERA around 3.50, has 103 wins in six seasons and has a Cy Young award to his credit. AND he’s in a new league, with a new group of teammates behind him and he’ll be out to impress ownership, which has given him $18 million per year. That said, I still think Zito will be highly overvalued on draft day. People will see him as a young (28) lefty in a new league and think that automatically equates to success. They’ll even look at his career numbers and see the 3.55 ERA and think he’s easy at the top of the league. He’ll likely be drafted in the second-tier of pitchers.
But when you look past his career numbers, you’ll see this is a pitcher who has been hittable (1.33 WHIP) in the last three years and has declined (even though he still wins), even at his young age. His career ERA is misleading. Over the last three seasons he’s had a combined ERA of 4.04, giving up nearly 100 earned runs in each of those campaigns. And to top it off, his walks are up and his strikeouts are down. He hasn’t come anywhere near the career-high 205 punch-outs he enjoyed during his 2002 Cy Young season. Yet he walked 99 batters last year.
Zito reminds me of Mike Hampton and Al Leiter, two serviceable lefties who are always remembered by fantasy owners for their best seasons. And because of that he will always be worth something to someone.
Now that’s not to say that Zito won’t enjoy success, either this upcoming year or in the future, but the problem we’re left with is his inconsistency. He’s got value and upside, but don’t over pay for him on draft day. I put him in the same tier (third) as John Lackey, but slightly behind him.

Barry Zito of 2001 and 2002 is not walking through that door, fans. His 2001 17-8 record is not walking through that door. His 2002 23-5 Cy Young campaign is not walking through that door. — The Jon courtesy of Rick Pitino.
I blame Allyssa Milano, that stupid guitar Sports Illustrated cried over in its story about the lefty and a friend's friend.
But I digress; Zito had a great two-year run as a dominant pitcher. His 205 strikeouts in 2001 primed Zito to be the next dominant pitcher for the next 10 years. PoiDog kept that guy, and in 2002 he rolled off his 23 wins this side of Bob Welch. When me and PoiDog held or weekly "We have no life Fantasy baseball teleconference," He stated that he could live with his 182 strikeouts because of the wins and his ERA dipped from 3.49 to 2.75. Then there was the big Mexican clinic scare where PoiDog heard from a friend's friend that the said friend saw him at a Mexico clinic and could have been Barry Bondsing. I told PoiDog to shut up and not worry about Zito; the fool's fastball clocks in the 80s.
Thanks to PoiDog's bad karma Zito was off his team in a year. Zito stopped producing. He now is a teen/teen pitcher. Here are his win counts after those two years: 14-12, 11-11, 14-13, 16-10.
Oh yeah, I'm all about stats today. I've gotten hundreds of e-mails from our loyal readers that they want stats. Check this out:
ERA: 3.30, 4.48, 3.86, 3.83.
But one stat that makes Zito viable is his inning count. He has topped 200 inning-plus every year he has been in the league except for his call-up year in 2000. He is a workhorse, a backbone for your staff. I always try to get a pitcher that you can rely on to give you quality innings. I call it the Andy Pettitte strategy. You have three pitchers you rely on to carry wins, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP categories. After that, you need to pitchers like Pettitte, Livan Hernandez or Chien-Ming Wang with sub-ERA who give quality 6-plus inning starts to maintain or lower the ERA that your three top pitchers gave you. Zito fits into that category. But he won't be drafted that way. That stupid contract the Giants gave him has made Zito a top 10 pitchers to fantasy players. I feel a Pitino coming on: "I wish we could buy the world. We can't ... "
Naw, forget it. Zito is a fourth-starter pitcher, but will be forced to be a third-starter if you want him. Let me explain: You should spend two rounds getting the upper-echelon of starters once those guys are gone, then come the Schillings, Randy Johnsons and Dontrelle Willises, after that Zito should be available. After you get Zito, you can pine for the sleeper pitchers headed by Scott Kazmir and Jonathan Papelbons (who would really be your third starter), get another workhorse and your staff looks pretty good.
That won't happen. Zito will go high and be a second or first starter for some owner who didn't read the Thursday Hypness.
And I'll hear it from a friend's friend on how much you suck for being stuck with Barry Zito as your staff ace.

What have you done since 2002?
I've changed jobs twice and moved four times.
Britney Spears has gone from pop princess to poop.
The Patriots have won two Super Bowls.
The complete X-Men trilogy has been released, and like eight sequels to the World of Warcraft series.
And Barry Zito has averaged about 14 wins, 160ks, a 3.80 ERA and 1.30 Whip. Not bad numbers, but hardly anything approaching his Cy Young season of 2002.
My point, it's been years since Zito has been a legitimate fantasy stud. These are the kind of numbers you expect from your No. 4 or No. 5 starter, not a fantasy ace.
Sure, you can argue that Zito was the best pitcher on the free-agent market this past offseason. Maybe you've even deluded yourself into believing he was worth the $2 zillion contract he got from the Giants. But don't even think for a moment about drafting this guy before the ninth or 10th round.
Yeah, he'll probably put up better numbers because he's playing in a weaker hitters league and is pitching in a more forgiving ballpark, but he's not going to carry your staff.
Ever since Zito produced that career year during his second full season, fans, fantasy owners and general managers have been waiting for him to do it again. I've got news for those people: 2002 was an aberration. It was the only year he has won as many as 18 games, the only time he's posted a sub-3.00 ERA during a full season, and has never exceeded his stats in any other meaningful category since then.
Will Zito kill your staff? Depends on which week he's pitching. He had eight games last year in which he posted a 2.00 Whip or worse and four times his ERA was 9.00 or worse.
For the most part, though, Zito will be a solid pitcher. I don't think it's far-fetched for him to improve on his numbers from the past four seasons, but even marked improvement won't put him in the top 10-15 among fantasy starters and to even see him break the top 25 he'll need to start striking guys out again.

So by now, I’m over the pain of losing the most established pitcher from my favorite team to the team I hate above all others. Zito went to the one team I will never be able to root for. However, we all know you can’t be successful in fantasy sports by being a homer. All bias aside, I know this guy and these teams well so here goes the BZ breakdown.
First & foremost, Zito is a talent. He knows how to pitch and clearly has the best Uncle Charlie in the game. Facing the National League & the sad sack NL West will be a boon for Barry. The relatively weaker lineups, and the fact that these hitter don’t know him, will keep Zito’s era in the mid to low 3’s once again. Playing in the cave that is PacBell or SBC or whatever the hell they are calling that park this week won’t hurt either.
Probing deeper, everything doesn’t look so good. The Giants suck. Their offense is atrocious as is their bullpen. Benitez can’t hold a candle to my boy Huston Street. Zito is a flyball pitcher in the second largest outfield in the majors, SBC Park. This sounds good until you imagine Barry Bonds & Ryan Klesko trying run down gappers. On top of that, Durham & his frying pan at second base won’t do Barry any favors either.
So where does that leave us? Barry Zito will not be as good of a fantasy pitcher as he will be in reality. His K’s are no great shakes and he won’t get 15 wins with that coterie of geezers supporting him. The 4th or 5th round is where he should go. Zito won’t hurt you, he’s too good. However, his supporting cast won’t allow him to be a true ace in '07.