Scott Kazmir and Francisco Liriano have quite a few things in common at this point. Both are left-handed. Both are 25 years-old. For our purposes, both came into the 2009 season with fairly lofty expectations in fantasy baseball. Both were top-20 starting pitchers in pretty much every mixed league. Unfortunately for the two -- and their fantasy owners -- they now have something else in common: Immense struggles in the early going. Kazmir has managed to squeak out a 4-3 record, but his ERA (6.97) and WHIP (1.86) are horrible. Liriano is a bit better in those categories (5.21 and 1.37), but his 2-4 record makes him equally as helpful as Kaz to this point. Let's breakdown each guy in slump or suck style.
Scott Kazmir
Here are his ERAs the past four full seasons: 3.77, 3.24, 3.48 and 3.49. Thus, his awful beginning appears that it should simply normalize and everything will be fine. In fact, it looks like he's a buy-low candidate, no? Not so fast. He's velocity is down and command is severely lacking. The former can kill the productivity of a power pitcher -- which Kazmir is -- and the latter makes it near impossible to avoid excessive walks and mistake pitches. You can see it in the numbers. His career hits per 9 innings is 8.3 and it's all the way up to 11.3 this year. His walks per 9 innings are up over 1 per. Meanwhile, his strikeout rates are a career low and it's not even close. Hitters are going .338 on balls in play (BABIP), but they posted a .337 mark in 2007 when he posted a 3.48 ERA and allowed only 8.5 hits per 9 innings.
It's reasonable to question the health of Kazmir. He's battled injuries throughout his early career and he wouldn't simply lose 4-5 miles per hour off his fastball as a 25-year-old. If he's not reported to be hurt sometime within the next two weeks and he doesn't have a resurrection of his velocity and command, we can declare that he sucks for this season. We waited all year in 2008 for Justin Verlander, and he killed owners all season. Now, it's important to note that Kazmir has worlds of talent and he could easily bounce-back next season -- or whenever his arm recovers. For now, I have to say he sucks and should be avoided in yearly fantasy leagues because he really looks like this year's version of Verlander. If he is, don't forget about him on draft day next year. Look at what Verlander is doing this season.
Francisco Liriano
Liriano was actually way worse a few weeks ago when he was 0-4 with a 7.06 ERA. Since then, he's 2-0 with a 3.60 ERA. Still, he's walked 13 batters in only 25 innings during that stretch. It's a bad sign, but it's good that he's stopped getting hit so hard. He's a over a year removed from his return from a bad arm injury, but it's possible he's still having trouble finding a comfort zone. We know the talent, and when his numbers start to take a good turn, that means he's inching closer.
It looks like the early struggles for Liriano were just a slump and he's starting to break out of it. How long it takes before he meets expectations, though, is anyone's guess -- because they are sky-high. I still wouldn't blame anyone for jumping ship, though I'd rather trade for him due to his ceiling (unless you are expecting a repeat of his sensational 2006 season, because that's never happening again).
