2008 Aces: A.L. Edition

It's never too early to think about next year.

Matthew Pouliot at Rotoworld has put up his excellent columns previewing the 2008 free agent classes of hitters and pitchers. I've already taken the rosters for my league, swiped out all of the option-year players and started looking at what the early freeze lists are going to look like next year.

Tonight, I'm going to look at potential Rotisserie aces in the American League. With the volatile state of pitching in the major leagues, a growing number of owners will try to nab an ace starting pitcher and worry about the rest of their staff later. I've always been a big advocate of this strategy for a number of reasons. In carryover leagues, it is next to impossible to trade for an ace starter once the season is in progress, because teams with these aces are almost always in contention. There isn't the same, near-automatic corollary with top hitters, mainly because there are so many of them to go around.

Anyway, here are this year's top pitchers to date and where I think they stand in the pecking order in 2008. Prices are for start-over, 4x4 A.L. only leagues with 12 teams and $260 budgets.

1) Johan Santana. 2007 Alex Patton bid limit: $42
It's not often that a pitcher who is third in ERA (3.06) and 1st in WHIP (1.05) disappoints his owners, but that's exactly what Johan Santana has done in the mind of many of his owners this year. Admittedly, his interior numbers have slipped a little bit this year...his BAA of .224 is his worst since 2001, and his 29 HR allowed in 188 IP are a bit of a cause for concern. However, you get what you pay for with Santana, and if this is a bad year, I would certainly take it. 2008 bid: $39

2) Erik Bedard. 2007 AP bid limit: $21
After a couple of solid but not spectacular seasons, Bedard finally reached the potential that many hoped for and became an ace both for the Orioles and for his Roto owners. His K/IP rate jumped to 10.93, and the results have simply been domination. In less savvy leagues, you might get a bit of a discount on Bedard, but I somehow doubt it. Personally, my Cy Young pick for 2008 might be Bedard over Santana, but that's not exactly getting on a very narrow ledge. 2008 bid: $33

3) Roy Halladay. 2007 AP bid limit: $32
His last outing against the A's gave me pause before ranking him this high, but a look at Halladay's Post All-Star numbers (3.04 ERA, 4 HR in 77 IP) tells me that Roy is probably going to take his place back up amongst the elite pitchers next year. 2005 is a red herring, though; he's not going to duplicate those numbers again. 2008 bid: $27

4) C.C. Sabathia. 2007 AP bid limit: $18
I thought Patton's bid limit for Sabathia was a slightly conservative one, though I know that there were a number of touts who weren't convinced that 2006 wasn't an abberation. After all, his BAA was virtually the same as every other year in his career, and his HR/IP was also virtually alike. The key for C.C., though, was bringing his walk totals down and improving his command. He's continued that trend this year, and the results have been a strong year despite a higher BAA than in any other year in his career. One very odd red flag in C.C.'s line are the whopping 55 doubles he's allowed. If some of those turned into homeruns, they could turn into trouble for C.C. I'm still sold on C.C. as a Top 10 Roto pitcher, though I'm not sure I'm completely sold on him as a guy I want to spend $30+ on to build my staff around. 2008 bid: $24

5) Josh Beckett. 2007 AP bid limit: $16
Whether it was a lack of concentration of simply the adjustment to the American League, something was never quite right with Josh Beckett in 2006. 36 HR allowed in 204 2/3 IP was terrible, and a number of people were too scared to bid more than $20 this year. Beckett went out and proved just about all of those people wrong. He's keeping the ball in the park again, and his numbers are in line with what he did in Florida for most of his career. The bugaboo, as usual, will be injuries. Beckett's track record with staying healthy isn't great. Last year was the first time he topped 200 IP, and his innings total this year is a little low compared to some of the names above him on this list. That means less value from his ERA/WHIP, and you have to discount him a little as a result. 2008 bid: $24

6) Dan Haren. 2007 AP bid limit: $19
Coming into this season, I liked Danny Haren, and believed that he might be a good candidate for a breakout season based on his peripherals. His first half made me look very conservative. With a 1.60 ERA in April and a 1.67 ERA and .154 BAA in May, Haren looked like he was going to earn $60 in 4x4 leagues and win the Cy Young in a walk. It hasn't quite worked out that way for Haren and his owners. His Post All-Star 3.70 ERA is more in line with his previous career totals, and I do wonder now if Haren's Pre All-Star clip was just one of those unsustainable things. The good news is that Haren's K/IP rate has remained high and his HR/IP, while higher, hasn't climbed into the high rates he was putting up in 2005 and 2006. I think Haren's improvement is real, though I don't see him as a guy who you should shell out true ace money for on Auction Day. 2008 bid: $23

7) Justin Verlander. 2007 AP bid limit: $20
The bid limit here assumed that Verlander was going to break into the elite. While he's knocking even harder on the door, he hasn't quite gotten there yet. A 5.06 ERA Post-All Star would seem to imply that he's running out of gas again this year, but his peripherals are as good or better than the second half. Verlander seems to be getting more out of his pitches this year - meaning better movement and better location - which is bad news for the rest of the American League. I'm reluctant to shell out true ace money here, but I'm willing to pay him a little on spec. I think he's a good breakout candidate for 2008, not that his performance so far hasn't raised eyebrows. 2008 bid: $22

8) Daisuke Matsuzaka. 2007 AP bid limit: $28
Like Halladay, D-Mat's on this list based on spec more than anything else. His numbers, though certainly solid this year, haven't exactly raised eyebrows the way some of Matsuzaka's biggest proponents thought they would. The biggest problem has been his 0.95 G/F ratio, which has led to quite a few homeruns. Watching him, he seems to have innings where he does live up to the hype and is absolutely unhittable, and then he has innings where he looks lost and is throwing garbage up there. This is the hunchiest pick on this list. I think D-Mat will come a lot closer to living up to the hype next year, and might be the best chance on this list at a bargain. 2008 bid: $21

9) Kelvim Escobar. 2007 AP bid limit: $16
Like Beckett, Kelvim Escobar is a pitcher who has suffered his share of maladies over the past few years. Also like Beckett, Escobar has put together a lights-out year for Los Angeles. Unlike Beckett, I do wonder how sustainable Escobar's success truly is. His stellar ERA doesn't quite match his WHIP, and I suspect that Escobar will be in for somewhat of a correction next year. That doesn't mean he won't put up good stats, I just believe a 2.77 ERA is unrealistic to expect given the rest of his numbers. 2008 bid: $19

10) John Lackey. 2007 AP bid limit: $17.
Every year there is a cadre of experts who expect John Lackey to take that next great big step forward, and every year he doesn't quite get there. This year he's thrilled his owners with a 3.18 ERA, but his 1.27 WHIP tells me that the ERA is quite the mirage. More worrisome is that fact that his K/IP rate keeps falling; this year it's down to 6.85, his lowest rate since 2004. While I don't expect Lackey to regress to his 2004 levels (4.67 ERA/1.387 WHIP), this is a troublesome trend that would keep me from cracking the $20 barrier in start-over leagues. 2008 bid: $18

Including John Lackey as the 10th best pitcher is a huge cop-out. He's a safe pick where a sexier pick, like Felix Hernandez or James Shields, might very well have been more fun to write about.

Hernandez, Shields, Fausto Carmona, Chien-Ming Wang, A.J. Burnett, Mark Buehrle and Javier Vazquez were other pitchers I considered including on this list who didn't make it. Carmona is the guy, based on this year's performance alone, who should be there but isn't.