Fantasy Baseball Fix: 2011 Ervin Santana Projections

If you missed the previous entries of the Fantasy Fix click below.

• No. 12 Peter Bourjos
• No. 11 Erick Aybar
• No. 10 Fernando Rodney
• No.9  Joel Pineiro
• No. 8 Bobby Abreu
• No. 7  Howie Kendrick

The Fantasy fix ramps up as we are almost to the top 5 and you are almost to draft day.  At the number 6 spot is Halo’s starting pitcher Ervin Santana. Ervin is coming off a pretty good 2010 season that saw him go 17 -10 with a 3.94 ERA, 169 strikeouts and a 1.32 WHIP. In a word he was solid. 

Lets take a look out how  2011 projects  for Ervin Santana and his potential fantasy owners.

 We’ve said it before and its no secret that starting pitching is probably the most critical aspect of having a successful baseball team, both in  fantasy and real life. Ervin Santana’s fantasy value for 2011 should mirror his real life role. He is a great option for a #3 starter. As such he should be picked up in the middle rounds and used to fortify your front line starters. While Santana isn’t  likely to surpass the career high 214 strikeouts he amassed in 2008,  he should provide owners with solid Wins, ERA and WHIP numbers while not hurting the strikeout count. Santana has two issues that cause concern. First, he has yet to post consecutive good seasons which we detailed in our Burning Questions Series . The second issue is Santana’s velocity has been down the past 2 seasons. That once blazing 95 – 97  mile per hour fastball is now a more standard 92 -94 MPH. This happens with most pitchers as they mature, but what the loss in velocity has meant to fantasy heads is a drop in strikeout totals and it is that fact that will keep Santana on the board just a few rounds longer allowing you to pounce. Tiger Style!

The Hangout View:  I’m fully expecting Ervin to buck the good year / bad year trend he’s been  and have a solid 2011 season. Its actually a minor miracle that he won 17 games last year as bad as the Angelsoffense and outfield defense was. Ervin appears to be continually evolving as a pitcher so the loss of  some velovity shouldhave less of an impact on his performance.  If Santana can regain some of that 2008 command he had with his slider look for his ERA and strike out totals to improve. If not those totals will likely stay status quo in 2011. Officially I’m projecting the following line:

• 18 wins , 3.65 ERA , 1.29 WHIP , 178 strikeouts , 205 Innings Pitched