The Yakker

"Cueto" is spanish for overrated.

There have been some real surprising starts by some otherwise effective to dominant starting pitchers as of late. This has me questioning if it’s time to start worrying about a couple guys we fantasy owners depend on to carry us to the promised land.

JOHAN SANTANA, METS
Santana allowed a mere four earned runs and put up a 0.96 WHIP in 46 innings. It’s been fairly rough ever since. One interesting point is that he’s thrown over 100 pitches in all but four of his last 15 starts, leading one to suggest fatigue may be setting in. You can write off some of this, but a rise in his HR/9IP, in his opponents batting average, and a slide in his dominance rate (K/9IP) should be enough for fantasy owners to take this a bit more seriously.

His numbers over the last few months should be enough warning, as all his peripheral stats have taken a pronounced plunge–particularly his dominance rate, which has fallen from 12.1 to 11.3 to 4.5 in June. Given the incredible numbers over his nine-year career, it’s difficult for some fantasy owners to admit baseball’s formerly most dominant starting pitcher has lost a step, but they need to accept the fact that Venezuela’s finest has eclipsed the 30-year old mark–an age in which the decline in starting pitchers start to decline. It’s important to note that this slide isn’t unique to this season. Over the last three seasons, he’s seen a noticeable decline in his dominance rate (9.4 to 9.7 to 7.9), his strikeout-to-walk rate (5.2 to 4.5 to 3.3), and BB/9IP (1.8 to 2.1 to 2.4). For the first time in recent memory, it’s time fantasy owners consider selling Johan at the first chance that his value rebounds slightly.

JOHNNY CUETO, REDS
The cat may be outta the bag after Cueto’s debacle against the Phillies on Monday in which he retired just two of the 11 batters he faced and couldn’t get out of the first inning after allowing nine earned runs, two homers, and three walks, while striking out one. He’ll still ranks among the top 16 hurlers in the National League in ERA, top six in wins, and top 25 in strikeouts, but his fantasy owners are assuming a great risk by leaving him in their lineup.

There is that great indicator of a falling dominance rate (8.2 in 2008 versus 6.4 in 2009) and his fly ball rate hasn’t improved, which is reason enough to expect Monday’s affinity for the long ball becoming something of a trend-particularly in the hitter-friendly home ballpark in which he plays half his games.