Fausto Carmona 2009

I've seen a few people speculate that Fausto Carmona is a good bounce back candidate in 2009. I don't think so. To be fair, I've always thought he was overrated. At his very, very best, he's similar to Derek Lowe - average strikeout rate and control, absurdly high groundball rate. Unfortunately, he's only achieved that for one short season, and 2008 was a disaster for Carmona. He started off ok in April, but from May to September he was truly awful, with 44 strikeouts and 45 walks in 86 innings pitched. Most of that was compiled after he returned from an extended stay on the disabled list with a hip injury, so it doesn't appear that health was a factor. Carmona is young enough (just turned 25) that he still has a chance to be better than ever, but until he shows some improvement, I think he's only worth a pick in the last few rounds of a very deep draft. I'd MUCH rather gamble on a guy like Clay Buccholz (who I wrote about yesterday), who has more upside and actually pitched significantly better last season.