Gavin Floyd 2009

After pitching pretty well in 2007 (K/9: 6.0, BB/9: 2.3), Gaving Floyd took a step backwards in 2008 (despite increasing his strikeout rate to 6.4), as his walk rate rose to 3.1. Given the control problems he had earlier in his career, it seems like that his 2008 performance is more indicative of his true ability. Coupled with Floyd's flyball tendencies (41.2% groundball rate in 2008), he's a very mediocre pitcher who is going to be overrated going into 2009 by anyone who doesn't understand that component stats (such as strikeout rate, walk rate, and groundball rate) are much better predictors of future ERA than past ERA is. It's also worth noting that Floyd is one of the few pitchers so bad at holding runners on base that he can be expected to always allow a few more runs than his other statistics would suggest...In 2008 he allowed 37 steals, with only 5 runners caught stealing.