Jonathan Sanchez 2009

Early in the 2008 season I advised my brother in law to trade for Jonathan Sanchez. The advice worked out great as Sanchez struck out 8.8 per nine innings, walked 4.2, and had a 41.1% groundball rate. Solid numbers for a cheap starting pitcher. The only problem is that most people are a little more results oriented than me, and I suspect weren't that happy with Sanchez 5.01 ERA. That's life (and fantasy baseball). Sometimes you do the right thing, and don't get the results you want. The silver lining is that Sanchez should once again be cheap in 2009. He's at an ideal age for a pitcher (26). Young enough to have plenty of time to improve, old enough to be past the period when risk of arm injury is greatest. The Giants weak offense will ensure that Sanchez doesn't win a ton of games, but he should provide value (and a substantially better ERA) even if he isn't able to improve on his shaky control. If he can lower his walk rate at all, he may begin to have value even in leagues like Rotohog and Snap Draft.