Josh Johnson 2010

Josh Johnson was excellent in 2009. Turning 26 years old in a couple of weeks, he's on the cusp of being an elite pitcher. If his performances regresses from it's 2009 levels, Johnson is just another good starting pitcher. If he maintains or improves upon it, he's a star. He struck out 8.22 batters per nine innings, walked 2.50, and had a 50.3% groundball rate. All three of those are very slightly better than what he did in 2008, but at his age the only one that I see regressing a bit is the groundball rate. To give you an idea of how good Johnson's peripherals are, one of the most comparable players is Brett Anderson. That may not sound like high praise, but I expect to get Anderson on almost all of my teams this year...I'm that high on him. Ok, I'll give you two more guys with similar peripherals - Carpenter and Wainwright. I would expect a similar performance from all four of these guys in 2010.