Welcome, to the first installment of the best pitching value you can get in your upcoming 2008 draft. There will be 30 pitchers spoken of in all, one from each MLB team, and this will be broken up into 6 different installments, one for each division. First up will be the A.L. East and it will end with the N.L. West. So without further ado, here is the first installment of this six part series.

Boston Red Sox: I personally don’t like most of the pitchers in terms of value for this team. After winning the World Series most of these guys are going to be overpriced because of their post season success. Also Buchholz threw that no-hitter and young pitching is often overvalued. So if I had to pick the best value from the Sox, I would have to go with Dice-K. His 2007 campaign was disappointing to many people, but that may have just been because the hype was unfair. Looking at his stats he still had a very good year averaging almost 8.85 k/9 and an ERA under 4.5 in a good hitting division. I don’t see him getting any worse from last year, but because of what happened last year he may be undervalued.

New York Yankees: In this spot I am going to go with Phil Hughes. Last season’s success looked promising, and this year I see him improving on those stats. This is another team in which some of the pitchers are either overpriced or not very good, so Hughes looks like the best one to help your fantasy team out this year.

Baltimore Orioles: The Orioles pitching lineup intrigues me. The Orioles have a young and inconsistent staff, but if the pieces find any consistency they can all be very dangerous. With all that said I’d have to go with Erik Bedard as the best value. In my opinion he is the best fantasy pitcher in the A.L. Bold statement, I know, but how about we do a little test here. Here are both Santana’s stats and Bedard’s stats, and you can try and figure out why Bedard is being drafted over a full round after Santana:

• Santana: 219 I.P., 15 W, 13 L, 3.33 E.R.A., 235 K’s, and 1.07 W.H.I.P.
• Bedard: 182 I.P., 13 W, 5 L, 3.16 E.R.A., 221 K’s, and 1.09 W.H.I.P.

In 37 less innings Bedard only has 14 less strikeouts and 2 less wins. If Bedard can stay healthy, and this may be the only knock on him, he is going to be able to put up better numbers than Santana and he is going at least a round after.

Toronto Blue Jays: Usually I don’t like players with injury concerns, but in this case, it may actually help you out in the draft. A.J. Burnett has had a history of injuries, but if he does stay healthy he is a monster. His E.R.A. was only .04 points worse than Halladay’s and he had over 4 points higher in his k/9. Halladay will be the one getting drafted higher, but it looks like he is starting to become a mediocre pitcher, and he’s not exactly considered one of the healthiest pitchers in baseball. I’d go with Burnett when talking about the Blue Jays; just be sure to expect a D.L. stint somewhere in the season.

Tampa Bay Rays: This year I really like James Shields. His k/9 isn’t nearly as good as Kazmir’s but in the long run that may be Kazmir’s fault. Kazmir tends to overpitch to everyone accounting for a large amount of k’s but also walks. In most games he struggles to get past the 6th or 7th inning because of high pitch counts. Shields puts up a good amount of k’s and will pitch many more innings than Kazmir making their K numbers almost a wash. Kazmir had 239 strikeouts which is over 50 more than Shields’ 184, but Kazmir had his best year of his career, and I’m personally being cautious about his arm. Shields’ W.H.I.P. was also 1.11 which is much better than Kazmir’s 1.38 which is most definitely because Kazmir had 53 more walks. Also Kazmir has a better E.R.A. by about .4 points, but if you take out Shields’ one awful game against the Yankees the players’ E.R.A.’s are much closer. Take Shields a few rounds later and you won’t have to worry about the arm problems that linger with Kazmir.

So to recap the A.L. East I would go with Dice-K from the Sox, Hughes from the Yanks, Bedard from the O’s, Burnett from the Jays, and Shields from the Rays.

Next up: A.L. Central.