Question

Q: Hey, love your blog. I read it daily. I'm in a mixed 10-team Head to Head league. I need to keep 8 players. I'm keeping ARod, Crawford, Hafner,Vernon Wells, McCann, Zambrano and KRod. I need to decide for the last keeper between Bonderman, Sabathia and Haren. Who would you keep?

Thanks, Joel from Rhode Island

A: Looks like you've got a nice group of keepers there Joel. In my top 250 rankings, Bonderman was ranked 74, Sabathia was ranked 68 and Haren came in at 104. So as you can see, the real question here is Bonderman or Sabathia.

Here's a little bit about each of the players: Bonderman is a 24 year old stud. He had over 200 strikeouts last year to complement 14 wins and an ERA of 4.08. If you league counts whip, his was 1.30. He did this in 214 IP. Sabathia has a little bit more time under his belt, he is currently 26. He had 172 strikeouts but he also spent some time on the DL and only managed 192.2 innings. His ERA was 3.22, he had 12 wins and a whip of 1.17.

I think that after reviewing the stats, the choice is clear: Sabathia. If you take his strikeouts throughout 214 IP he has 191 strike outs. It is very probable that he breaks 200 strikeouts this year. His ERA was also significantly better than Bonderman's ERA. Although I do think Bonderman's ERA could go down this year, I don't think it will drop much below 4, if at all. Expect Sabathia to stay off the DL this year and easily top 15 wins on a Cleveland team that, if you read my blog regularly, you know I love. I don't think 17 or 18 wins is out of the question.

I hope this helps!

-Brad Stewart

Anyone else have a question? Email me: stew0610@ameritech.net