Barry Zito

Barry Zito's 2nd start went much better than his first one. Even with 6 shutout innings, his ratios are still horrendous.

While advising one to trade for Zito now is the next logical step following the opening paragraph, I'm going in a slightly different direction.

What is noteworthy is the fact that even with Zito's terribleness, my AL-only team has 11 points in WHIP and 10 in ERA.

A little discussed subject at this point in the year is the fact that any one pitcher doesn't sink a team. There is endless commentary on not panicking based on a bad couple weeks and/or starts, but no advice ever seems to be put the bad player in the context of the entire Roto team.

With Zito, I also have Cliff Politte and Scott Baker. Despite those three ratio killers, I still have the points I do. That is due to two things.

The first is the number of innings involved is low so ugly ratios do not mean as much when the innings they were produced in is only 30% of my team's total innings pitched (14/47).

The second is the other six pitchers' innings and ratios have carried the Terrible Three.

So keep the totality of your pitching staff in mind when trying to evaluate how you are doing at this early stage of the season.

FWIW, I expect the other six pitchers to worsen while the three bad ones to improve.