Andrew Eugene Pettitte.
Born June 15th, 1972 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The other day, I was scouring the waiver wire in my most competitive fantasy baseball league. With all the crazy waiver wire addicts in this particular league, decent pitching is thinner than Tori Spelling before she got fat again. As I perused over the various wastes of year's pasts, Andy Pettitte's name caught my eye. Although I had actually rode him like a porn star on ecstasy two summers ago to a playoff birth, I was still skeptical. After admitting to using steroids in the past to overcome an injury, most people were pretty leery about drafting a 37 year old man, recently busted for performance enhancing drugs, while coming off his second worst ERA of his career. However, there is still plenty to like here. In fact, I could actually see Mr. Pettitte being a serviceable 4th and strong 5th pitcher, in any fantasy format, the rest of the season.
The steroid allegations and confessions were giant, bright red, "WARNING" lights flashing in our eyes on draft day. However, those troublesome thoughts were put to bed like a drunk sorority chick after Penny Pitchers at Ball State when he reported to training camp in excellent shape and hadn't lost a drop off his velocity. So, just like Hellen Keller actually being blind, I am actually going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the few times he used steroids were actually to recover faster from injury, and actually wasn't much of a factor of his entire career's statistics. I mean his head never grew to the size of Placido Polanco's like Barry Bonds and I can't recall him ever having sex with a 14 year old country singer.
With that said, he is though coming off his highest ERA since 1999, right?
Well, yes, but he also had arguably the best season of his career in 2000, the year after his highest ERA total of his career. He also won nineteen games that year.
Regardless of age, the man still plays for the unlikeable and old, yet forceful Yankees. As much as I hate the roster from top to bottom, they still can put runs on the board with best of them. Also, maybe it was because of steroids, but he has served as a trusty horse over the majority of his career, taking the mound at least 30 times per season. He has thrown at least 190 innings 11 of the last 13 years and over 200 innings 10 of the last 13. Hell, he is only four years removed from a fucking 2.37 ERA to go along with 17 wins. And yes, he is older, but the tank is far from empty and think about all of the great years Mussina, Randy Johnson, Glavine, and Smoltz managed to put together far after their prime. Pettitte currently ranks 10 among active pitchers in Win/Loss percentage, 8th in wins, and an astonishing 10th in strikeouts. He even has a career WHIP of just over 1.30.
The proof is in the poop, folks.
And by the way, here is how he has fared through his first two starts.
2 starts: 14.1 innings, 9 hits, 10 strikeouts, 4 earned runs, 2 walks. WHIP of 0.77.
Yes, you read that correctly. He's had more strikeouts than hits.
It will definitely feel like sucking Tom Selleck's balls after he runs a marathon to root for the Yankees once every five games, but this is fantasy baseball and I'll be hammered by the 3rd inning.
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