Cliff Lee is Early Season Fantasy Baseball Stud

The Indians’ Cliff Lee is looking like an early season version of Sandy Koufax. 

Through five starts, Lee is 5-0 with a 0.96 ERA.  Lee had his worst outing of the year on Friday against the Mariners, when he got touched for eight hits in six innings and gave up 3 earned runs, yet came away with the win.  On the year, the lefty has twirled 37 2/3 innings, yielded 19 hits, walked 2, and fanned 32.  After the 3 run outing against the Mariners, his ERA has “ballooned” from 0.28 in his first four starts where he gave up just one run in 31 2/3 to 0.96 for the season.

Not bad for a guy who went 5-8, with a 6.29 ERA last year.

But, Lee is no fluke.  While you can’t expect him to keep up this pace, he had strong seasons in both ’05 and ’06.  In ’05, Lee went 18-5 with a 3.79 ERA and 143 strikeouts.

While Lee’s numbers are impressive against any competition, he has not faced the leaugue’s best yet.  His five starts have come against the Twins, Royals, and Mariners plus two with the A’s.

Lee appears to be headed for an outstanding season, but there’s always that guy in the league who likes to pick up the hot player.  If you can sell him high now, it might be a good time.

Cliff Lee’s stock has never been any higher.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am and is filed under Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitchers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.