Liriano-worth the $?

[thuggis]

Any thoughts as to whether Liriano is worth the $$? I was thinking that he'd be a devastating combo in the pen with some good RH starters, but he goes for quite a premium.

[Stoney18]

Definitely not worth it in the bullpen. As a starter? Yes.

[thuggis]

I was thinking he'd be worth more as a reliever, because HAL could pitch him 300+ innings.

[pkwmati]

Here is a No DH league that just finished where I used him as my #3 starter behind Halladay and Webb. I used him exclusively as a starter and led the league in ERA by nearly half a run.

Probably not the most efficient use of funds, but I had a lot of $$ left for waviers and hadn't used Liriano yet and wanted to give him a try. At the top of a 5-man rotation I think he'd be great.

I won my division and started him in game #2 and he had probably his worst start of the season:

Zips IP H R ER BB SO HRPC ERA
F.Liriano LOSS(0-1) 3 3 5 5 4 7 2 63 15.00

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=15058[/url]

[theClaw]

Well worth the dollars in my opinion. An absolute stud. For what it is worth got to see him pitch a few times in the minors in Rochester. He was devastating...hope he can heal from Tommy John surgery.

[dennisfs561]

I have never drafted him because I think he is over priced. Then again, I used to think that about Beltran.......

[coyote303]

I won't respond directly to your poll because he is worth it--as a starter.

When someone grabbed him ahead of me in my current league only to use him as a reliever, I wanted to cry! There are better relievers for the price, but there aren't better starters.

Billy K.

[FoggyOne]

PHENOM as starter only. Love him.

[JdEarly]

PM770 showed us a link to a team where Liriano posted incredible numbers in Toronto! That's amazing. I've used him a few times in AT&T, and he's well worth the money. My only issue with him is that he can't be part of a four man rotation... but I have to wonder how much the card would cost if that were the case! As part of a five man rotation, I would anchor any staff with Liriano. If you want to try a solid pitching staff, give this a shot:

1. Liriano
2. Chris Young (7L)
3. Scott Kazmir
4. Cole Hamels
5. Felix Hernadez (6R, benefits from being in the same rotation as Young, in my experience)

That rotation has been succesful for me a couple of times in AT&T. Liriano has always been well worth the money for me.

[J-Pav]

This was my fourth 2007 team, so it goes a ways back:

http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/baseball/stratomatic/2007/team/team_other.html?user_id=2146

First of all, Liriano's card is the best pitcher's card in the set. So the question becomes, how do you best utilize it?

There's an argument to be made that in order to maximize his innings pitched, you should utilize him as a starter; however, as you can see from my team above, as stictly a relief pitcher, he had as many innings pitched as my * SPs (more or less).

Now, there's also an argument to be made that having the best card in the set pitching innings six thru eight is also a good thing. Having a starter replaced with a (usually much) better card should keep you competitive late in the game; however, now notice on my team that he was a hard luck loser (10-13 record despite a 3.07 ERA and 1.18 WHIP).

Still, with a Cell team I ended up 3rd in Runs Allowed, which is a very good thing. If I would have had any offense at all (I finished 6th here), I might have won 95+ games.

I did win 100+ games with Villanueva as my first RP on another team, and I have seen other managers also use him successfully in this role. So the concept is workable.

To answer your question...it depends. How does having Liriano affect your overall salary structure? Can you move down the salary food chain and replace him with League? Zumaya? Heilman? Helling? You could. On a pitchers card, very few hits and walks separate the pitchers, so you can get away with much less salary and often get comparable stats. But no matter who you use, it still won't be (statistically speaking) as good a card as Liriano's.