Draft Debates – Zack Greinke vs Roy Halladay

02/23/2010 4:35 AM -  Eric Homola

It’s the classic battle between the young upstart pitcher against the crafty veteran. Which pitcher is best for your fantasy team? Let’s crunch some numbers.

Wins – Last year Zack Greinke won the Cy Young with a 16-8 record. While Roy Halladay went 17-10 last year. If you look at their careers, Halladay easily shows a great career at 148-78, while Grienke is at 50-53.   Halladay will also benefit from playing for the talent-rich Phillies while Greinke’s win total could be dragged down by the Royals. Advantage Halladay.

Strikeouts – While Halladay had a career best 208 K’s last year and has over 1,500 in his career, Greinke vaulted towards the top of the league with 249 K’s last year (3rd only to Tim Lincecum and Justin Verlander).  There is no reason that the young pitcher can’t maintain a similar strikeout rate in 2010. Advantage Greinke.

ERA – This is one of the metrics that helped Greinke to win a Cy Young with only 16 wins (tied with Brandon Webb 2006 with the lowest number of wins of a Cy Young winner), his ERA was a miniscule 2.16. A low HR/F% helped Greinke to keep his ERA low.  While his home park will help him to not allow too many home runs, he will probably allow a few more than last year.  While Halladay was no slouch, his era was 2.79. But Halladay pitched against better teams in the AL East. Pitching 5 times to the Yankees and 4 times to the Red Sox. Halladay even had 3 complete games last year against the Yankees and 2 CG against the Red Sox. Many people are automatically assuming that moving out of the AL East will lower Halladay’s ERA but it is interesting to note that in games against the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays in 2009 his ERA was only slightly higher than in other games.  The NL could help his ERA but we won’t know for sure for another year. Slight Advantage Greinke

WHIP – Greinke’s 2009 1.07 WHIP slightly led Halladay’s 1.13. Both were top 10 in the league. Greinke did benefit by giving up a how H% last year so his WHIP could rise a bit as his luck goes back to normal but in the end their WHIP’s should be very similar. Slight Advantage Greinke

X-Factors – Last year Halladay was voted as #7 of the Top 50 players in the game today by the Sporting News. Halladay has had only 1 year where he had injury trouble, and that was in 2006 when he had 2 DL stints for a sore right shoulder and later admitted that he pitched through a “tired arm.” Halladay is moving to the NL this year which usually helps pitchers, but he will be playing in a hitters stadium. While Greinke has been relatively injury free, he does suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder and Depression which sidelined him on the 60 day DL back in 2006. So far, I have not heard that this has affected his pitching as of late. Advantage Halladay

Final Decision – Both of these pitchers would be a great addition to any fantasy team. Both pitchers put up amazing numbers last year. Grienke had 6 complete games with 3 being shutouts, but Halladay had 9 complete games with 4 shutouts. Grienke gave up only 11 home runs, while Halladay walked only 35 batters last year. In the real world, I would give the ball to Halladay. But this my friends is fantasy baseball and I would draft Zack Grienke ahead of Halladay due to sexy numbers of strikeouts, the possibility of a better era, and youth on his side.