Five key Rockies for your fantasy team.

The Rox are one of my favorite teams and I am glad they have finally had success. Let’s hope they can follow up last year’s success, I see no reason why they cannot repeat and make the World Series again. They have a lot of underrated players and overlooked players that are just as good as more well-known players, Jeff Francis for example. They also have a few guys that flopped last year that I think will rebound this year, and they have some exciting young pitchers. Let’s start with:

Chris Iannetta Last year was an unmitigated disaster, however he has a strong base of minor league success. Not that he was great but he improved significantly in the second half. He upped his contact rate to 80% in the second half and maintained his 12% BB rate, which both bode well for a BA resurgence. I hope he does rebound since I auctioned him in my high stakes auction this weekend.

Jeff Francis Another pitcher who, like Aaron Harang, is virtually unknown on the big stage, he is one of the top fantasy pitchers for 2008. He has improved his control three years running, had a solid xERA of 4.13 last year and gets over 40% ground balls. I think an ERA under 4.00 is a good bet and maybe he can do a lot better. He had a 32% hit rate last year and if he gets that under 30% he could easily have a mid-threes ERA.

Franklin Morales To me Morales looks like a potential ace in the making. Though he has had some control problems, he has an above average fastball of 94-95 mph, and he was rushed last year but still was not overwhelmed in the bigs. I would like to see him get a full year of AAA to improve his command, but he could be a dominant pitcher. He gets a lot of groundballs, with over 50% rates in his career and being left handed he has additional value. Short term he may be shaky but if you are in a deep league with reserves I would go get him.

Manny Corpas Corpas is a good example of why there is so much closer turnover among second and third tier closers. Corpas took advantage of an injury by posting luck-aided 26% hit rate and 84% strand rate, both of which will not be repeated. He is a skilled pitcher though who should hold his job, though it is no guarantee. Any big correction in his luck aided stats last year in high leverage innings could result in him losing the job. Are you getting tired of hearing this yet? This is why lots of pitchers especially relievers cannot repeat their success. His K rate is not what one expects from closers and decreased from 2006 to a marginal 6.7/9 IP.

Willy Tavares Another player who tends to be underrated in fantasy circles, Taveras makes very good contact with an 85% contact rate, but doesn’t walk a lot. His ability to hit groundballs (53% last year) accentuates his speed and his hit totals, and he is one of those players who can maintain a greater than 30% hit rate as his speed allows him to beat out infield hits.

That said, he may be in for a tough correction in batting average. Last year he hit .311 in the first half and .339 in the second half, but only posted xBAs of .228 and .251. That correction could be hard and fast, so be wary.