2012 Fantasy Baseball: The San Diego Padres Starting Rotation Preview

Corey Luebke (credits below) Petco Park is a magical place for pitchers. In maybe its greatest illusion it made a 39 year old Woody Williams look like a competent pitcher in 2006. Williams’ career xFIP was 4.64 and he hadn’t posted an xFIP under 4.00 since 2002. And despite his 5.09 xFIP and 4.46 K/9, Petco helped make Williams a 3.65 ERA pitcher in 2006. The worst part about it for me is that my favorite team (Astros) was fooled by this illusion. They signed Williams for the following season where he had a 5.27 ERA over an inexplicable 188 innings. More recently Petco threw Aaron Harang in a time machine back to a period of his career where he didn’t suck. 2007 was the best year of his career as he had 16 wins, a 3.73 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and 8.47 K/9. But from 2008-2010 he never had a WHIP below 1.38, and his ERA was an ugly 4.72. Some of his poor performance during that span was a result of bad luck, but Petco cured those ills. His 3.64 ERA with the Padre...