Spring Stats of the Day

LA Dodgers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Billingsley	5.0	2	1	1	3	7	0	6.85

Chad Billingsley has been one of the names talked about this spring as a breakout candidate. He is being drafted in some mixed leagues as early as round 10, but how confident should we really be in his ability to post a breakout season?

Billingsley is a young pitcher still in his growth years. This will be his age 23 season and only his 2nd full year in the majors. Last year he transitioned from the bullpen to starting rotation, starting 20 games and pitching 147 innings. He posted a 3.31 ERA and 141 strikeouts, excellent numbers for sure. However, the real concern here is his control and a jump in major league innings. His BB/9 (walks per 9 innings) was 3.9 and he went from 90 innings in 2006 to 147 in 2007, not including the minor leagues.

Billingsley tends to take a lot of pitches to get through games, often reaching the 100 pitch mark by the 6th inning. Leaving the game in the 6th inning is going to result in less wins as he leaves the 7th through 9th up to the bullpen, although with Broxton and Saito this might be less of a concern. Overall, while Billingsley has posted good ERA and strikeouts, he is still a risk to have low win totals and a high WHIP. At only 23 years old he likely needs more time to straighten out his control issues and become a more efficient pitcher to experience a true breakout.

Toronto	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	LOB	AVG
Hill, 2B	2	2	2	2	0	0	0	.432

Aaron Hill is still flying under the radar in many leagues even though he hit .291/.336/.459 with 17 HRs and 78 RBIs in 2007, great numbers for late round 2nd baseman. In his age 26 season he looks to improve on those numbers hitting behind Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, and Frank Thomas in the 6th slot.

Hill's power continues to surge in Florida this spring, where he is slugging .659. In 2008 he is capable of hitting up to 20 HR with a .300 average and even more RBIs this year. He won't be giving you the speed of more popular second basemen, but if you miss out on more hyped guys like Howie Kendrick and Rickie Weeks, look to Aaron Hill. He's likely to give you more power and RBIs than either of them at a much better price.