Double Dipping Two-Start Pitchers, Week 1: Roy Halladay, Dan Haren

As the season begins, don’t be caught jumping on the Tuffy Rhodes bandwagon. In 1994, Rhodes hit three homers on Opening Day and fantasy owners were running to the waiver wire to claim the next great power hitter. Rhodes hit only 10 more in his Major League career and never panned out to be mentioned in the same sentence as Babe Ruth.

Like Rhodes, other players will have a hot Week 1 and their statistics will seem overblown. After the first five games of 2009, Emilio Bonifacio was 14 for 24 with five RBI, nine runs, and four stolen bases. If you extrapolate that over a 162 game season, that’s a .583 average with 162 RBI, 292 R, and 130 SB.

You can’t expect anyone to continue that kind of production, especially a guy who never hit that well in the minors. These guys make great early pickups to ride for a few games of production, but be ready to sell quickly if you want any return on your investment because, like a bottle rocket, they usually fizzle out just as quickly as they lit up the night sky.

Now, here are the projected two-start pitchers for this week. For those of you in leagues who require you to set your lineup at the beginning of the week, these are guys you should strongly consider. With the start of the season on Sunday night, this week’s double dippers cover Sunday through Sunday.

American League BAL Kevin Millwood BOS Josh Beckett CWS Mark Buehrle CLE Jake Westbrook DET Justin Verlander KC Zack Greinke LAA Jered Weaver , Joe Saunders MIN Scott Baker , Nick Blackburn NYY C.C. Sabathia , A.J. Burnett OAK Ben Sheets , Dallas Braden SEA Felix Hernandez , Ian Snell TB James Shields TEX Rich Harden TOR Shaun Marcum

National League ARI Dan Haren , Edwin Jackson ATL Derek Lowe CHC Carlos Zambrano CIN Aaron Harang COL Ubaldo Jimenez FLA Josh Johnson HOU Roy Oswalt LAD Vicente Padilla MIL Yovani Gallardo , Randy Wolf NYM Johan Santana PHI Roy Halladay PIT Zach Duke SD Jon Garland SF Tim Lincecum STL Chris Carpenter WAS John Lannan

Rick’s Picks
Five best bets for double-start pitchers this week

1. Roy Halladay, PHI—What better way can he start his journey through the National League than with games against the Nationals and Astros?

2. Dan Haren, ARI—Two home starts against the Padres and Pirates look like two easy wins.

3. Justin Verlander, DET—At KC and home vs. CLE look like a bunch of Ks and a couple of Ws.

4. Johan Santana, NYM—To start his rebound season, he gets the Marlins and Nats at home. The Ks won’t be as numerous as in the past, but the Ws will be.

5. Derek Lowe, ATL—Another bounce-back guy will get two mediocre opponents in the Cubs and Giants.

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Rick Milleman is the head fantasy baseball contributor at DraftBuddy.com . Check his annual player projections included in the Cheatsheet Compiler & Draft Buddy to help draft your championship team.