Fantasy Baseball: What to Do with Oakland Athletics' LHP Tommy Milone

Tommy Milone. You’ve heard of him, right? That unassuming 25-year-old lefty on the Oakland Athletics. The dude with the 3-1 record and 2.00 ERA in four starts this season.

Yes. That’s the guy I’m talking about.

It’s been a very, very impressive month of April for Milone, who has helped the A’s reach a 3.11 team ERA, good for third in the American League. That certainly was not projected heading into spring training. Not after Oakland traded away four starters from last season’s rotation—Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, Josh Outman and Guillermo Moscoso.

Milone was one of the players received in the deal that sent Gonzalez to the Washington Nationals. But it’s safe to assume that there were low expectations for the rookie who started only five games in 2011, finishing with an innocuous 1-0 record with a 3.81 ERA.

And all of a sudden, he’s become one of the surprising bright spots in the A’s rotation, putting up superlative numbers. He isn’t particularly dominating—striking out only 13 batters in 27 innings pitched so far. But he has exhibited tremendous control, evidenced by his 0.85 WHIP and .185 opponents’ batting average allowed. Moreover, left-handed batters are hitless in 12 at-bats this season against Milone.

His success so far has been quite remarkable, especially given the fact that he’s not overpowering, and that hitters are indeed putting the ball in play. The law of averages would indicate that Milone has been quite fortunate to escape without more damage, given that batters make contact at a decent rate (84 percent contact rate; 6.9 percent swinging strike rate).

So you’d have to believe that sooner or later, these balls that are hit in play will eventually find their way through holes in the infield (due to a very porous Oakland defense) or drop in as bloop base-hits. Especially in games outside the cozy confines of the Oakland Coliseum.

Milone has tossed a pair of brilliant games at home, two eight-inning masterpieces, allowing no runs on six total hits while allowing a .122 batting average. Simply awesome.

However, on the road, Milone has shown more vulnerability, sporting a 4.91 ERA in 11 innings. This is not good news as he enters Monday’s affair against the Red Sox at Fenway Park—a notorious hitters’ ballpark that has helped Boston rank first in the AL in extra-base hits (82), second in team batting average (.280) and runs scored per game (5.52) and third in OPS (.797).

This is not good for Milone and the Athletics.

Fantasy owners should take note and sit Milone this week if you can. The perfect storm of a grotesquely powerful Red Sox lineup combined with Milone’s woes on the road, as well as Oakland’s terrible offensive production, will undoubtedly signal a loss for the A’s. Worse—if possible—is the fact that the Athletics’ next opponent after Boston is the AL East-leading Tampa Bay Rays, who are 8-1 at home so far this year.

To say that it would be a tall task for Milone to bring down both the Red Sox and Rays in consecutive starts on the road would be an understatement. If you are desperate for production out of your fifth-spot starter, then do what you will with what you have. Milone is not a bad player to keep on your roster for the long term.

It’s just wiser that you sit him this week, because it could get really ugly.

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