Carlos Zambrano and 10 Hot Starts About to Come Crashing Down

Carlos Zambrano has been a lot better than the Miami Marlins probably dared to hope when they acquired him from the Chicago Cubs for a bucket of baseballs and Chris Volstad.

Better yet, the Marlins can lean back and smile knowing that the Cubs are paying a huge chunk of Zambrano's salary.

I hate to be the one to rain on Miami's parade, but there's simply no way Zambrano is going to be able to maintain his hot start all season long. He's going to come back down to earth eventually.

While we're on the topic, Zambrano isn't the only hot starter who is going to come careening back down to the surface of the planet in the weeks to come. In all, here are 10 hot starts that I'm not buying.

Bronson Arroyo, SP, Cincinnati Reds

Bronson Arroyo was historically bad last season. He finished the year with a 5.07 ERA compiled over 32 starts, in which he gave up a staggering 46 home runs.

This year, Arroyo looks completely refreshed, and he's been mowing hitters down on a regular basis.

A little too regular, I think.

After his win on Monday against the Brewers, Arroyo has his ERA down to 2.75 and his WHIP down to 1.17. He's helped himself by upping his strikeout rate this season, and decreasing his BB/9 to a razor-thin 0.92.

Arroyo, however, remains hittable. Opponents are hitting him at a .275 clip this season, which isn't far off from the .286 clip they hit him at last season, and it's actually par for the course for hitters against Arroyo ever since the beginning of the 2007 season.

This suggests his early-season success is not sustainable. So does his 3.73 xFIP, which will likely climb into the 4.00s before long (also par for the course for Arroyo). He may not be historically bad again, but he's not this good.

Wei-Yin Chen, SP, Baltimore Orioles

The quality of Baltimore's starting pitching has been a huge surprise all season, and Wei-Yin Chen has had a lot to do with it. He boasts a 2-0 record in five starts, with a 2.76 ERA.

Chen hasn't made it easy on himself, though. His BB/9 of 3.38 is a little on the high side, and batters are hitting him at a .250 clip. This explains his below-average 1.36 WHIP.

Chen's hot start has an awfully fluky feel to it, and the numbers suggest that it is awfully fluky.

His ERA may be 2.76, but his xFIP is 4.57, one of the highest marks in the league among qualified pitchers. That's a huge gap, and it's hard to imagine Chen maintaining it as long as he maintains a ground-ball percentage of 35.2. More and more hits are going to start coming.

There are a couple of things that have helped Chen get out to a hot start. He has unfamiliarity working for him, and his two best starts came against two weak-hitting clubs in the Los Angeles Angels and Oakland Athletics.

Expect Chen's numbers to level out as the season moves along and hitters get a grasp on his stuff. 

Edwin Encarnacion, DH, Toronto Blue Jays

Edwin Encarnacion has been on fire this season, as he finds himself sitting on nine home runs and a .931 OPS, after hitting a total of 17 home runs with a .787 OPS last year.

Encarnacion went through a tremendously hot stretch in April. By the end of the month, he was batting .322/.376/.678, and that was thanks in large part to the fact he went 7-for-12 with four home runs to finish the month.

Not surprisingly, Encarnacion has cooled off in May. He has two hits so far this month, and has gone hitless in each of Toronto's last four games.

This is just the beginning of Encarnacion's cool-down. The fact of the matter is that he was putting up numbers that weren't sustainable, and they still look that way.

For example, a hitter with a career .453 slugging percentage entering this season is not going to sustain a .595 slugging percentage, and his ISO of .315 is going to come way down. An ISO that high is something we're used to seeing from players like Albert Pujols, not Edwin Encarnacion.

Bryan LaHair, 1B, Chicago Cubs

Bryan LaHair enters Tuesday with video game numbers. His batting line stands at .388/.479/.800, and he's among the league leaders in a lot of offensive categories.

LaHair leads the league in one category by quite a wide margin. His BABIP is .535. The next-closest guy on the list is at .457.

This is a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because it means that LaHair is hitting 'em where they ain't, but it's also a sign that he's doing that a little too regularly.

Nobody can maintain a BABIP over .500. It simply cannot be done. Over a long enough timeline, the hits stop falling, and decreasing BABIPs lead to decreasing batting averages.

This is what's going to happen to LaHair. I can see him having a good season, but he's way too hot right now. His luck will run out, and pitchers will also figure out how to exploit his weaknesses.

It's certainly worth noting that LaHair hasn't been in the big leagues all that long, so a lot of pitchers don't really know how to pitch him yet. That will change.

Ted Lilly, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers

It's somewhat under the radar, but Ted Lilly is having an outstanding season for the Dodgers. Following his win against the San Francisco Giants on Monday, he has a 4-0 record with a 1.41 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP.

Those last two numbers are going to come way up very soon.

The thing about Lilly is that he's enjoying a lot of success despite the fact he has a 5.91 K/9 and a 3.09 BB/9. He typically does a lot better than this throughout the course of a full season. In fact, these numbers qualify as being a little concerning.

You could argue that Lilly has been pitching to contact more, and you wouldn't be wrong. He's benefiting from a 43.2 ground-ball rate. He's also benefiting from a .182 BABIP, which is too low to be maintained.

Lilly's xFIP of 4.40 is just about three full runs higher than his ERA. Expect him to level out in a big way going forward.

Kyle Lohse, SP, St. Louis Cardinals

It looked like a bad thing when the Cardinals were forced to use Kyle Lohse as their Opening Day starter, but he's been much, much better than advertised so far this season.

Lohse finally lost a game on Friday against the Houston Astros, but his record stands strong at 4-1, and he has a 2.11 ERA and a 0.94 WHIP.

We shouldn't be too surprised that Lohse has been as good as he has. After all, he had a solid season last year, winning 14 games with a 3.39 ERA.

Lohse really hasn't done anything differently from last year to this year, and that's a reality you can see in his other stats. Last year, his K/9 was 5.30. This year, it's 5.63. Last year, his xFIP was 4.04. This year, it's 4.05.

He's doing as well as he is mainly because he's faced some pretty weak lineups. He opened the season against an out-of-whack Miami Marlins team, logged consecutive starts against an out-of-whack Cincinnati Reds team, and then he faced the weak-hitting lineups of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers.

It's true that explosive lineups are hard to come by in the NL this season, but Lohse is not going to be lucky enough to face duds every time out. His numbers will level out, probably to right about where they were last year.

Ryan Sweeney, OF, Boston Red Sox

Ryan Sweeney was viewed as a throw-in when the Boston Red Sox acquired Andrew Bailey from the Oakland Athletics. But entering play on Tuesday, Sweeney ranks fourth in the American League with a .368 batting average.

Sweeney has been hitting ropes all over the field this season. In fact, he has a line-drive rate of 31.4 percent, which is well above his career average and an absurdly high number in and of itself.

Naturally, all these line drives have led to a a .457 BABIP, a figure that ranks second in the majors behind Bryan LaHair among qualified hitters.

Sweeney has shown in the past that he can maintain a BABIP in the mid-.300s, but maintaining a BABIP near or over .400 is something that's extremely difficult to do.

Plus, you have to keep in mind that Boston's outfield is going to get crowded eventually, and that playing time will be hard to come by. Once Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford are back, Sweeney will be a platoon player. It will be hard for him to maintain a rhythm. 

Josh Willingham, LF, Minnesota Twins

I'm admittedly cheating a little bit with this one, as Josh Willingham is already slumping.

Back on April 17th, Willingham was hitting .375/.457/.800 with five home runs, three of which had come in consecutive games at Target Field.

Nowadays, Willingham is hitting .291/.402/.570, and he's still stuck on five home runs. He hasn't homered since April 17th, and he has yet to record a hit in the month of May in 14 at-bats.

Slowly but surely, Willingham is reverting back to being himself, which was bound to happen. He will right his ship eventually, but I'll stop short of predicting that he's going to start blasting home runs on a regular basis again.

Willingham does have good power, but those three home runs he hit at Target Field on consecutive days were a fluke. That's one of the toughest parks in the majors for hitters, and it will keep a lid on Willingham's power numbers all season long.

Here's hoping you traded him off your fantasy team when you had the chance.

Carlos Zambrano, SP, Miami Marlins

Carlos Zambrano absolutely needed to get out of Chicago, and so far he's proving that a change of scenery can indeed make a huge difference.

Zambrano still looks fiery on the mound, but he's been a completely different pitcher this year. He's done a tremendous job of mixing up his different pitches, and he's gotten a ton of swings and misses. 

Then again, this is what happens when you face soft lineups consistently. Zambrano has logged starts against the Washington Nationals and San Francisco Giants, and the youngsters in Houston's lineup just haven't really known what to do against Zambrano in the two games they've had to face him.

Zambrano's numbers are going to climb over the long run. His FIP and xFIP suggest Zambrano's ERA belongs somewhere in the 3.00s, and it's going to get there. He's also not going to be able to maintain a BAA in the low-.200s.

The key danger is what will happen once Zambrano gets frustrated, which is another thing that's bound to happen. He's in a better place mentally this season, but he has a history of losing his temper at a moment's notice.

Barry Zito, SP, San Francisco Giants

You can't help but root for Barry Zito, as it's just no fun to watch him struggle knowing how much pressure there is on him to live up to his contract.

Zito hasn't struggled this year. On the contrary, he's been very good. Even after losing in Los Angeles on Monday night, he has a 2.21 ERA and a somewhat respectable 1.25 WHIP.

This is not going to last. Zito is getting by with a 4.42 K/9 and a 4.17 BB/9, and there's simply no way he's going to maintain a .209 BAA with his stuff. Hitters are going to start teeing off on him eventually.

Besides, we've seen Zito pull this trick before. In 2010, he was 6-2 with a 2.78 ERA on June 1st. He ended that season with a 9-14 record and a 4.15 ERA. It was an adventure every time he took the mound, and the Giants ultimately decided they were better off tackling the postseason without him on their roster.

Zito is the same pitcher now as he was back then, maybe even a little worse. It's just a matter of time before his numbers reflect that reality.

If you hit me up on Twitter, I'll tell you all about how I think Justin Bieber is overachieving too.