Fantasy Baseball Retrospect: Looking Back At Chad Billingsley's 2010 Campaign

Every year is supposed to be the year that Chad Billingsley puts things together and emerges as a solid top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher for fantasy owners.  Unfortunately, every season, he falls a little bit flat.

The 2010 campaign was no exception when you look at his numbers:

12 Wins
191.2 Innings
3.57 ERA
1.28 WHIP
171 Strikeouts (8.0 K/9)
69 Walks (3.2 BB/9)
.313 BABIP

There’s nothing wrong with those numbers.  In fact, they are solid, making Billingsley a usable option in all formats.  However, they weren’t elite.  They didn’t make you feel like you had to play him each time he took the mound.

Surprisingly, it appears that he struggled more at home, at least on the surface:

• Home - 7 W, 4.29 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 81 K over 92.1 innings
• Road - 5 W, 2.90 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 90 K over 99.1 innings

If you were to just look at the ERA and not dig deeper, you’d be sorely mistaken.  With a WHIP that was actually better at home, it appears that he was just unluckier at home, as opposed to on the road.

In fact, the strand rate drives the message home:

• Home - 65.0%
• Road - 76.3%

That’s a huge difference and with a BABIP that was virtually equal (.311 at home vs. .314 on the road) as well as his HR/9 (0.4 both at home and on the road), the only difference in his numbers was luck.

That tells us that he had the stuff to put up the numbers we actually hoped to see from him in 2010.  That means we should finally expect the breakout in 2011, right?  Not so fast.

Where he could regress in 2011 is the home runs allowed.  This past season he posted a HR/FB of 4.5%, after being between 8.1% and 9.6% the prior three seasons.  If he were to regress a bit there, the ERA would likely rise but then again improved luck would help to offset that.

We all want to believe that he can get back to the 9.0 K/9 he posted in 2008, but after the past two seasons it appears a little bit unlikely.  The subsequent seasons he’s shown 8.2 and 8.0, so you have to expect him to be more in that range going forward.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that in the least, but it’s something we need to accept.

His control is solid, but he may regress slightly in 2011.  Just look at his numbers the past four years:

• 2007 - 3.9
• 2008 - 3.6
• 2009 - 3.9
• 2010 - 3.2

Even if he were to regress to the 3.5 range, his WHIP is going to be very usable.

The bottom line is that Billingsley is going to continue to be a usable option in all formats.  With improved luck at home, his overall numbers, especially in the ERA department, will come down.

He could see increased home runs and increased walks, however, which will help to offset that improvement.  So, the bottom line is that what Billingsley showed us in 2010 is probably where we should value him.  He could be a little bit better, he could be a little bit worse, but it’s actually a perfect gauge to use.

As we get closer to the season we’ll look at my actual projection for him.

What are your thoughts?  Do you think he could significantly outproduce his 2010 numbers?  Are you expecting a regression?

Make sure to check out our review of other players who struggled in 2010 and their prospects for a rebound:

• Beckett, Josh
• Hill, Aaron
• Lind, Adam

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