A.J. Griffin, one of Oakland's young starting pitchers, went out and pitched a complete game shutout against the Cincinnati Reds last night. He held them to just 2 hits and struck out Jay Bruce 4 times. Thousands of fantasy baseball managers watching the highlights on Sportscenter last night all said, "A.J. Who?" Griffin is still available in more than half of the fantasy leagues out there, including Yahoo! and ESPN, but that's about to change.
I'll admit, when the A's called Griffin up halfway through the season last year I didn't pay much attention. After all, he wasn't as highly touted as Oakland's own Jarrod Parker who had pitched most of that first half in the majors and hadn't exactly taken the league by storm. And every time Griffin went out and had a solid outing I kept thinking to myself it wouldn't last. I figured major league hitters would adjust to the kid and it would probably happen the second I picked him up in one of my leagues. Well, it seems Griffin is the one doing the adjusting.
After an impressive showing last year, when Griffin managed 7 wins with a 3.06 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in 15 starts, he has come back just as good in 2013. After his masterful showing against the Reds last night, he now has 6 wins to go along with a 3.56 ERA and 1.09 WHIP. He's even managed 81 strikeouts over 103 innings, so he won't hurt you in that category. The win total is a bit low due to low run support, but he's otherwise been one of the better fantasy pitchers in the league, and certainly worthy of a spot on your roster.
One thing you should know about Griffin, however, is his tendency to give up the long ball. He's given up 25 home runs so far in 186 major league innings, due in large part to the enormous amount of fly balls he yields every start. He's only producing .48 ground balls per fly ball compared with the .61 rate he had last year. Fortunately for Griffin, his home park is enormous, so his extreme fly ball tendencies don't hurt him as much there. On the road is a different story.
Griffin's ERA is a full run higher on the road (3.97 compared to 3.06 at home) where he's given up twice as many home runs in a comparable amount of innings. So, owning Griffin does seem to come with one caveat. You may want to sit him on the road against teams that can hit the longball, especially in smaller, homer-friendly stadiums.
We may have been ignoring A.J. Griffin up to this point (or maybe just I was), but we can't afford to ignore him any longer. If you are in one of the many leagues that haven't caught on yet, you need to jump on this bandwagon fast. You can't strike out Jay Bruce 4 times on Sportscenter and continue to fly under the radar. Things may get bumpy on the road here and there, but he'll be solid at home and will give your pitching staff a boost for the second half.
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