Josh Collmenter gets out. He doesn't impress scouts, fans, the radar gun or the competition. But at the end of the day, more times than not, he's given his team a chance to win. Is that enough to consider rostering him in mixed leagues? Ray Flowers explores that question.

THE MINORS

2007: Drafted in the 15th round by the Diamondbacks after spending time at Central Michigan University. Pitched 14 games at Low-A ball going 6-3 with a 2.71 ERA, 1.22 WHIP and 7.7 K/9 mark over 66.1 innings.

2008: Pitched at Single-A ball winning 12 against eight loses. He posted a 3.41 ERA with a 1.19 WHIP and 7.6 K/9 mark over 145.1 innings. 

2009: Made 27 starts at High-A going 8-10 with a 4.15 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. Also struck out 152 batters in 145.2 innings. 

2010: Had his breakout season going 18-6 with a 3.32 ERA and 1.23 WHIP over 178.2 innings (High-A, Double-A, Triple-A and The Arizona Fall League). Struck out 8.2 batters while posting a 2.81 K/BB ratio.

2011: Made one start at Triple-A. 

2012: Made three starts at Rookie Ball.

TOTALS: 45-27, 3.42 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 8.4 K/9, 3.0 BB/9 over 549.2 innings. 

THE MAJORS

2011: Made 24 starts and 31 appearances. Went 10-10 with a 3.38 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 3.57 K/BB ratio over 154.1 innings. Finished fifth in the NL ROY vote. 

2012: Made 11 starts and had 17 relief appearances. Went 5-3 with a 3.69 ERA, 1.26 WHIP an a 7.97 K/9 over 90.1 innings. 

2013: Made 49 relief appearances without making a single start. He won five games over his 92 innings as he posted a career best 3.13 ERA and 8.32 K/9 while his 1.22 WHIP was solid.

2014: Returned to the rotation making 28 starts out of 33 appearances. He won a career best 11 games, posted a 3.46 ERA and 1.13 WHIP. Saw his K/9 dip to 5.77 per nine.

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THE SKILLS

Josh Collmenter is 6'4" and weighs in at 235 lbs. The 29 year old righty has a bead on a starting job for the D'backs in 2015, and that's in no small part due to his funky motion which has always given batters fits (here's a video of Josh's straight over the top throwing motion). And believe me it's a good thing that he throws something different up there against batters. In fact, his motion is one of the main reasons he's been able to have success in the big leagues. It's also why he wasn't drafted highly or thought of with  great admiration despite his minor league success. 

Collmenter throws his fastball 87 mph for his career, and the mark was 86.0 last season. The only pitchers in baseball who pitched at least 162 innings last season and threw their fastball slower were R.A. Dickey (Mr. Knuckleball), Mark Buehrle (83.9 mph) and Chris Young (85.3 mph). Even more startling is the fact that Collmenter throws his fastball 70 percent of the time, a huge number (Young is a similar soft tosser who throws straight over the top as well. He threw his fastball 66 percent of the time last season). He must be a master at slight of hand as batters have hit .260 off his straight fastball over the course of his career. When he's thrown his cutter, just a different version of the fastball, batters are hitting just .231. By the by, about 2/3 of all of his fastballs have been cutters for the course of his career. 

I would recommend by the way that Josh abandons the curveball. Over his career batters have hit .310 off the pitch. He's only thrown the pitch about five percent of the time, he just teases guys with it so they know he still has the pitch, but it's just not an effective offering. He's pretty much a two pitch pitcher though. That fastball we've discussed and a changeup that he throws 25 percent of the time make up more than 90 percent of his offerings. His change has been an effective pitch as batters have posted a .656 OPS over his career against it.

You cannot look at the radar gun with Collmenter. If you do you will reserve him to minor league status. Yet there it is... four seasons of success at the big league level. The guy owns a 3.42 ERA and 1.15 WHIP over the course of 516 innings. Compare that effort to the 2014 efforts of guys like Phil Hughes (3.52 and 1.13), Chris Tillman (3.34 and 1.23), Kyle Lohse (3.54 and 1.15) and James Shields (3.21 and 1.18). That's a pretty good list of arms to be compared to.

As for the batted ball info... danger zone. For his career Collmenter is saddled with a severely sub par 0.82 GB/FB ratio. His ground ball ratio of 36 percent is about eight percentage points below than the average while his 44 percent fly ball rate is is clear the big league average by about nine points. Facts are facts, and the fact is that he's a fly ball hurler. Not an extreme fly ball arm, but still, a mark of 44 percent in the fly ball category is a lot higher than ideal. What is odd follows.

Collementer allows a lot of fly balls. He throw 86-87 mph. He somehow only has a 0.98 homer per nine inning mark, a league average total. His 8.4 percent HR/F ratio is a bit low when compared to the leauge average. One would think with all the fly balls, a home ballpark that certainly isn't homer shy, and a fastball that shouldn't get in on anybody that the number would be higher. However, only once in four season has he allowed a homer per nine. 

Strikeouts are an issue with Collmenter, just cannot get around that fact. Last season he struck out 5.77 batters per nine. In his rookie season that mark was just 5.83. That means in the two seasons in which he's  made at least 20 starts he's failed to strike out six batters per nine innings. That's just awful and totally deficient. Period. He's not going to help you in the strikeout column. In fact, he's going to hurt you, and that causes his mixed league value to tumble significantly.

Collmenter does a good job limiting the walk though at 2.13 per nine for his career. That's allowed Collmenter to post a solid 3.11 BB/9. That helps him to be a successful big league pitcher, but it doesn't do a hell of a lot for his fantasy outlook. 

PLAYING TIME CONSIDERATIONS

Wade Miley is in Boston. Brandon McCarthy is in Los Angeles with the Dodgers. Bronson Arroyo is coming back from Tommy John surgery. That's 65 starts that the D'backs need to replace in their rotation. That gives Collmenter an excellent shot to not only start, but to pitch in the top half of the rotation. Here is the likely top-5 (in my opinion): Jeremy Hellickson, Collmenter, Allen Webster, Vidal Nuno and Chase Anderson. That's not it though as Trevor Cahill and Rubby De La Rosa, not to mention Randall Delgado, will be vying for a spot in camp. Again, I would assume that Collmenter locks down a spot, but the D'backs to have plenty of options to turn to in order to fill out their five rotation spots.

CONCLUSION

Collmenter doesn't wow you, but he knows how to pitch. You go to a game and go home with the D'backs winning 4-3. You can't remember anything that happened in the game, you don't even remember a single pitch that Collmenter threw, but in the end the box score says he allowed two runs with four strikeouts,  seven hits and one walk allowed over six innings. The ratios with Collmenter are solid making him a decent streaming option in the right matchup, but the lack of stuff and anything resembling a strikeout pitch makes him nothing other than a bench option at absolute best in mixed leagues.

10 team lg: Simply no reason to draft him. Only a spot starter. Period. 

12 team lg: As the last guy on your staff, maybe, but again, with nothing remotely resembling upside there's no reason to get excited about him with the lack of whiffs.

15 team lg: In a league of this size we start worrying more about ratios, and perhaps Collmenter can be of service there. Still, there's just no way I'm drafting a guy who can't strike six batters out per nine innings while throwing 86 mph. Spot start sure, but I'm not rostering him to start at the draft.

NL-only: Finally a spot where you can roster Collmenter at the draft and feel good about it. He's still more of a depth play than anything, but with solid career ratios that match plenty of other hurlers with bigger names there's value to be mined here with Josh.