Throwing a fastball with more velocity than about 85 percent of pitchers is a clear sign of elite ability. With more than half a season of data at our backs now, let's re-examine the top guns on the major league map and see how their results track the radar gun by looking at fastball value per 100 fastballs.

Here are the 2011 speed demons (stats through the All-Star break):

When a pitcher allows the leadoff man to get on base, you can safely wager that the scoreboard is going to change. But when he sends him back dejected into the dugout, odds are good that a zero will be posted for that frame. So this week, we'll note leaders and trailers in on-base percentage allowed to the first batter faced in every inning.

But first, I must note the overwhelming response to last week's column on run support where I opined that quality starts – though admittedly flawed – is a better category for our game than wins. In following the many comments, the strong consensus seemed to be agreement. But a fair number said that the best solution is to devalue wins some by keeping it as a category while also adding Quality Starts. But then we need another hitting category. (My suggestion – on-base percentage.)

Now on to this week. With help from our friends at Baseball Prospectus, I note that if you retire the first batter this year, the expectation is 0.251 enemy runs (ERA of

Just because a dozen guys sat in a bar 30 years ago and came up with a game doesn't mean we should be stuck with their rules forever. The No. 1 fantasy baseball category that has to go is pitching wins.

Consider this tale of two Indians pitchers – Josh Tomlin(notes) and Justin Masterson(notes). I hear the traditionalists carping right now, "Wins are projectable; you just need to assess overall team strength." But looking at run support leaders and trailers, Tomlin gets the seventh best run support per start (6.49 runs) while Masterson gets the fourth worst (2.73). Tomlin has a 3.86 ERA but has nine wins. Masterson's superior 2.98 ERA has netted him just five. They pitch for the same team. That has zero to do with player picking and everything to do with luck.

The better stat – one that was harder to track back in the days of the New York City's La Rotisserie Française – is quality starts. It's not perfect, but let's not let that be the enemy of the good. It's superior to wins – more

This is the second column this week because the first one tripped me up and I misread the category of data that was the foundation of the piece. I thought I was looking at per-100 pitch data and I was really looking at just runs saved on the those pitches regardless of how many of them the pitchers in question threw (so quantity likely would trump quality).

That was exactly what I was trying to avoid. So let's do this again the correct way.

In last week's column, I tossed in an aside about how I did not like pitchers whose out-pitch is a curveball, promising to explain why in a future column. Sam K. wanted to know now. So we'll postpone our first look at some under-appreciated relievers until next week and provide the answer.

First, here's what a scout told me a few years ago when we were casually watching an Arizona Fall League game:

Me: "Most overrated pitch?"

Scout: "The curveball. I'm never impressed when I hear a guy has a plus-plus curveball. How many curveball specialists are

Let's turn last week's 30-day split numbers on their head and this week look only at the most-owned pitchers who have pitched the worst over the last month.

We're looking only at ownership rates over 80 percent. And we're sorting by ERA not because it's the most meaning stat for projection purposes – far from it – but because it's the number that makes us most sick when we're stealing away some time from our wives or girlfriends (almost stuck an "and" in there) to check the in-progress action on our smart phones.

Analysis/recommendations will follow. Take your complaints to the comment boards. I understand that when you even suggest anything negative about guys who are over 80 percent owned, you are going to make readers more angry than soccer moms whose kids are stuck watching on the sidelines. Reason and objectivity rarely apply.

(Note: statistics through Thursday, June 9)

Sometimes it's the simple things that pay big dividends. There are so many resources at our disposal that we can forget to see which pitchers available in most leagues are pitching the best over the past month.

This doesn't mean that they'll pitch well the next 30 days. But it's enough of a sample to be bettable if not bankable. We sort by strikeouts for a couple of reasons. The main one is that it's the most meaningful (i.e., has the most predictive value) of our fantasy stats when you're looking at about six starts. It's important to not just look at the total but to also eyeball the K/IP because many Yahoo! leagues have innings caps and sometimes they are quite severe relative to standard formats where quantity can sometimes trump quality in the counting stats.

We took out pitches who have been rocked in ERA and WHIP. Again, WHIP is the more bettable stat when extrapolating a sample of this size. ERA can be greatly moved by one rocking where perhaps inherited runners scored or there

The best skill that a pitcher can exhibit is getting batters to swing and miss.

The elite ones generally excel at run prevention – the top 22 pitchers in swinging strike percentage have a collective ERA of 3.25 this year over 1,374 innings. The bottom 10 in the category, all with rates at least half of our leaders, have a combined ERA one run higher. Our cutoff here is not arbitrary or made in a way that generates the most pleasing results. It just happens to be where the essential tie in rate ended among the top 20.

Here they are:

(Note: statistics through Wednesday, May 25)

The most important pitch in baseball is the fastball. The pitchers who can generate outs with that offering can get by with just average secondary stuff.

Conversely, if you have elite secondary stuff with an average fastball, you will be in trouble most nights no matter your opponent.

But how do we measure? Velocity is nice, but that doesn't account for command and movement. There is also the art of mixing pitches. A well placed and well sequenced 90-mph heater is more likely to vex a top hitter than first-pitch, 98-mph cheese over the meat of the plate.

With the help of our friends at Fangraphs and Baseball Info Solutions, let's concern ourselves strictly with fastball results. Here are the current leader and trailers in runs above/below average per 100 fastballs thrown: