The Boston Red Sox had seen enough of veteran starter Clay Buchholz and finally unloaded him on Tuesday to the Philadelphia Phillies in what pretty much amounted to a salary dump. Entering into the last year of his contract, the 32-year-old Buchholz gets a fresh start in Philly and in the much easier National League as he comes off what was a truly horrific 2016 campaign. Pitching to a 4.78 ERA and having struck out just 93 batters in 139.1 innings a year ago, it certainly looked like Buchholz' days as a viable fantasy baseball starter were finished. As most of our habitual readers know, we have been about as big a Buchholz critic as there is in the industry in citing his ugly annual WHIP's and bloated ERA's. Now with Buchholz aging and seeing his K/9 rate sink to a pathetic 6.01 last season, there really was nothing left to talk about from a fantasy baseball ankle. That changes slightly now that Buchholz moves into NL as he obviously will now get to attack much weaker lineups and so a drop in his ERA/WHIP is likely. In addition, Buchholz will see his K/9 rate jump up some as well (it couldn't get any lower really) and so there is now a smidge of SP 5 value to be had here. Those in NL-only formats should be more intrigued here but Buchholz is really a boring veteran pitcher who is not going to make much a difference for your squad.
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