Danny Salazar is confounding. When he's on hitters have little chance to square the baseball up against him as batters flail at his offerings and he racks up the punchouts. On a down day though he's lucky to make it to the five innings as his pitch count soars. After disappointing everyone in the fantasy game in 2014 are there any reasons to believe things will be different for the Indians' starter this season?

THE MINORS

2006: Signed as a free agent out of the Dominican Republic as a 16 year old.

2007: Pitched 14 games, lasting 64.1 innings, in the Dominican Summer League. Went 5-3 with a 1.96 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 6.9 strikeouts per nine innings.

2008: Made 11 starts at Rookie Ball going 4-2 with a 2.87 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 7.3 strikeouts per nine. Lasted 53.1 innings. 

2009: Made 21 appearances, 20 starts, at Single-A ball. Went 5-7 with a 4.44 ERA, 1.44 WHIP an a mere 5.5 strikeouts per nine. Also walked 3.4 batters per nine innings.  

2010: Appeared in seven games at Single-A ball. Had a 4.45 ERA, 1.45 WHIP and 1.77 K/BB ratio over 32.1 innings. Had to undergo Tommy John surgery. 

2011: Still working his way back from Tommy John surgery. Made five outings at Rookie ball lasting a mere 6.2 innings. 

2012: Appeared in 27 games with 25 starts in the Dominican Winter League, High-A and Double-A. Won only five games but posted a 2.57 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and 8.2 K/9 mark.

2013: Made 20 starts (21 appearances), winning six games while losing five at Double and Triple-A. Posted a 2.71 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and a huge 12.5 K/9 mark. Also posted a 5.38 K/BB ratio. 

2014: Made 11 starts at Triple-A going 4-6 with a 3.71 ERA and 1.42 WHIP over 60.2 innings. Struck out 11.3 batters per nine with an enlarged 4.2 batters per nine.

TOTALS: 30-31, 3.19 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 8.5 K/9, 3.01 K/BB over 527.1 innings

THE MAJORS

2013: Went 2-3 with a 3.12 ERA and 1.13 WHIP over 10 starts. Struck out 65 batters in 52 innings. 

2014: Went 6-8 over 20 starts as he was demoted for a time to try and find his lost game. Went 6-8 with a 4.25 ERA and 1.38 WHIP. Still struck out more batters than innings pitched (120 in 110 frames). 

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THE SKILLS

Let me start out by saying something that will likely shock anyone who owned Salazar in 2014. He's been been no worse than a league average arm through two seasons. Seriously. Consider the following.

Through two seasons...

Salazar has eight wins in 30 starts. The "average" hurler, who has made 30 starts, has averaged nine victories.

Salazar has a 3.89 ERA. The American League ERA in that time is 3.91.

Salazar has a 1.30 WHIP. The American League WHIP in that time is 1.30

See what I'm saying? The truth is, if you look at a couple of extra aspects of his game, things even improve. 

Salazar owns a dominating 10.28 K/9 mark. The AL average K/9 mark has been 7.66.
Salazar has walked 2.78 batters per nine. The AL average BB/9 mark has been 2.98.
Salazar is the owner of a 3.70 K/BB ratio. The AL average K/BB ratio has been 2.57.

Admit it, you're shocked by those numbers, aren't you? The fact is that his overall work has been either league average, or better, according to an awful lot of measures. Most intriguing are the strikeout and walk numbers.

Through 162 innings Salazar has 185 strikeouts leading to a 10.28 K/9 mark. Amongst pitchers who have made at least 30 starts since the beginning of the 2013 season, do you know how many have struck out at least 10.25 batters per nine innings? It's an elite group of three: Yu Darvish, Jose Fernandez and Salazar. The strikeouts are legit. Everyone knows that.

What about the walks? I would bet you dollars to donuts, that the average baseball fan believes that Salazar walks a ton of batters. It's simply not the case. As I noted above, his walk rate is actually lower than the big league average. Moreover, among pitchers who have made 30 or more starts the past two seasons his 2.78 BB/9 mark comes in ahead of Fernandez (2.80), Matt Cain (2.85), Clay Buchholz (2.91), Justin Verlander (2.97) and Sonny Gray (2.99) to name just a few. 

FACT. In 2013 he walked four or more batters in zero of 10 outings.

FACT. In 2014 he walked four or more batters zero times in 20 outings.

Read that again. In 30 career starts Salazar has never walked four batters, not one single time. 

"But Ray, those numbers have to be wrong since he's always racking up such huge pitch counts that he can't make it out of the fifth inning." Well yes and no.

Here's where it gets interesting.

FACT. In 2013 Salazar made 10 starts. He failed to record 18 outs, six innings, six times. That's 60 percent of his starts. He averaged a mere 5.2 innings per start. 

FACT. In 2014 Salazar made 20 starts. He failed to record 18 outs, six innings, 12 times. That's  67 percent of his starts. He averaged a mere 5.5 innings per start. 

So why on earth has he had such trouble working deep into games? It must be huge pitch counts. Duh. Well...

FACT. In 2013 Salazar threw 100-pitches one time in 10 starts.

FACT. In 2014 Salazar threw 100-pitches five times in 20 starts

That's six games in 30 outings of 100 pitches or 20 percent of his starts. Clayton Kershaw made 27 starts in 2014 and hit 100 pitches 19 times.

This situation is a bit bizarre. There  are certainly times in which Salazar is racking up strikeouts and going deep into counts, totally true. It's also true that Salazar threw an average of 3.94 pitches per plate appearance, a big number, but there were still 29 other men who had a higher number in 2014 (minimum 100 innings pitched). It's a bit more concerning that he threw the 20th most pitches per inning last season - 17.0 per frame - but it's still fair to question why the Indians are going to use him as a starting pitcher if they aren't committed to letting him pitch.

FACT. The Indians baby Salazar.

Switching gears... Salazar can be beaten deep. Through 30 starts he's allowed 1.11 homers per nine, and the league average the past twos seasons is 0.9. His HR/F ratio is tick above the league average at 11.0 percent, so this is more about the 41.5 percent fly ball ratio that he's been saddled with. 

It's also a bit vexing as to why Salazar has allowed a .330 BABIP and 24.1 percent line drive rate. That's the kind of stuff you would expect to see from a guy shuttled between Triple-A and the bigs five times a season, not a guy with this stuff. The explanation is obvious. It's not the stuff that's betraying Salazar, it's the lack of pinpoint control with his pitches. Check out this batting average chart from Brooks Baseball. When his ball leaks out over the middle of the plate Salazar gets hammered. When he hits his spots batters have little chance. That's the key as it always ultimately is - can Salazar hit his spots in 2015?

PLAYING TIME CONSIDERATIONS

The Indians have huge questions in their rotation, but my goodness do they have a tremendous group of arms to fire at batters. Corey Kluber is the AL Cy Young winner, and he's the only lock down starter. The Indians will then roll out uber talented, but as yet unproven, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer and Salazar as their 2-4 starters (one would think though it's certainly possible that it ends up being a battle for Bauer and/or Salazar to lock down a rotation spot). It seems like the fifth starter will be T.J. House, though the club brought in Gavin Floyd for veteran depth if any of the youngsters struggle to find their footing. 

CONCLUSION

As I've hopefully been able to lay out, Salazar has almost certainly performed better than you thought to this point of his career. He's an elite strikeout arm who really doesn't walk too many batters. Despite the lack of free passes he doesn't always hit his spot and often suffers through innings where his pitch count is substantial. There aren't many changes that need to be made in order for Salazar to be a must own in fantasy baseball. Now if he can just lock down a rotation spot.

10 team lg: In a league of this size we are recommending Salazar as an SP6. In some leagues an aggressive owner could reach before that point, but given the stigma that comes with Salazar it's quite possible that he could last even longer at the draft.

12 team lg: A great arm at a cheap price. That should always intrigue you. He's by no means a lock to improve on last seasons production, but the fact is there is plenty to like with Salazar and that makes him one intriguing option as an SP5/6 type in a league of this size if you aren't afraid of assuming some risk. 

15 team lg: A prime target for this sized league. I'll feel out the draft room and if pitching is sliding, or if teams seem to be going with stable options like Mike Leake or Kyle Lohse, I'll be extremely interested in rostering the fireballer from the Indians as a depth arm. 

AL-only: As noted above, there aren't many starters in baseball that can match Salazar's strikeout potential. As also mentioned, even with his ups and downs the past two seasons his ERA and WHIP are pretty much dead on the league average. No reason to be afraid, as long as he's not one of the foundational arms of your pitching staff.