Kuzul

As a follow up to our popular 5 offensive surprises for the 2011 season, I thought it would be fitting to provide a list of the top 5 pitching surprises as well.  2011 has been a pitching dominated season, with offensive numbers down across the board for every player not named Jose Bautista. 

This list was difficult to compile, as there were numerous pitching surprises over the first third of the season.  While strong bounce back performances by Josh Beckett and Dan Haren were strongly considered, we decided to focus our attention on players who were complete surprises in 2011.   

Here are the 5 biggest pitching surprises of the 2011 season: (Through 70 Games)

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Successful fantasy baseball owners will draft teams that have a strong balance of well-established blue chip players and a few up-and-coming players looking to take the next step to stardom.  The blue chip players act as a strong foundation, providing a consistent level of production from week to week, while the budding stars tend to be hit-or-miss fliers. Although it is much harder to predict the success of these fliers, finding the proverbial diamond in the rough is critical for a championship run.

Here are the five biggest offensive surprises of the 2011 season (through 70 Games)

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