When you think of elite fantasy pitchers, what names come to mind? Perhaps Santana, Halladay and even young Lincecum may be the first to come off your lips. Now, Chad Billingsley is quickly becoming one of those names you need to give that same top billing.

Tonight's performance really inspired me to write this quick little article. In a very short six and a third innings, Chad gave his owners nine, count 'em, nine strikeouts and a zero earned run average. He gave up only four hits and one walk, and two of the hits and the walk came right before he was pulled. Unfortunately, all those strikeouts had his pitch count approaching 100 which is also a reason for his early departure. Still, the quality of the work is elite and that is an understatement.

This kind of production by Chad Billingsley is no surprise by any stretch. He was no surprise major leaguer. Billingsley was a heavily recruited player out of Defiance High School. In 2002 he played for Team USA winning all three of his starts in the WJC. In his final season with Defiance, he threw for an astonishing 113 strikeouts with only 16 walks in just 56 innings. He was soon signed by the Dodgers and giving acclaim as the number one prospect for the team by Baseball America. They ranked him as the 16th best prospect in the game in 2005 ahead of names like Carlos Quentin, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels. In 2006 he moved up to number seven just behind Liriano and ahead of names like Verlander, Cain and Prince Fielder. His value was sky high as a prospect. Just three years after being drafted, he would debut in the majors.

So how is it that such a talented and heavily hyped starting pitching prospect fell off of the top of the fantasy minds? Well part of it is because of a slow start at the tender age of 21. Now this is all relative because we are talking about an elite talent here. His rookie numbers are great by most standards. He started most of his games in his first season and had a solid 3.80 ERA but somewhat high 1.67 WHIP. A big issue was that his strikeout totals were not where they were to be expected. He had only 59 K's in his 90 inning debut.

Another big reason he fell a bit under the radar was because he was moved to a relief role. Late in the 2006 season he was converted to relief for the playoffs. That roll would carry over into 2007 where he was not given another start until midseason on June 26th. His progression that season was solid in the dumbers with his ERA dropping to 3.31, WHIP to 1.33 and strikouts doubling to a near nine per nine innings. Still, many owners had lost sight of this youngers true value due to his long time in the bullpen and the fact these improved numbers may have been a result of just that. We all realize that ERA's go down and strikeouts go up when guys are moved to relief.

A third and final reason for his delayed respect as a star would be because of his slow start this season. Essentially in his first full season as a starter, Chad started very slow with a 5.20 ERA in April. At the age of 23 and three seasons into his major league career, many owners wrote him off as a slight bust and just a bit above average. He hasn't looked back since. In May he had an amazing ERA of 1.89. June was 3.56, July 2.32 and August 3.41.

I saw many people on Forums just a month ago writting this young superstar off because his overall numbers were not that great. They were talking about dropping him for players like Meche I believe and I was appauled. Now, after one of his best starts of the season, Billingsley will likely be dropping his ERA below three for the first time this season and his K/9 will rival any true stud pitchers in the game not named Harden or Lincecum. He now has 10 games in which he has thrown for eight or more strikeouts.

The future is extremely bright for this young hurler. He will soon be challenging for the top five in our pitching rankings as his track record improves. Chad Billingsley has the history, scout respect and now production that should give every owner strong confidence in him for the future.