Fantasy Baseball Advice

1. Hanley Ramirez
.332/125/29/81/51
If it wasn’t for Arod’s insane year, everyone would be talking about the year Hanley Ramirez had. Oh, and you didn’t have to draft him in the 1st round. Look at those numbers again. One homer off a 30/50 season? That’s insane. Experts have been calling for a 30/50 season from Carl Crawford for the last two years. And he’s an outfielder! A 29/50 season from a shortstop? I have a friend who drafted Michael Young right before Hanley went off the board. His emails went something like this, “Michael Young is on pace for a 5/5 season and it’s f**cking July?! Why didn’t I draft Hanley?” Not to mention, Hanley may be Latin but he doesn’t look eight years older than he’s listed at. I’m looking at you Pujols, David Ortiz and Kim Kardashian. C’mon, she’s 27? She looks like she’s in her thirties. Though she’s one of those that will look exactly the same age for fifteen years then, suddenly, she’ll look her age and it will be very disconcerting. Think Suzanne Somers.

2. Jimmy Rollins
.296/139/30/94/41
Let’s look at what he has going for him — speed and enough power for Citizen’s Bank, batting in front of Utes and Howard, an ego the size of a Cheesecake Factory entree, wanting to prove that the media is wrong by turning the best SS award automatically over to Reyes, no longer sporting braids and he gets about 1,000 at-bats a year. What’s not to like? This might be his peak and everyone calls him J-Rol. Can we call a moratorium on shortening names like this? It feels so forced and arbitrary. Man-Ram was cute, I wish sportscasters would shorten Felix Hernandez to F-Her, Arod is fitting, but when is enough enough? Cole Hamels to C-Ham? Justin Morneau to Just-Morn? Carlos Marmol to Car-Ma? Actually, I like Car-Ma and I predict at some point soon Car-Ma will catch up to Ryan Dempster.

3. Jose Reyes
.280/119/12/57/78
Disclaimer: I don’t like the Mets, but I love to watch Reyes play. Makes things difficult when you’re hoping for him to score yet you don’t want anyone on the team to get an RBI. “C’mon, double play from Wright!”

4. Troy Tulowitzki
.291/104/24/99/7
(I had to look up how to spell his last name, but didn’t need to look up Kardashian. Hmm…) Let’s not forget, he started awful. Dreadful. People were talking about bringing back “Deer Meat” Barmes. Yet, he still finished with great numbers. You probably drafted him so low(itzki) that rather than worry about the slow(itzki) start, you dropped him. Hopefully to pick him up again. Assuming you didn’t pay too(lowitzki) much for him, you got value. This might be the last year that you’ll be able to get him so low(itzki). (Sorry if that last paragraph was as confusing to read as it was to write. Sometimes things don’t work, but you get so caught up in them you continue to force a round peg into a square hole.)

5. Carlos Guillen
.296/86/21/102/13
(See Top Ten 1st Basemen) Maybe C-Guile? “C-Guile is sneaky fast!”

6. Derek Jeter
.322/102/12/73/15
If only you had drafted him in the third round of your Fantasy Shortstops Who Date Hot Girls League. Sorry no Jessica Alba category in most leagues, though his conquests must play some sort of role in where he is drafted every year. Cause the numbers are, well, okay. Eighth round okay. Enough has been written about Jeter, moving on…

7. Orlando Cabrera
.301/101/8/86/20
Honestly, I didn’t realize his numbers were so mediocre. See, I live in So-Cal and to watch a City of Anaheim ‘Burb of Los Angeles Angels game, you would think Cabrera had an MVP season. Rex Hudler loves him some Cabrera. Here’s hoping Hud was in your league and took him before you. Nah, that’s just backlash. He had a decent season for an MI spot.

8. Michael Young
.315/80/9/94/13
Michael “I should’ve taken Hanley!” Young had a typical year for Julio Lugo. Not sure how you bat second or third on the Rangers and only score 80 runs. Offensive ballpark and he had over 200 hits. How do you do that? Oh, that’s right Sammy Sosa, Brad Wilkerson, Jason Botts, Marlon Byrd were batting behind him. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2007 Texas Rangers!

9. Edgar Renteria
.332/87/12/57/11
Okay, the RBIs were low, but you didn’t have to pay much to get these numbers. Not to mention, he was injured for about two months so if you slotted in someone else while he was DL-ed, you padded the above stats. But praising Renteria is like praising Vanilla Ice Cream. You know what you’re getting.

10. J.J. Hardy
.277/89/26/80/2
Personally, I like his numbers better than Michael “I should’ve taken Hanley!” Young. His .277 wasn’t crippling, his 26 homers were excellent for SS and his RBIs and runs weren’t bad at all. Not to mention, you had to draft Michael “I should’ve taken Hanley!” Young about twenty rounds earlier. I wouldn’t go as far to say J.J. was dy-no-mite, but you could’ve done worse. Speaking of which…

Tejada had his consecutive game streak broken and you wasted a really high pick and Furcal absolutely killed teams this year. Furcal actually had a bad year for Julio Lugo.

1. Brandon Phillips
.288/107/30/94/32
Not since Soriano have we seen this power and speed combo from 2nd. For the price you probably paid for Phillips, this guy single-handedly won leagues or, at the least, kept owners right in the mix. I know in one of my leagues the owner who had Phillips easily finished five places above where he should have. Then again, he should have finished last, so it’s a small consolation. Imagine if the Indians hadn’t given up on him — Asdrubal who?

2. Chase Utley
.332/104/22/103/9
And he missed a month. Chances are you picked up someone who was able to add to the above stats. For instance, I picked up Iguchi when the Phillies traded for him, so I had .305/18/3/10/5 for 29 games. Respectable numbers to add to Utley’s final totals. For where you had to draft Utely, he didn’t disappoint. What I really like about Utely is his intensity. You never see him dog it up the first base line. If you’re thinking that doesn’t show up in the final stat line, you’re mistaken. Okay, praises sung…

3. Brian Roberts
.290/103/12/57/50
You’re looking at a career year in steals, a total aberration for runs, and a bit low on the home run front. Looking closer: how can a guy steal fifty bases, bat lead-off and barely crack 100 runs? Pretty tough luck there. I usually stay away from Roberts because he’s a total roll of the die. One year he steals like crazy, one year he cracks a bunch of homers, another year he’s a force in average, another year he breaks his arm in seventeen places. If you gambled on him giving you steals this year, you did well.

4. BJ Upton
.300/86/24/82/22
Another difference maker. Chances are you drafted (or picked off waivers) Upton at a extremely low price. Also, with his injury, you probably had someone else culling stats at his position while he was on your DL. So his position’s numbers should be even better. I don’t fully trust him for next year, but we’ll save that for a future blog.

5. Robinson Cano
.306/93/19/97/4
I have to admit. His year surprised me. I thought he might be lying in the dumpster by the All-Star Break because Yankee fans would be so disappointed with him. But Torre stuck with him through the first half swoon, and he turned it around. But the real question is, did you stick with him? I don’t think I would have, probably would have traded him for thirty cents on the dollar.

6. Placido Polanco
.341/105/9/67/7
Everyone know what being yawnstipated is? It’s when you have to yawn, but can’t. Basically, you’re constipated with your yawning. Polanco yawnstipates me. You want to yawn at his numbers, but he manages to do just enough so you can’t yawn. The .341 is the main reason for the yawnstipation. Usually a high average and not much else is a very good yawnstipater.

7. Dan Uggla
.245/113/31/88/2
How does a 2nd basemen that hits 31 homers end up so low on the list? Batting .245 will do it. This is the first guy on the list that was actually a negative in any category. I don’t like negatives in a category. That low of an average can be really difficult to correct with other hitters. Uggla’s other numbers are buoyant; his average is an anchor. Anchors stop fun.

8. Ian Kinsler
.263/96/20/61/23
I liked Kinsler in the beginning of the year. Know what? I still like him. He struggled mightily for about two months after a torrid start, then he was hurt for over a month. If you substituted in someone for when he was struggling and when he was on the DL, you had a tremendous two months from him. He was easily top 3 at 2nd base when he was playing good.

9. Jeff Kent
.302/78/20/79/1
Again, if you took him out when he was hurt or playing hurt, Kent had a decent enough year. I like his numbers in retrospect more than Uggla. (Don’t like negatives in a category.) You didn’t get anything more than you should expect from him at this stage in his career, but you didn’t get less from him either, which helps.

10. Aaron Hill
.291/87/17/78/4
And I like his numbers better than Uggla’s, as well. (Still don’t like negatives in a category. You heard that already? Yeah, you probably did.) Across the board, Hill gave you a little bit of everything. He didn’t win any leagues, but, what’s just as important, he didn’t lose any leagues either.

Some other guys that didn’t make the list, but I actually wouldn’t have minded on my team last year: Kelly Johnson, Freddy, Pedroia, Wigginton, the Kaz. Then for extended periods of times, Orlando Hudson, Weeks, DeRosa and Brendan Harris definitely helped teams. None of these guys hurt your team to the point you couldn’t capture a title. Going into the season last year, lots of experts were saying that 2nd base might be the weakest position ever. Turned out to be a lot of hot air. Not only was 2nd base not all that weak, but you found some very good value in later rounds.

1. Prince Fielder
For lack of a better word, his season was: FAT. .288/109/50/119/2
The most surprising number there is the 2 steals. Was fielder’s indifference not scored properly? Love to hear from readers if they witnessed either of Prince’s steals. Anywho, the ladies love the long ball, so, by contractual obligation, they love Prince.

2. .282/99/46/121/1
You wanted this to be Ryan Howard, you were assuming it would be at the very least Pujols. But surprise, surprise, it’s Carlos Pena. .282/99/46/121/1 were numbers you would had been very pleased with at the beginning of the season from your first round Pujols or Howard selection. From a guy you picked off of waivers? Depending on when you swiped him, you probably finished no worse than third in your league. This is the kind of player that wins leagues. You waste no draft choice and (Frank Voila!) you have 46 homers and 121 RBIs. Nice.

3. Ryan Howard
.268/94/47/136/1
Eh, you got what you paid for. That is, if you had patience during his DL stint. Where you probably had to take him (1st round), he didn’t win or lose leagues. Sure, it would’ve been nice to get an extra ten home runs. Okay, .268 was a bit low, but you had to expect that with the way he strikes out and his lucky BABIP in ‘06.

4. Albert Pujols
.327/99/32/103/2
Isn’t he good for 130 runs? Wait, wasn’t this the year he was going to hit 50 homers? Barely cracking 100 RBIs? Pretty disappointing year from what was arguably the consensus 1st pick of every draft. Maybe he was trying to do too much and will be better next year? Maybe LaRussa will bat him eighth next year and the pitcher third? Maybe next year he’ll admit to really being 38 years old and this year will all make sense?

5. Lance Berkman
.278/95/34/102/7
He came on strong towards the tail end of the season, but, wow, he was bad most of the year. Like Britney at the VMAs bad? No, like Britney as a mother bad.

6. Mark Teixeira
.306/86/30/105/0
At some point you have to think his ‘05 year might be his peak. The trade to the Braves didn’t seem to adversely effect (BTW, is it effect or affect here? Someone let me know, thanks.) his numbers, but this is the second year in a row that his entire first half of the year DID adversely a(e)ffect his numbers. These numbers are great from someone taken in the twelfth round. He went on average in the 3rd. And his last name is impossible to spell. Why is there an i before the x? Moving on…

7. Adrian Gonzalez
.282/101/30/100/0
Here most people got value. Sure, he barely got over .280 thanks in part to a great start and great finish. And, you’re right, 100/30/100 seemed to be his floor not ceiling. But at least you got those numbers and he shouldn’t have came at a huge price. You didn’t take him in the fourth round, didja? You did? Well, shame on you.

8. Carlos Guillen
.296/86/21/102/13
With 8 games played at 1st in ‘06, you probably didn’t draft him to be your first baseman. Frankly, you might have only drafted him as your middle with his injury history. But with power numbers down across the board, Guillen could have been moved to 1st in the middle of the year and you wouldn’t have lost much.

9. Derrek Lee
.317/91/22/82/6
What a bust. He helped for part of the year with his inflated average, but that came down to earth in the 2nd half of the year and you were left with Lyle Overbay numbers. If you passed picking up Pena because you had this guy manning 1st, you probably lost your league. How does a guy batting third for a division winning team finish with 82 RBIs? Oh, that’s right, Soriano’s OBP.

10. Victor Martinez
.301/78/25/114/0
You drafted him as your catcher, so I gotta say this was a tremendous year. Everything you could’ve wanted. Frankly, his numbers look better than Derrek Lee. (The 6 steals are what barely puts Lee above.)

And, by the way, there were first basemen that were worse. Busts: Morneau, Delgado, Konerko, Hafner (depending on your eligibility requirements). Overall, a down year from 1st. A usually dependable position that solidifies the offense and bulks the power numbers saw a league-wide power shortage that really hurt 1st.