Fantasy Baseball Advice

The Mitchell Report is 409-page indictment on baseball. I’ve posted below some of the more interesting parts. If you wish to download the whole thing, you can do it here.

BASEBALL WRITERS TAKE NOTICE:

Page 116 of the Mitchell Report:

In March 1992, Pittsburgh columnist Gene Collier addressed the perception that baseball was not a sport for steroids users. Collier derided the suggestion that the game of baseball “is simply too complex to be positively augmented by some injectable.” He quoted Penn State professor Charles Yesalis, an outspoken critic of steroid use, who said that steroids were a “natural” fit for baseball:
I don’t know how common it is, but I have colleagues in the sports medicine community who say “Yeah, they’re doing it. . . . You know baseball players are lifting weights. They’re in gyms where the steroids are, and pro baseball players know pro football players.” After discussing the problems posed by human growth hormone and other substances that were difficult to detect in drug tests, Collier concluded that baseball “should consider testing if only to show how it feels about a level field being mandatory.

In 1992, Barry Bonds won the NL MVP.

Page 117

In August 1992, Peter Gammons reported in the Boston Globe that while there was not much discussion of steroid use in baseball, “there’s a growing suspicion that it’s much greater than anyone lets on.” Ten years before Rob Manfred’s 2002 Senate testimony, Gammons wrote that a recent increase in injuries in Major League Baseball could be the result of steroid use, as “players’ muscle mass becomes too great for their bodies, resulting in the odd back and leg breakdowns . . .”

Page 122

Peter Gammons also revisited the issue in a pre-season roundup before the 1997 season began, reporting that “physicians and GMs are increasingly concerned about steroid use in baseball. As one team physician said last week, ‘The owners won’t do anything about it because the cost of testing for steroids is very high, and they don’t want to face the costs or the circumstances.’” Gammons criticized the Commissioner’s Office for “turn[ing] its back on such issues.”

CAN’T TURN A BLIND EYE, BUT SOME TRY:

Page 125

In late August 1998, Steve Wilstein, an Associated Press reporter who was following Mark McGwire’s progress toward a new single-season home run record, noticed a bottle in McGwire’s locker labeled “Androstenedione.” The ensuing AP news story led to renewed scrutiny of the use of “andro” and other substances by major league players. As previously mentioned, Commissioner Selig and others in baseball have said that this incident more than any other caused them to focus on the use of performance enhancing substances as a possible problem.

Page 128

Dr. Lewis Maharam, a prominent sports medicine practitioner who is now the race doctor for the New York City Marathon, was a vocal critic, saying that “[i]f McGwire is truly taking this, then he’s cheating.” He criticized McGwire for failing to warn young athletes about the dangers of using andro. Sometime thereafter, Dr. Maharam received a call from Dr. Robert Millman, a physician who at the time also served as the medical director for Major League Baseball. During the call, Dr. Maharam said in an interview, Dr. Millman told him that “everyone in Major League Baseball is irritated with you” and that “if you don’t shut up, they are going to sue you.” Dr. Maharam was unfazed, but a week later he received a second call in which Dr. Millman told him that if he was willing to “shut up in the press,” he would be invited to make a presentation to Major League Baseball and the Players Association about the dangers of steroids and andro. Two weeks later, Dr. Maharam made a one-hour presentation to Dr. Millman, another official from Major League Baseball, and Dr. Joel Solomon, the medical director for the Players Association. Dr. Maharam recalled that, at the conclusion of the meeting, Dr. Millman expressed the view that there was not sufficient medical evidence that andro raised testosterone levels enough to be a cause for concern.

ROGER CLEMENS

Page 216

Toward the end of the road trip which included the Marlins series, or shortly after the Blue Jays returned home to Toronto, Clemens approached McNamee (Toronto Blue Jays strength and conditioning coach) and, for the first time, brought up the subject of using steroids. Clemens said that he was not able to inject himself, and he asked for McNamee’s help.
Later that summer, Clemens asked McNamee to inject him with Winstrol, which Clemens supplied. McNamee knew the substance was Winstrol because the vials Clemens gave him were so labeled. McNamee injected Clemens approximately four times in the buttocks over a several-week period with needles that Clemens provided. Each incident took place in Clemens’s apartment at the SkyDome. McNamee never asked Clemens where he obtained the steroids.

The players listed go on for pages upon pages. All the names you’ve heard, Giambi, Sosa, Palmeiro. Some you haven’t heard as much about…

ANDY PETTITTE

Page 224

McNamee traveled to Tampa at Pettitte’s request and spent about ten days assisting Pettitte with his rehabilitation. McNamee recalled that he injected Pettitte with human growth hormone that McNamee obtained from Radomski on two to four occasions. Pettitte paid McNamee for the trip and his expenses; there was no separate payment for the human growth hormone.According to McNamee, around the time in 2003 that the BALCO searches became public, Pettitte asked what he should say if a reporter asked Pettitte whether he ever used performance enhancing substances. McNamee told him he was free to say what he wanted, but that he should not go out of his way to bring it up.

As anyone who is a loyal reader of Jayson Stark’s blog will know, he pretty much talks about nothing substantial. Hey, it worked for Seinfeld. Well, today he allows a friend of mine to talk about nothing substantial for him. Check out Matthew Mougalian’s fine work here.

Star center fielder for the Chunichi Dragons, Kosuke Fukudome, has announced he will play in the majors in ’08. Likely teams at this point are the Padres, Cubs and White Sox, according to ESPN.

Last year, Fukudome had an injury-plagued year, hurting his right elbow, and only played in 81 games, missing almost sixty games and the Japan Series (their World Series, guess our World doesn’t include them). Reports are that he’s fully recovered, but even fully recovered what can we expect from Fukudome in ’08? Well, let’s look at his stats for his final year in Japan.

84/32/77/.285/8 are very worthwhile numbers, they are, however, not Fukudome’s stats in his final year. Huh? You thought this was about Fukudome? Well, it is. Those stats were Iwamura’s stats his final year in Japan. The year before in Japan, Iwamura hit 30 homers; in ‘04, he hit 44 homers. Last year, Iwamura, still only at the coveted age of 27, hit 7 homers for the Rays.

Fukudome’s last season he played a full slate in Japan was 2006 when he had excellent numbers: 117/31/104/.351/11. But as we saw from Iwamura, Japanese players’ stats get lost in translation. Not to mention, Fukudome is three years older than Iwamura. His power isn’t peaking. If anything, it’s declining. If he ends up on the Padres, with their cavernous ballpark and coming off an injury-plagued year, Fukudome is liable to put up 80/15/80/.300/10 numbers. Not bad for a fifth outfielder, but you’re going to have to take him in second outfielder draft range because of the unknown quality he’ll have going for him. He’s got a great eye, and that’s not going to change, but he’s just not worth the gamble. My advice: steer clear of Fukudome.

Curtis Granderson and Nick Markakis are two players that will probably be drafted very close to each other, but who has more value?

Curtis Granderson is playing with fire. Here’s why: his strikeouts are in average killer territory of a Ryan Howard or an Adam Dunn. Right now, Granderson has been maintaining his batting average with a high BABIP. Can he get his strikeouts in check? Perhaps, but his walk rate actually declined from ’06 to ’07. Not the makings of someone learning to be more patient. Now, his runs were high, but as discussed here, runs are the least of your worries when evaluating hitters. So if I can put on my Nostradamus hat, I’ll say Granderson is more or less the player he was this year, but maybe a few more homers and a bit less average, giving him: 115/27/85/.280/25. There’s a chance Leyland moves him out of the leadoff position, but that’s doubtful. If he does, give him more RBIs and less runs. Those are good numbers. But with the Ks, his average could be .260 over 600 at-bats and absolutely hurt your team. In 2008, Granderson will be drafted way before he should. Know someone who won’t bat .260?

Nick Markakis

His predicted numbers are 100/27/115/.300/20. And guess what? That’s not a ceiling. If he can put together a full productive season, Markakis can easily reach 35 homers. Thus far, that’s been the catch with Markakis. He’s had an okay first half and then turned it on in the second half. So his very solid ’06 numbers are from another stellar second half. But what about the team around him, you ask. Yes, his team may not be as strong offensively, but Markakis is a better offensive player. Tejada, if he stays with the Orioles, should be healthy all year, after a fluke injury this year, and he will make Markakis’s numbers better. When drafting you want the better overall player, you want the player that has better natural skills, you want Nick Markakis.

Read an interesting piece in the Newsweek blog about how a person’s name affects their natural proclivity for certain items.

Examples: Chris Carpenter rehabs while dining on caviar, Placido Polanco jogs while listening to Paula Poundstone, Tom Trebelhorn totes around his toddler in a Toyota.

Alliteration in lieu of science, perhaps, but the article backs up its Sally-sells-seashells-science with baseball statistics.

…Based on data from 1913 through 2006, for the 6,397 players with at least 100 plate appearances, “batters whose names began with K struck out at a higher rate (in 18.8% of their plate appearances) than the remaining batters (17.2%),” the researchers find. The reason, they suggest, is that players whose first or last name starts with K like their initial so much that “even Karl ‘Koley’ Kolseth would find a strikeout aversive, but he might find it a little less aversive than players who do not share his initials, and therefore he might avoid striking out less enthusiastically.” Granted, 18.8% vs. 17.2% is not a huge difference, but it was statistically significant—that is, not likely to be due to chance.

Might want to bump up Kazmir and drop Kevin Kouzmanoff on your draft cheat sheet.