Fantasy Baseball Advice

On Tuesday, Brian Cashman, the Yankees GM, flew to California to speak with CC Sabathia about him signing with the Yankees. The conversation went like this:

“I wanna play on the West Coast.”

“We can have In N Out Burger shipped to the East Coast.”

“Same day?”

“Don’t get greedy.”

CC opens up the book he’s been reading, How to Serve the Rally Monkey.

“Fine, next day.”

“CC’s a Yank!”

Anyway, let’s take a look at what the CC Sabathia signing means for fantasy baseball:

CC Sabathia – You know what movie is playing when CC enters a candy store? Mars Attacks! All right, enough fat jokes. Sabathia won a Cy Young in the AL. He’s suddenly going to lose it? Family ties were driving his desire to be in California, but CC had to choose — for love or money? He chose the $160 million and now he’s not going to be Doc Hollywood. The brights lights, big city won’t bother him. He won’t be blinded by the light of day. Sure, it’s the media jungle, the ultimate spin city, if you will. But he knows the secret of his succe$s and playing for the Yankees won’t be the hard way to find out he’s nothing but a Stuart Little. Don’t be the frighteners about drafting him in 2009. Life with Melky will be just fine. (The preceding was a Michael J. Fox Hidden Movie Find ‘Em brought to be the makers of Highlights Magazine™ and Molsen Ice.  How many movies can you find?)

K-Rod wasn’t the top closer according to our Fantasy Baseball Player Rater and he’s not the number one closer according to our 2009 Fantasy Baseball Projections — it’s called Point Shares, ya’ll! The title of top closer goes to Mariano Rivera and Jonathan Papelbon, respectively. And I respectively agree. As Madonna tries to figure out if the K stands for Kabbalah and if she’s with the right Rod, let’s see what this signing does for K-Rod’s 2009 fantasy value and others:

Francisco Rodriguez – When I did my look at offseason 2009 closers, I placed Nathan, Papelbon, Lidge and Mo-Ri in front of K-Rod. Nothing change. I said K-Rod was going to be the closer for the Mets back in August. Everyone said he was going to be the Mets closer back in August. (I think I was one day before everyone else, but who’s counting — besides me.) Francisco Rodriguez is still a $12 Salad and, if anything, he’s even more overrated now by people who think a closer in New York is more valuable simply because of geography.

Scot Shields – No one seems to think he’s going to be the 2009 closer of the Angels, but if Scioscia goes with his longtime setup man first it wouldn’t surprise me that much.

Jose Arrendondo – In that same Closer Look post, Arredondo was ranked 17th, since he’s obviously a Donkey-corn. If he goes into the season as the clear cut closer of the Angels then put another band-aid on your cheek Nelly cause Arrendondo’s about to grimey in overratedness.

Can you feel the fantasy repercussions of the Ramon Hernandez trade?  Yeah, a tremor. Thanks, random italicized voice.  No, don’t you see, this has so little to do with Ramon Hernandez being traded. It does? Yes! It has everything to do with Matt Wieters now having an opportunity to start the 2009 season in Baltimore. Okay, let’s breakdown what the Ramon Hernandez trade means for 2009 fantasy baseball:

Matt Wieters – With Ramon Hernandez gone from Baltimore, the catching job is Wieters’s to lose. In my ongoing rookie outlook series, I went over what I thought a 2009 Matt Wieters would look like. Here’s the crux, “In 2008, Geovany Soto went 66/23/86/.285. While those are great numbers for a rookie and incredible numbers for a rookie catcher, they are still only 66/23/86/.285. Those numbers only placed him 91st on our player rater while ranking 5th on the top 20 catchers for 2008 list.” And that’s me quoting and linking to my crux! My point there was that in the end, Wieters is still a catcher. What’s the most we can expect? 20 home runs? A .300 average? Yeah, that’s the ceiling on Wieters. And those are really good numbers for a rookie catcher. But they’re still 20 home runs and a .300 average or as I like to call them, Ty Wigginton’s 2008 numbers. My recommendation is to let someone else take the risk, unless Wieters comes cheap on draft day.  Think end of the draft for 10-team mixed leagues. He should be pursued more aggressively in keeper leagues.  On my top 20 catchers for 2009 post (which will be published in January with the other top 20 position lists), I’m debating whether to slot him in at 12 or 14.

Ramon Hernandez – Camden to Great American is a push. Seeing some new pitching in the NL might affect him slightly… Oh, who are we kidding? You read this for Wieters and stopped by this point. Ramon Hernandez should be drafted in NL-Only leagues and some deeper mixed ones with the hope he bounces back to pre-’07 levels. Though I have my doubts about whether those levels are still possible.  Expect 15 to 17 home runs and a .260 average.

Ryan Freel – He’s a utility player with speed. Without speed, he’s a futility player.

Now that all talk of 2008 Player Raters are complete, it’s time to move on to 2009.

See below for links to our 2009 Projected Point Shares for MLB 10 team and 12 team leagues (they can also be accessed in the menu on top of the page):

Razzball Fantasy Baseball Projected Point Shares – MLB 10 Team

Razzball Fantasy Baseball Projected Point Shares – MLB 12 Team

These are based on the Marcel projection system which is considered a baseline by which other services compare themselves.  If you want to read more on it and/or download the 2009 projections, click here.  If you do download the stats, you’ll see that they are very conservative.  Don’t worry about this in regards to Point Shares as our methodology adjusts for this (so in a conservative projection system, 30 HRs are going to be worth more than in an aggressive projection system).

We will post additional versions of Projected Point Shares when other established, free projection systems (CHONE & ZIPS) publish their data and, eventually, create the ‘official’ Point Shares spreadsheet in the Feb/March timeframe.

Please post any/all feedback in the Comments section…

This is the third post I’ve done on what I’m expecting for Votto in 2009, the last was in the Pedroia fantasy keeper post. Can you tell I’m excited about Votto for 2009? Right now, I see him listed anywhere from 13th to 18th on preseason rankings lists for 1st basemen. Keeping company with some luminaries as Cantu, Loney, Pena and Conor Jackson. He’s been placed decidedly after some schmohawks such as Aubrey Huff, Atkins and Derrek Lee.  This is the same Votto that hit over .340 in the last two months when he slugged 9 of his 24 home runs. If Jay Bruce had put up these numbers, we would’ve already carved a commemorative statue out of the Hope Diamond and cloaked it in panda fur. What does Votto have to do to earn your respect? Have to go 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu? Okay, so what can we expect from Votto for 2009 and why is he a fantasy sleeper?

Last year Votto’s numbers were 69/24/84/.297/7.  As mentioned above, his last two months were incredible, but let me temper expectations a tad. His BABIP in August was a bit silly, over .400.  His homer rate in September was Bondsteroidian.  Now let’s get loosey-goosey with projections. You might think the seven steals are fluky, something that just happened to come about because he was sent during a hit and run and Dunn (or Bruce) struckout. Nope. He had 24 steals in Double-A. He’s not stealing 24 in 2009, but he can take 15. Then add in a few more home runs as his power continues to develop and we’re looking at a player in 2009 that could go 85/28/100/.300/12.  Um, for a 1st baseman that’s being drafted with Cantu, Jackson and Loney, that’s a fantasy sleeper.