Fantasy Baseball Advice

We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere.  To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team.  We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2009 Yankees Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Ben K from River Ave Blues.

1) Joba Chamberlain has pitched about 100 IP in each of the last two years and averages less than 6 IP a start last year.  Will he take the next step in 2009 as a starter – say 25+ games started, 175+ IP?

I think Joba’s ready to take the next big step as a starter in 2009, and he says the same thing. For starters, the Yanks have been — and will continue to be — ultra-cautious with Joba. They know they have something special, and they want to make sure that he fulfills his potential while staying healthy. That is something of a tall order. That said, since his injury in August, Joba has been prepping for this season, and he wants to make his 25-30 starts and thrown more than a 150 innings. While I don’t expect him to last a full 33-35 starts in the rotation this year simply because the Yanks will stick him on something of a limit, I see him at around 160 innings and playing a major role in the Yanks’ rotation.

2) Which Yankee is the best best to bounce back to 2007 form – Robinson Cano, Hideki Matsui, or Jorge Posada?

I have to go with Robbie Cano for this one. It would be great to see Hideki or Jorge bounce back to 2007, but Jorge’s 2007 was a career year. Catchers his age coming off shoulder surgery don’t bounce back to that level. He’ll be good but not that good. As for Matsui, I’m not sure what to expect.  Over the last three seasons, Matusi has averaged 95 games and the Yanks may be on borrowed time with him. Cano is young and has been working on his swing and timing this winter. He’s my go-to guy for comeback Yankee of the year.

3) How do you think the whole CF thing will play out between Melky, Swisher, and Gardner?

I don’t think Nick Swisher is in the center field picture. He was vocal in his dislike of center while in Chicago, and the Yanks know that. Swisher may be moved before the Hot Stove League is up, but in the end, it will come down to a good old fashioned spring training battle between Brett Gardner and Melky Cabrera. The hot hand out of Tampa wins the big job in the Bronx.

4) Do you think Sabathia and Burnett will live up to expectations in 2009?

Short answer: yes. Sabathia is expected to be a bulldog ace every five days, and there’s no reason he can’t do that. He’s been successful in the AL and NL and knows how to pitch. For Burnett, the expectations are slightly lower. He just needs to stay healthy and keep on beating the Red Sox. He can do that.

5) Which number is higher:  # of hot women that Derek Jeter has slept with, # of slutty women in Hideki Matsui’s porn collection, or # of manly women that A-Rod has paid to strip for him?

As Joe Torre has seemingly refused to trash “Joe’s guys” in his book, so must I go with the traditional Yankee. My money’s on Derek’s number being higher than A-Rod’s or Matsui’s. It’s good to be king of the Yankees in New York City.

We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere.  To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team.  We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway).  The 2009 Giants Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of McCovey Chronicles.

1)  Is Ishikawa the Giants 1st baseman for 2009? If not, who? If so, what can we expect from him?  “Better than Ryan Klesko” isn’t an answer.

He should get a bulk of the at-bats against right-handers, as his minor league history suggests he’s pretty useless against lefties. If the season were to start today, a lot of the at-bats at first would go to Josh Phelps, but I expect that the Giants will sign a right-handed hitter who can play both first and third. That will probably be Rich Aurilia, but there’s always a chance that the Giants will get Ty Wigginton or Nomar Garciaparra.

I wouldn’t expect a whole lot from Ishikawa. If I were to give an optimistic projection, it would be .260/.340/.450, with 18 HR. The pessimest in me says .230/.290/.390, and a trip to Fresno around June.

2)  Do the extra innings that Lincecum put on his arm in 2008 worry you?  Why or why not? (If necessary, feel free to include crazy anecdotes about how Lincecum’s father taught him to throw with an anvil so Lincecum will never break down.)

They don’t worry me more than the workload of any other young pitcher. Lincecum’s velocity was consistent late in games at the end of the season, so until there’s a data point other than “pitches thrown” to get me worried, I won’t be. Plus, as he can bend space and time, I’m sure he can control chaotic processes within his own genetic code. If he tears something, he’ll just make a new one with his mind.

3)  Please convince me Burriss or Velez will win the 2nd base job.

While either would make a cheap source for fantasy steals, the best real-life option would be Kevin Frandsen. Burriss’s value to the organization would probably be at its highest if he were a starting shortstop, so he needs defensive innings in AAA. Velez is a fast bag of antlers, I’ll give him that, but he’s pretty baseball-clueless. His defense is shoddy, at best, and he’ll never hit for average or power. He’ll make a good 25th-man someday, but that’s about it.

4)  What can we expect of Fred Lewis in 2009?

More of the same, I’d think. His batting average on balls in play was unusually high, so some folks think he’s due for a fall, but there still some room for growth to counteract any sort of regression to the mean. He took an awful lot of first pitch strikes, and might benefit from being a little more aggressive. Now that he’s a “middle-of-the-order threat” instead of a leadoff hitter, he’ll probably try and jump on first pitches more often to try and hit for a little more power, but I think any power improvement will be marginal. I’ll guess .280/.350/.470, with 14 home runs. If he bats third in the Giants’ lineup, though, he’ll get a fair number of RBIs.

5)  I think Brian Wilson will lose his job at some point in 2009.  Am I talking gibberish like the other famous Brian Wilson or are you concerned too?

I’m not too worried about Wilson. His stuff is nasty enough to make up for his wonky control. Unless his velocity dips, he’ll stick around. If he can cut his walk rate, he’ll become an elite closer. You could write that about 30+ relievers, but it’s especially true for Wilson. He has a 96-MPH fastball and an 89-MPH slider; if he has even average control, he’ll be a beast.

We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere.  To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team.  We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway).  The 2009 Reds Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of On Baseball and the Reds.

1) Jay Bruce. How excited are you about him for 2009? What are you expecting? Feel free to use exclamation points and run-on sentences.

….You know, I’m probably not the best person to ask this. The reason is that, somehow, I’ve never been quite as excited about Bruce as everyone else. The guy clearly has amazing talent, with great ability to hit the ball often, hard, and far. He’s also a solid defensive outfielder with a plus arm. He’s got a great personality, and even has this cool punch thing he does with his left arm to adjust his shirt sleeve when he’s waiting for a pitch. He’s a superstar in the making. But he also is a fairly impatient hitter, walking only marginally more often than Brandon Phillips last year and not a whole lot more in the minors. And he strikes out a lot, mostly because there are times when he’s just up their hacking away at anything. I think he absolutely has an opportunity to be spectacular, and maybe even will do it this year. But it’s also the case that his lack of patience and tendency to strike out (~25% of PA’s in the minors) may make it hard for him to employ all of his talents against major league pitching. Maybe I’m just letting my pessimism about the Reds invade my evaluations of Bruce, though. I sure hope he mashes this year.

2) Same question as number one, but now Joey Votto.

Votto was everything you could ever hope for last season. He was billed as a Justin Morneau player with a tad less power, and that’s essentially what we got–except that Votto is better defensively that Morneau. Fangraphs actually has them valued as almost exactly the same last season, with a slight edge for Votto (3.5 wins above replacement for Votto, 3.3 WAR for Morneau), mostly due to their defense (Morneau is absolutely the better hitter). Seems about right to me. The question with Votto is whether he can improve on his 2008 performance. I tend to think that what we saw from him is about what we can reasonably hope to get, and some of the better projection systems (CHONE, in particular) agree. If he can do what he did in 2008 every year for the next 5 years, I’ll be ecstatic.

3) I think in 2009 Cueto is going to be better than Volquez. Agree or disagree? Why?

I’ll disagree, but only marginally. Volquez was unbelievable last year, and while I think he’ll regress a bit, I still think he’s going to be a very good pitcher for us. Cueto should also improve–he all but skipped AAA and turned in a pretty decent season with good k/bb numbers. If he can avoid home runs a bit better this season, he could be right there with Volquez. … He does seem to be a fly ball pitcher, though, so homers are always going to be a problem. Especially playing in GABP. But when you add that pair to Harang and Arroyo, the Reds could very well have the best rotation in the division. My hope is that it’s a bright spot on the team. … mostly because that’s about the only spot I think we can reasonably hope to be bright.

4) After owning Aaron Harang on a few fantasy teams last year, I’m still walking like I was just jumping hurdles. Will Harang bounce back in 2009?

Not sure. I sure hope so. All of Harang’s peripherals slipped last season. I tend to believe the explanation that he was pitching through a hidden injury for at least a month, and he ultimately did have to go on the disabled list. A lot of people blame Dusty for that… I remember voicing some concern about bringing Harang back so soon after his relief appearance, but I think everyone (Dusty included) just figured Harang was a beast and could handle 239 pitches in three outings over eight days. Nothing we’d seen before then indicated that he was human, after all. He did finish strong (with the exception of that last start), which makes me feel optimistic. I do think he’ll be better in 2009. But I also think that the days of challenging for the league strikeout lead might be behind him. The guy’s going to be 31 in May. Most projection systems have him around a 4.10 ERA in 180-190 IP’s, and that seems like a reasonable hope to me.

5) If you overheard someone say, “Dusty Baker really knows how to manage a pitching staff.” Which mental disease would you think this person suffered from? Feel free to go into detail.

Nice. I do think that Dusty is really good at handling personalities in a clubhouse, including pitchers. So from that perspective, I guess this could be sort of true. And he’s probably better at managing the bullpen load than some other recent Reds managers (not saying much–some have been really bad at that). But there’s good evidence that he tends to push his starters pretty hard (the Reds had 4 guys in the top 30 in pitcher abuse points last season–though good pitchers tend to get a lot of PAP’s), and there are a fair number of arm injuries on his watch. Harang’s (hopefully) minor breakdown isn’t all his fault though–the rest of the organization had to be on board with letting him start that game so soon after his relief appearance. But it fits the general pattern we worried about when Dusty was hired, too. It’s also worth noting that Jeremy Affeldt, who last season was one of the team’s best relievers, pitched in an astonishingly low number of meaningful situations (pLI=0.56). It’s as if Dusty decides that a player will fill a particular role–in this case, middle relief/mop-up–and then can’t change his mind about it. Corey Patterson as a leadoff hitter is another example of the same problem…

We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2009 Nationals Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Fire Jim Bowden.

1) Which Bowden Fluffer are you the most excited about? And what do you expect from them in 2009?

Elijah Dukes. He has tremendous plate discipline for a player his age, very good on-base skills, and tremendous power. He gets a lot of negative press because of his track record, but from what we’ve seen in DC he’s been a good teammate and frankly pretty close to a model citizen. I’m more concerned about his ability to stay healthy than anything. In 2009, I think a .260 / .360 / .470 line is a totally reasonable projection, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see him beat that by 20 points in each category. If he stays healthy and gets 500 ABs, I think we’ll see 30+ homers, 100+ RBI, and an all-star game appearance.

2) Ryan Zimmerman seemed poised for a 30/100 year until last year’s limp-wristed year. What’s your prediction for him in 2009?

Zimmerman started slow, which has become a typical occurrence for him, and then had a shoulder injury that cost him two months and sapped almost all of his power for the next month after that. He finally hit his first dinger after the injury on August 27, and from that game on he ripped a .325 / .381 / .553 line. He’s not that good, but that’s a hell of a month for anyone. So I’m ready to toss out his 2008 as an aberration. That said, he isn’t a 300 / 100 guy. He’s a .280 BA, 20-25 HR guy who shouldn’t be hitting higher than 6th for a good team. And he’s one of the best defensive 3Bs in baseball. And he’s only 25. That’s a very valuable package, but a lot of people expect more because Bowden (as is his wont) way overhyped him when he was drafted, with comps to Mike Schmidt and Brooks Robinson. He always does that to players, and it’s so unfair. But whatever. This year I think CHONE’s projection for 2009 is a fair projection: 19 HR, 78 RBI, .289 BA / .364 OBP / .488 SLG. I’d be surprised if he did a lot better or worse than that, assuming he’s healthy.

3) Any optimism for the Nats staff? Any chance Scott Olsen or Daniel Cabrera are inspired by Obama and give us change we can believe in?

In a word, no. I dislike Scott Olsen as a player about as much as anyone in the Natmosphere. His K rates and velocity have been in free-fall. He’s gone from 8.27 K/9 in 2006 to 6.78 in ’07 to 5.04 in ’08, and he’s lost 3 mph off his fastball over that time. He’s a slight flyball pitcher also, and his command is ok but nothing fantastic. It’s just not a very good package. Last year he only survived in the Marlins’ rotation because of an unsustainably low .266 BABIP. Plus, he’s probably the worst teammate and one of the bigger head-cases in the league.

I don’t dismiss Cabrera’s chances quite as much as Olsen’s, but I don’t see him as anything more than a marginal fifth starter, and I don’t put any stock in his vaunted “upside.” He just can’t hit the strike zone–he improved slightly on his 5.11 career BB/9 last year, but at the same time his K/9 fell to 4.75. He’s just very hittable. Guys know he can’t get strikes with the slider and sit on his mistakes. A lot of people are putting stock in the move from the AL East, but it’s not like the Mets, Phillies, Marlins, and Braves are weak little sisters.

The team’s rap is that Olsen and Cabrera will be as good as Odalis Perez and Tim Redding but with upside. That’s poppycock. I actually would feel better about the team starting Jason Bergmann than either of these two, but Bowden’s hated him from the start, so that’s not going to happen. Frankly, I wouldn’t be at all suprised to see Olsen shipped off to Syracuse and Cabrera moved to the bullpen by the end of July.

4) Who gets more saves for the Nats in 2009? Hanrahanananan or Saul Rivera or wildcard?

Hanrahan will be the closer on Opening Day, and he’ll have to totally fall apart to lose the job. That could happen though. Last year was the first time in his pro career that he had any idea at all where the ball was going.

Rivera is an underappreciated gem. I know, middle relievers are pretty fungible commodities, but Rivera’s a groundball machine who never gives up the long ball and a total workhorse. I wanted him to close last year after the Rauch deal. But the team doesn’t see him as a closer because he doesn’t strike people out.

The wild card in my mind would be Garrett Mock. He should be given a shot at the rotation, but if he doesn’t get that he could be a back-end reliever. He’s been posting some very nice K-rates across every level since 2007, and last year he K-ed 10.1 per 9 in 41 MLB innings.

This team’s bullpen depth is really shaky. Who pitches the 7th inning for this team? Wil Ledezma? Jesus Colome? Steve Shell? Mike Hinckley? Nationals fans have been spoiled for years with stellar bullpens that have hidden our putrid rotations. That’s all over now. This year could be ugly.

I’d like to see Manny experiment with some less traditional bullpen usage this year. He doesn’t have any bullpen aces, so why not just play matchups? I don’t like the old Tony La Russa rigid 1-inning closer model anyway. But I’m not sure Manny has the vote of confidence from management that he’d need to push something so non-traditional.

One thing to watch is Chad Cordero. If he bounces back this year while the Nationals bullpen immolates, then you can go back to last July when Bowden humiliated Chief by announcing on sports talk radio 6 months before he had to that he’d be non-tendered without any notice to the player. Cordero said at the time that he was livid and unlikely ever to resign with the Nationals. Since then he’s been more forgiving, and he’s still out there, but I would be stunned to see him back, and I think the Nationals will miss him.

5) Your site is called Fire Jim Bowden. While Bowden certainly hasn’t distinguished himself as a GM, it is a tough economy and we hate to see someone unemployed. If no longer GM, what would you think would be a more suitable job for him?

He desperately craves the media spotlight, and although I find his personality grating I think he was a natural on Cold Pizza.

But if you’re asking about jobs in baseball, I think he would be a valuable asset as a scout. He has a decent eye for hitters, and there’s no question that he has a knack for finding useful role players in the major league trash heap. But that’s not nearly enough to build a winner, and he has no capacity whatsoever to think long-term and stick to a plan. Any fantasy baseball amateur could match his performance drafting pitchers. He doesn’t care a lick about defense. He’s literally never drafted a middle infielder who’s gotten so much as a cup of coffee in the majors ever. So I wouldn’t want him in charge of scouting and development, but if he was just a roving advance scout with a focus on finding young toolsy bats and undervalued veterans working for a guy like Jack Zduriencik or Pat Gillick he could contribute.

We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere.  To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2009 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team.  We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2009 Tigers Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Bill Ferris from The Detroit Tigers Weblog.

1) Last year’s acquisition of Edgar Renteria and Miguel Cabrera led to a defensive rotation that saw 3 regulars (Guillen, Cabrera, and Inge) bounce around the field.  Has the musical chairs ended?  Does Carlos Guillen really play the whole year in LF?

I think Guillen will get the most at-bats out there, but I’d see that being only about 60-65% or so. The impending injury to Gary Sheffield will likely free up the DH spot at some point and things will get shuffled around. I think he’ll likely fare okay  at the position, but it will be other factors that may force him to move (like the need for more offense in the infield for example).

2) What are your thoughts on Verlander and Bonderman for 2009?  Bounceback candidates or more challenges to come?

I expect more from both of them. I think Verlander will make the tweak or two he needs to regain his control. Plus he didn’t pitch that badly in terms of his peripherals last year, I’d expect some natural regression (progression) towards his FIP numbers. Bonderman I think will be a big boost to the rotation. He’s had injury problems the last 2 years, but last year’s injury should have him available to pitch the bulk of the season. Plus it gave his elbow some extra rest and I think he’ll be healthier and more effective than at any point in his career.

3) Would you take the over or under on the following HR/RBI projections:  Miguel Cabrera 35/110, Gary Sheffield 20/80, Magglio Ordonez 20/100, Adam Everett 2/40?

Over, Under, Over, Push.

4) Who ends up with more saves:  Fernando Rodney, Brandon Lyon, or Joel Zumaya?

Brandon Lyon. If Zumaya is healthy I think he’ll be the guy ultimately, but given that is such a big IF I’m penciling him in for 0 at the moment.

5) My blogmate Grey sports an impressive moustache.  Rank the moustaches of these noteworthy Detroit Tigers baseball cap wearers:  Jack Morris, Jim Leyland, Kirk Gibson, Chet Lemon, Magnum PI?

Great question. Tom Selleck in a landslide followed by Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson, Jim Leyland and lastly Chet Lemon. As an aside, I saw Tom Selleck hit a couple balls out during batting practice at Tiger Stadium one time and this is one of my favorite TV scenes of all time (see below)