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 Cubs Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Hire Jim Essian.
1) Give me an over under on games played for Alfonso Soriano. And are you taking the over or under?
In the regular season, 140.5, and I’ll take the over. In the postseason, 3.5, and I’ll take the under.
2) Who’s the Cubs closer? (If you say Marmol, please explain why the Cubs got Gregg.)
Carlos Marmol. The Cubs only got Kevin Gregg so Sean Marshall wouldn’t be the ugliest pitcher on the staff any more. This is, of course, assuming that Michael Wuertz is in AAA this year.
3) George Steinbrenner once called Dave Winfield, “Mr. May.” Is it fair to call Derrek Lee, “Mr. April?” Where has his power gone?
“Mr. April” is unfair, but “Mr. June” is accurate. I’m going to go ahead and continue blaming Jim Hendry for Lee’s loss of power. If Hendry had pulled the trigger and signed Rafael Furcal prior to the 2006 season, Furcal would have never drunkenly staggered into Lee’s wrist, breaking it and sapping Lee of all his power. Plus, the Sports Corner would have never gone out of business if Furcal lived in Chicago. If the collision with Furcal isn’t the sole cause of the drop in power, I expect the phantom slap fight Lee had with Chris Young finished the job of neutering Lee. It’s not easy to put much of a charge into a ball when you’re hoping one of your teammates will get between it and you before you swing.
4) Geovany Soto’s projections from Bill James 71/23/89/.293 from CHONE 56/17/73/.279. Which do you think is more accurate?
Who the hell does Chone Figgins think he is? A mathematician? My KERMIT projections are more accurate than both. I assume those numbers are Runs/Home Runs/RBIs/BAC after the Cubs win the World Series, so I’ll go with 100/30/105/.342 Those numbers assume that the Cubs sign Paul Bako, forcing Lou Piniella to play Soto in 160 games.
5) The guy from Saw becomes a baseball fan and makes you choose between a brain operation that makes you no longer enjoy the Cubs and sausage sanwiches or he’ll remove a testicle and the Cubs win the World Series. Which operation do you choose?
Trick question. The guy from Saw is dead. OR IS HE? Those movies suck. A brain operation that takes away the number one source of stress in my life and lowers my cholesterol sounds good, but brain surgery is a lot more dangerous than testicle surgery. Plus, as Felix Pie knows, sometimes the guys are way more trouble than they’re worth. Take the ball from me, just like Lou should have done to Ryan Dempster after the fourth inning of Game One.
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 Blue Jays Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Drunk Jays Fans.
1) There may be no player more consistently frustrating in fantasy baseball as Vernon Wells. He was awesome in 2003 and 2006. Will he continue the ‘every third year’ pattern in 2009 or just be frustrating again?
If I were a betting man– and I am– I’d bet that Vernon’s 2009 will be his most outstanding year since ’06. Not that it will be difficult, but he was actually quite good when healthy last year (121 OPS+), and ’07 was really a write-off because he was playing with a cyst in his shoulder that completely threw off his swing. Plus, the Jays have been written off even earlier this year than usual, so maybe there’s reason to believe he won’t struggle under the weight of his ridiculous contract. Of course, I wouldn’t be shocked if he was brutal again, but I do expect to see Good Vernon this year.
2) Alex Rios is one of those power/speed guys that gets fantasy baseball players all tingly. He upped his SBs last year (from 17 to 32) but fell back in HRs (from 24 to 15). Is he just a 6’5″ Carl Crawford or can he follow in the 25/25 footsteps of illustrious Blue Jays like Raul Mondesi, Jose Cruz. Jr, and Shawn Green?
The belief seems to be that Cito Gaston and crew really helped Rios improve when they arrived last year, and the hope is that his progress will carry over into 2009. I’m leery of giving too much credit to hitting coaches, and it feels more than a little bit ridiculous to still be thinking of Rios as a developing player, but the splits are encouraging: .285/.337/.401 with 4 HR and 23 SB in the first half .299/.336/.540 with 11 HR and 9 SB in the second. I expect to see a Rios more like the latter in ’09, so getting to 25 SBs might actually be the more difficult proposition. Likely he falls just short of both– but if he do that and add in 47 doubles again, I’m not going to complain.
3) Dustin McGowan has been called the ‘next Roy Halladay’ but his 2008 was more like the ‘next Juan Guzman’. Can he live up to the Halladay comparisons in 2009?
Having watched Halladay pitch all these years, and hearing all of the stories about his focus and his drive and his work ethic, I think it’s extraordinarily unfair to label any young pitcher the ‘next Roy Halladay’. Roy is simply not human. McGowan has outstanding pure stuff, but it’s been a long process for him, and the shoulder injury that will keep him out until May is another big setback (he had Tommy John in 2004). Unfortunately, 2009 is not going to be the year he makes Jays fans stop worrying about Halladay’s contract nearing an end, and I expect more growing pains. So I guess for now I have to say he looks more like the next Juan Guzman– but if you look only at Guzman’s six best seasons, that’s really not so bad (just please don’t look at the other four– I wish I never had to).
4) What Blue Jay will be the biggest fantasy baseball surprise in 2009?
Aaron Hill shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, because he showed what he can do in 2007, but he’s definitely a sleeper candidate in most formats– especially since his numbers before the concussion last year weren’t great. He’ll definitely be closer to his 2007 numbers. But if I really want to be a pie in the sky optimist, I’d say Scott Rolen. I’m sure plenty of fantasy players have been burned on being optimistic about a Rolen resurgence before, but the word here is that he completely reworked his swing last year, lessening the load on his bum shoulder. The sample size is small, but if you look at his numbers after he came back off the DL for good last August (.298/.350/.532 with 4 HR and 8 doubles in 27 games), it makes you at least a little bit hopeful if you’re a Jays fan. I figure he’s worth a flier– no, seriously.
5) From the perspective of an occasionally sober Yankee fan, JP Ricciardi seems like a giant douchebag (see Adam Dunn Radio Serenade, BJ Ryan’s Spinjury) who has sucked more milk from the Moneyball teet than even Billy Beane or Michael Lewis. Can you share the Drunk Jays fan perspective on this guy? Do you find yourself longing for Pat Gillick?
Actually, we tend to go against the grain on a lot of things, because we find that the prevailing opinion among most Jays fans is almost always retarded. Nobody is thrilled with the way that the Ricciardi era has gone, but we acknowledge that the reasons run deeper than just what Ricciardi has done. Right now, we have much bigger issues with ownership, which is a telecommunications company worth tens of billions and much safer than most companies from the economic downturn, who insist on crying poor at a time when they could dig change from their couch cushions and get some outstanding value on the free agent market. As for JP, we may be biased because he’s fun as hell to write about, but generally we’ll defend him, or at least try to find some kind of reasoning behind the decisions he makes. That is, unless it’s as flagrantly stupid as the Dunn comments. Guy does come off like a dick, but he goes on the radio every week and takes calls from fans, which he completely gets bonus points for, and the big thing, it seems, is being willing to accept that 99% of what he says is spin, and the other 1% is probably spin. It’s easy to get down on him for the lack of success, but he’s built an excellent group of pitchers, and in the last couple of years if more than just a couple of hitters could have actually managed to play to their potential, things would seem quite different.
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 Phillies Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of The Fightins.
1) Will Ryan Howard hit above .260 in 2009?
Yes. Yes he will.
Even I, the staunch Ryan Howard defender, can’t possibly begin to explain what the hell was going on with him at the start of 2008. By the end of May, the greatest power hitter in baseball was batting a dismal .206 with 78 punchouts; well on his way to obliterating the single-season strikeout record. He spent the better part of the summer trying to boost that first number while lowering the second. Over the next 4 months, he regained that MVP swagger and wound up hitting .273 with just 121 K’s in twice the amount of at-bats that he had in April and May.
I don’t think it would be asking too much to expect those same type of numbers throughout a full season in 2009.
For some odd reason, many baseball fans — especially in Philadelphia — don’t give Howard the propers he deserves. They think the strikeouts are way too high and average way too low, therefore dismissing the brute strength that has been known to deposit poorly-placed fastballs 25 rows deep in right field.
Me on the other hand, I have faith in the big guy. I’ll gladly take the behemoth who hits 175 homers in 3½ years, thankyouverymuch.
The point of baseball is to score more runs than the opposing team. Nobody will help you do this on a nightly-basis better than he. Because Ryan Howard just doesn’t produce — he PRODUCE.
2) When will Chase Utley return? How do you think the surgery will change his game?
Your guess is as good as mine. I assume he’ll miss the first month of the season, but then again, this is Chase F*cking Utley we’re talking about. Towards the end of last year, you could really notice how the hip was bothering him. He’d swing at pitches he usually crushes and put his head down right away knowing he didn’t get enough of it.
Chase’s offseason training regimen is sick, though. By the end of next year, he’ll put up his usual line of .300+ BA/30+ HR/100+ RBI/100+ Runs and everyone will forget he was injured in the first place.
3) Cole Hamels avoided injuries and got above 30 starts in 2008. But does the 262 innings in 2008 worry you? Can he stay healthy in 2009?
Yes, the increase in innings are definitely a cause for concern.
I wouldn’t dare call Cole Hamels soft (blasphemy!), but his stick-like frame and injury history would lead one to believe that a repeat performance is nearly impossible. As long as it’s nothing major, we (and by “we” I mean “the Phillies and I”) should have enough above-average pitching available (Happ, Kendrick, Carrasco) to come in and fill the void if need be.
But until he actually gets injured, I will go on believing that Cole Hamels is a cot damn iron man who will show up every fifth (or sixth) day with that outstanding change-up of his and continue to baffle MLB hitters.
Plus, he’s so dreamy!
4) The Phillie fans were notoriously hard on Mike Schmidt and Scott Rolen yet they don’t boo Pedro Feliz. Is this because his name translates to Pete Happy or is there another reason?
There is definitely another reason, and I’m pretty sure it has something to do with being the least productive member of the greatest run-producing infield ever assembled. While Schmidt and Rolen were supposed to be the team’s main source of offense, Pete Happy is best served playing in the shadow of guys like Chase, Young James, and Big Brown.
The reason Phillies fans were so hard on Mike Schmidt and Scott Rolen was simple: they loved to complain. When a player in Philadelphia bitches about the fans, or the way they are being treated, the fans repay those players by booing the ever-loving shit out of them. Over time, we have forgiven Schmidt. He was a sensitive fellow, but at the end of the day, he was THEE greatest third baseman to ever play. Rolen on the other hand, was, is, and always shall be, a joyless prick with loads of talent who never lived up to his potential. At least now he gets to revel in the obscurity of playing for Toronto.
It’s just how he likes it, too. When no one pays attention to you, no one complains.
Say what you want about Feliz, but he was an unsung hero during the playoffs who — might I add — smacked the game-winning hit in the deciding contest of the World Series. And his glove work makes up for the fact that he can’t hit an off-speed pitch to save his life.
Seriously, why do pitchers even bother throwing him fastballs?
5) Because Raul Ibanez is boring, we’re going to end this with a Pat Burrell question. It’s rumored that Pat Burrell was the man back in college days, earning the nickname, ‘Pat The Bat.’ (My girlfriend was a Sugarcane, the baseball team’s cheerleaders at University of Miami, and Burrell slept with a bunch of her friends. I refuse to believe she was one of them.) So a friend of yours calls you up from a bar to tell you your wife/girlfriend is talking with a player. Are you more worried if it’s Burrell or Brett Myers?
Rumored?!!?? That’s a FACT, brother.
Stories of Pat’s philandering — especially in his early days — are legendary around these parts. If you happen to run into an attractive girl under 30 in the Tri-State area, chances are Pat has slept with her, one of her good-looking friends, or both at the same time. Phils broadcaster Harry Kalas even told a story this year how teammates used to call him “Pat the Bait” because they would take him to a bar just so they could sample his leftovers. His LEFTOVERS!
The sad truth is, if you see your girlfriend/wife chatting it up with Pat Burrell in a bar, let her go man. It’s over.
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 Cardinals Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of C70 At The Bat: A St. Louis Cardinals Blog.
1) What should we expect from Colby Rasmus for 2009? Will he start the year with the Cards? If not, when will he be called up?
Rasmus’s status is still up in the air. The feeling is that the front office is looking to trade an outfielder for a pitcher, but that may not happen until spring training when teams can see some of them in action, especially Chris Duncan. If no trades happen, there’s a strong possibility Rasmus starts at Memphis since he still has options. However, I believe they’ll do everything they can to get him in St. Louis for Opening Day.
As for what to expect from him? I’m not the best at projections, but you should probably expect a slow start. His pattern has been to get off to one at every level he’s been at before taking off and hitting like the best prospect in the system should. If he plays regularly in St. Louis, I’d guess around .260 with 15 HR and maybe 10-15 steals as well.
2) Can Ryan Ludwick repeat his 2008?
Repeat it? Probably not. Approach it? I think so. Ludwick was highly rated as he came up through the minor league system, but he’s never been able to stay completely healthy and get a shot. I don’t think 30 HR is completely out of the question, though his average may not be in the .300 range again. Remember, though, it took until June or so for LaRussa to stop platooning him and let him play every day. He’ll be the everyday starter from day 1 this year, so there is a chance he could repeat or improve on last year. Just not a real strong one in my book.
3) True or False, Chris Carpenter leads the 2009 Cardinals in saves. (If false, who? Perez? Motte? Someone else?)
False. In fact, I venture to say that Chris Carpenter won’t be used out of the bullpen at all in ’09. I think odds are that Perez will lead the team in saves, but I’m not sure he’ll be the dedicated closer. Motte may get quite a number, Franklin may get a few (hopefully not too many opportunities) and McClellan may even close a few games out.
4) If Wainwright starts 30 games, what will his stats look like?
Assuming the bullpen has improved, which it looks to me like it has, I’d think something in the line of a 16-6 record, an ERA around 3.50, 140 K, maybe 65 walks. Wainwright should continue to work himself into the discussions of best young pitchers in 2009.
5) In Tonyball, LaRussa talks a bit about his unconventional style of managing, “If I really need a starter, I’ll just convert a reliever or a minor league catcher or shortstop. The best pitcher I ever coached was Shawon Dunston – if I had him 10 years earlier, he’d have been a Hall of Fame pitcher.” So my question to you is, which current Cardinal hitter is a better pitcher than Joel Pineiro?
That sounds very LaRussian. The whole organization must have caught on, because a number of no-hit catchers are being turned into pitchers in the minors. In fact, Jason Motte was one of those, and you see how well that has worked out so far.
As for current hitters that should take the mound…..if Aaron Miles hadn’t packed up and moved Chicago way, he’d be the obvious choice due to his mopup work the last couple of years from the bump. You’d never want to see it happen, but if Albert Pujols took his same intensity and focus to the mound, he could be the next Bob Gibson. The Cardinal fan base has been talking about an idea to move Schumaker to second base. Maybe he needs to keep going and just take over that fifth spot in the rotation…..
