Who is Jose Reyes — your great auntie who huffs and puffs to the mailbox in hopes the Cake of the Month Club package arrived? Does he have dishpan hands and varicose veins? Maybe Reyes overdosed on Mr. Burns’s nerve tonic like Ken Griffey Jr. Jose Reyes has a bad thyroid. Carlos Beltran has a bad knee. The Mets’s injury list looks like a BBW convention. What’s next, David Wright has adult-onset diabetes?
Please, blog, may I have some more?2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft
This post is not meant to scream fire in the theater of Razzball. I’m not saying don’t draft these guys. I’m not unfriending them. (I would hide all of their stupid Mafia Wars updates. Okay, quick rant, I have a friend who emailed everyone that he just had a kid. Yay for him, I know. So I emailed him back congrats that the kid doesn’t look like his wife. Then I go onto Facebook and he just won a cannoli or some shizz on Mafia Wars. He just got home from the hospital with his newborn and he’s warring with 12-year-olds hiding behind fictitious Mafioso personalities? Nice. I wonder in forty years if his kid will email me saying his Dad died then start playing an online video game.) I’m just saying you need to be aware of certain concerns that I’ve kept to myself about these players. I’m unburdening myself. My shrink says it’s good for me. I still like these players; I just want you to have the whole picture. Anyway, here’s some concerns for 2010 fantasy baseball:
Miguel Montero – Concern: Snyder. I’m worried that Chris Snyder might see more ABs than anyone thinks he will. Montero sits one game a week? We’re cool. Snyder gets two games a week and suddenly Montero will be lucky to match last year’s numbers, forget eclipsing them.
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What’s quirkier than a relief pitcher? I’ll tell you what: a stubborn 3-legged beagle. Success as a set-up reliever is so overlooked in real life baseball as well as fake life baseball. These guys are weird; they have crazy superstitions, wear bass-ackwards numbers, and have their own theme music.
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Razzball Point Shares are now up for the following 5×5 league formats:
Point Shares are our proprietary methodology for ranking players. See here for a primer. If you’re in a rush or don’t care to read a methodology post, these rankings estimate a player’s impact on a team’s points vs.
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The murmurs of Heath Bell getting traded to another team by July are getting louder. (BTW, I love the word murmurs. I really wanted the survivors on Lost to call The Others, The Murmurs. Wouldn’t that have been awesome?! Okay, maybe me.) Prepare for a dozen or so posts titled, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” at some of our weak sister sites. And by “weak sister,” I’m talking prison slang and I mean ESPN. I moved Bell down one whole spot. I’m not worried in March about someone who might get traded in July. He will probably drop one or two spots each month until July. If you get 23 saves, a 1.69 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 42 Ks in 37 1/3 innings pre-All-Star Break, you’ll be mad you drafted him? Bee tee dubya, those were his 1st half numbers last year. Then who knows where he goes. Maybe Lidge and Madson finally give Manuel a coronary and Bell takes over the closing duties in Philly as Victorino player-manages. Or maybe Bell goes somewhere else. You get the picture; it’s still early. Don’t overestimate-slash-overthink-slash-overrate… Just don’t “over” anything. Anyway, here’s all of the closers for your fantasy baseball team, as of right now:
$12 Salads
You know that restaurant your girlfriend/wife/what-have-you likes to go to that charges, like, $12 for a salad?
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Okay, who put Jerry Blevins 498th? He’s the greatest LOOGY of all-time… OF ALL-TIME. Kanye shrug. We’re using Yahoo for our Fantasy Razzball leagues. (You can win a mother-bleepin’ hot tub; are you kidding me? Seriously. Yes, I brought out the one word, “Seriously,” sentence, then brought out the expository sentence to mention I brought out the one word, “Seriously,” sentence.) Yahoo’s drafting and fantasy baseball team setup-ma-whosies is fine. ESPN has its minuses, Yahoo has its pluses, then read that again in the mirror. And just like there were problems with ESPN’s fantasy baseball rankings, I have issues with Yahoo’s. I can’t go over every single difference of opinion, but you could just go to my 2010 fantasy baseball top 300 and use that. Or go to the Point Shares and use that. Or buy me an all-exclusive trip to Dubai and I’ll draft for you while skiing in a mall. Sheik, if you want to go to the food court, may I suggest the ski lift? That sounds splendid, I hope they have Chik-Fil-A.
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Between the two middle infield positions, I tend to draft a 2nd baseman early and punt shortstop. This happens for a few reasons. 1) 2nd base has more talent. That’s right, I draft the deeper position earlier. Same reason I punt catchers and try to get a 1st baseman early. If a position is deep, a lot of your leaguemates are going to have one of the top guys. You don’t want to be one of the 3 or 4 teams without a top guy. 2) There’s less difference between a middle-tiered shortstop and a bottom-tiered one. 3) Shortstops tend to give value with the steal. You can find cheap steals later. Most of the 2nd basemen on this list are going after the top 100 in your 2010 fantasy drafts. This is a supplement to the top 20 2nd basemen of 2010 fantasy baseball.
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For these pairings, I’m going to be using our 2010 fantasy baseball rankings. Notably, the top 20 starters for 2010 fantasy baseball, top 40 starters for 2010, top 60 starters for 2010 and the top 80 starters for 2010. Okay, now that we have our links and shizz done. What is a pitcher pairing? It’s how you plan on putting together a fantasy staff. It’s a plan of action. If you have A pitcher, which B, C and D pitcher goes with him? You should have six starters. The sixth starter is Jonathan Sanchez or take whoever you want. I suggest an upside pick. Jonathan Sanchez comes to mind. Sanchez, Sanchez, Sanchez… The fifth starter will be covered below. I’m going to assume you’re in a 12 team, 5×5 and some variation of 9 Pitchers league. (NOTE: What you are about to read is massively confusing. If it were found scribbled in a notebook, the FBI would be watching me. But to add more confusion, every time I say Wandy/Bills tier, you can also include Matt Cain’s tier in there.) Anyway, here’s some pairings for pitching staffs for 2010 fantasy baseball drafts:
TIERS
Tim Lincecum – There’s very little chance I have Lincecum on any of my teams, but if I do have him, I wouldn’t take another pitcher until around Wandy tier of the top 40 starters. Then I’d grab two guys from the flier tier of Cueto/Buchholz. Finally, I’d finish my staff off with — that just sounded like a phone sex operator — a total flier in the Homer Bailey tier. So Lincecum, Billingsley, Cueto, Anderson, Bailey and Sanchez. This is a pretty wonky staff, but Lincecum gives you that flexibility.
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Some of you will be drafting your fantasy baseball teams over at ESPN and that’s cool. I don’t mind their drafting and league setups. Plus, they’re free. If you don’t like your team, do like 98% of the other people at ESPN and abandon your team in May. But when you’re drafting at ESPN, you’re confronted by their rankings. It’s important to know what they’re saying, so you can exploit the rankings for your greater good. I’m going off my top 100 for 2010 fantasy baseball and top 300. So here’s some random turd nuggets from the ESPN 2010 fantasy baseball rankings:
Carl Crawford – 8 at ESPN, 19 here. Before Miggy Cabrera, Tex, Longoria, Howard… Buh-but, Grey, isn’t 1st base deep?
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The duality of man:
It’s all Peaches and Herb when you can get the best out of both worlds. Well, fantasy baseball wise that’s either “Martin Prado” good or “Jerry Hairston” awkward. For fantasy pitching, a guy doesn’t necessarily become more draftable based on dual position, but I’m here to “learn” you something about spot starting from the RP spot.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
