Fantasy Baseball Advice

Grey and Rudy are letting me run a team for Razzball, and I’m totally pumped about it.  See, this is my first venture into the realm of expert leagues or writer’s leagues or whatever the hell you wanna call them and the pressure on a rookie like me is enormous.  Grey told me I can only cover White Sox prospects if I don’t finish in the top eight.  I feel like Andrew Luck or something… probably bigger than that, actually.  Anyway.  The auction happened a couple Thursdays ago and my strategy was simple:  don’t look stupid.  I’m not quite sure if I’ve succeeded in that regard.  You tell me.  Click here to see the complete auction results.

Format:  14 teams, mixed, roto, 5×5 – C, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, Util, SP, RP, P, P, P, P, P, P, P, BN, BN, BN, DL, DL, DL, DL, DL

C – Joe Mauer $14

C – John Buck $1

1B – Ike Davis $12

2B – Ian Kinsler $34

3B – Mark Reynolds $10

SS – Asdrubal Cabrera $14

MI – Daniel Murphy $4

CI – Mike Carp $3

OF – Ryan Braun $43

OF – Michael Bourn $23

OF – Yoenis Cespedes $7

OF – Carlos Beltran $7

OF – Nick Markakis $8

U – Colby Rasmus $3

–

SP – Matt Cain $20

RP – Joe Nathan $8

P – Stephen Strasburg $20

P – Matt Thornton $7

P – Ted Lilly $4

P – Justin Masterson $3

P – Colby Lewis $3

P – Edinson Volquez $4

P – Gavin Floyd $2

Bench – Sergio Romo $1

Bench – Phil Hughes $3

Bench – Vance Worley $2

My goal was to stay on budget.  I targeted a $180/$80 split between hitting and pitching and I ended up at $183/$77.  Not bad.  I also wanted to make sure I had some dough left near the end in order to ensure I could buy a few of my favorite sleepers for $2 or $3.  This plan backfired.  Not that I didn’t have money near the end – I had plenty – but rather, there was literally no one left who I wanted for two bucks.  That’s the reason you see purchases like Phil Hughes for $3 and Vance Worley for $2.  Spend it if you got it, right?  Hell yeah I’ll bid you up on an injured Mike Carp – I still have twelve bucks left to spend on three negative-value players.  No point in leaving dollars out there. 

Favorite Buys

I was pleased to get Braun at $43, especially when six guys – Tulo ($49), Miggy ($49), Kemp ($46), Bautista ($46), Pujols ($45), Cano ($44) – went for more.  I thought I got great value across my entire outfield, actually.  Beltran is a health risk, sure, but I’ll take on that risk for $7 – upside is worth twice that, at least.  I also love the flexibility Daniel Murphy provides in a deep CI/MI league like this.  I’ll take him for four bucks any day.

Least Favorite Buys

Ted Lilly and Mike Carp are on the DL and I spent a combined $7 on the two.  The league has five DL slots, so this isn’t a killer, but I’m certainly not thrilled.  I knew Lilly was having issues when I bought him, but I was hopeful he wouldn’t end up on the DL.  I’m also growing increasingly skeptical on Volquez.  He was one of those I’ve-got-a-lot-of-money-left-so-I-might-as-well-pay-for-the-upside guys near the end of the auction.

Most Important Thing To Note

This is just the beginning.  Drafting is certainly the most exciting component of the fantasy baseball season, but it’s not the most important.  Any winning team I’ve had in the past has been based on in-season management.  I enjoy the grind of the baseball season and I’m sure that by mid-season my team will look quite different from how it appears at this moment.  Of course, I’ve never been up against such a knowledgeable group of competitors.  I’m looking forward to see how my skills stack up.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

I’m not putting that title up there to brag.  That’s really the name of the league.  But within a few rounds of bidding I tittered like a little school girl when Troy Tulowitzki went for $42 and Miguel Cabrera went for only $40 as proof that even Gods don’t do everything right.  I mean, have you seen what a platypus looks like?  But I digress, the draft didn’t go as perfectly as I wanted but I don’t feel bad about the end result.  With it being a 14 team league with no bench positions except for two DL spots, having a strong hitting crew was important; so important I broke a bit from the 180/80 strategy posted here.  I overspent by about $20 on hitting and left $3 on the table when it was done.  In hindsight, looking over my pitching staff and that remainder on the table, I wish I’d thrown a couple more bucks at Jordan Zimmermann who went for $12, but that’s what auction drafts are for: 20/20 thoughts about a time when you weren’t as strapped for cash as you perceived.  For the list of the entire draft results, click here.  Fooled!  Sorry, they didn’t make the league public but you should still click on that link for random awkwardness.  Now without further ado or foofaraw, here were the experts:

Razzball – ONC

FP911.com – Rich Wilson

FP911.com – Paul Greco

RotoRob – Tim McLeod

CBS Sports – Scott White

Fantasy Alarm – Ryan Hallam

Fantasy Baseball Sherpa – Bob S and Scott Swanay

Fantasy Sports Empires – Jeff Boggis

FantasyBaseball.com – Chris McDonnell

FB Tonight – RC Rizza and Todd Farino

FB365 – Charlie Saponara

RotoExperts.com – Dave Gawron

The Fantasy Man – Mike Kuchera

TPFS Baseball – Mike Myers

 

Full disclaimer here: I was a little nervous at first.  I mean, I was drafting to represent Razzball here.  I had a quick ‘palms sweaty, mom’s spaghetti’ moment as I had two spreadsheets on the right screen, draft on the left screen with my two hands on the keyboard and my third hand reaching for a slice of pizza.  Well, at least that’s what I must’ve been thinking when I ordered one.  Barely got a bite when nominations were posted and were alotting 15 seconds to bid.  But more to the ‘stop whining ONC, we don’t care just bring us the goods’ point: my offense is stacked.  Like a game of Jenga where the blocks haven’t been moved stacked.  With there being no bench, that’s important.  I can stream pitchers if I need it, but it’s harder to stream hitters.  I will probably move a bat in the near future for at least one solid arm to go with my core staff of Anibal Sanchez, Brandon Beachy, Shaun Marcum, and Ubaldo Jimenez but the trade will be on my terms.  I wanted guys like Zack Greinke and Madison Bumgarner but couldn’t justify their respective $25 and $20 pricetags.  The lone regret of my crew was the dreaded click slip – an embarassment on par with Tara Reid’s nip slip if she hadn’t been too coked out to notice - as I went to nominate Max Scherzer and wound up with Neftali Feliz for a $1.  I quickly fixed this, grabbing Henry Rodriguez for K’s and saves potential but did curse at the screen for a bit afterwards.  Thankfully, everyone had left work by that time or I might have been visiting HR the next day.

True to form from my catchers post, I treated my backstops like pole dancers, throwing singles at Josh Donaldson and Wilin Rosario at the end which oddly matched my keeper league catchers for the year.  I was saved from spending any money on Ryan Doumit when a mini-bidding war for his services came to pass, pushing his price up to $7 at the end of the draft.  I don’t have extremely high hopes for either of my guys but with how the rest of my offense came to be and how much Doumit went for – especially with the Justin Morneau as near full-time DH news – I don’t have to worry much about it.  My Evan Longoria steal left me feeling saucy.  So saucy, I actually dove right in on Hanley Ramirez when he came up and then shocked myself with a $17 Starlin Castro.  Auctions make for weird drafting patterns.  Its from SS I feel I have a good chance to grab myself a solid starter via trade if I need it.  I really wanted one of the top end first basemen but the prices were just too high to justify so I ended up with the savvy veteran – code word for ‘old as the hills’ – Paul Konerko for $17.  Not my most favorite pick, but even if he gets me 25 HRs and a .275 average, I don’t see a reason to complain.  With Eric Hosmer going for $30 and my Paul Goldschmidt and Mat Gamel pickups only costing me $11 in total, I’ve left myself plenty of trade space with Konerko as well.

Based on CBS projections and going off of this helpful Razzball post, we’re a little light in steals (148), almost in line with runs (1021), up on average (.274) & RBIs (1039) and flat out obliterating HRs (305) for a 14 team league.  As to be expected based off the draft, we’re behind on our pitching stats at the moment in wins (83), saves (66) and ERA (3.65) but are still far ahead in strikeouts (1226) and good in WHIP (1.24).  Considering there is no innings cap, we can stream for wins as needed and where appropriate.  As far as saves and steals well…SAGNOF suckas!  All and all, a bit off the beaten strategy path but still a team set to compete in a roto setting for 2012.

 

ONC’s BOTFG Auction Draft Results
Position	Player	Pick/Price
C	Josh Donaldson	19/$1
C	Wilin Rosario	23/$1
1B	Paul Konerko	6/$17
2B	Dan Uggla	8/$19
3B	Evan Longoria	1/$31
SS	Hanley Ramirez	2/$34
MI	Starlin Castro	4/$17
CI	Paul Goldschmidt	14/$8
OF	Jay Bruce	9/$20
OF	Josh Hamilton	3/$25
OF	B.J. Upton	5/$18
OF	Vernon Wells	22/$2
OF	Alex Presley	21/$1
DH	Mat Gamel	16/$3
P	Brandon Beachy	7/$14
P	Anibal Sanchez	10/$12
P	Chris Perez	13/$6
P	Sean Marshall	12/$5
P	Shaun Marcum	15/$5
P	Ubaldo Jimenez	11/$12
P	Ryan Dempster	17/$4
P	Scott Baker	20/$1
P	Neftali Feliz	18/$1

 

We participated for the 3rd year in a row in Yahoo’s Friends & Family draft – a melange of 6 Yahoos, 3 Rotowire peeps, 1 Baseball Prospectus writer (Baseball Prospector?), 1 HardballTimes.com guy, a WSJournalist and us.  Count ‘em up – it’s 13 people this year.  Anyone can play 12 or 14 team leagues but only ‘perts can manage 13.

After a promising 3rd place finish in our rookie campaign, last year’s team stunk of sophomore jinx – finishing 10th out of 14th.  Contributing factors include drafting Justin Morneau/Pedro “Ceranno” Alvarez with our 5th/6th round picks and putrid SAGNOF bets (Lyon and Rodney!).

The most unique aspect of this league is the 1,250 IP cap.  For comparison’s sake, the average team in our 2011 Razzball Commenter Leagues had 1,341 IP.  This ~100 IP difference leads most teams to roster one less SP in favor of an MR.  Other ‘non-expert’ aspects of the league are:  daily roster changes (vs. weekly), snake draft (vs. auction), and unlimited FA pickups (no Free Agent $ limit).  This tends to play into Grey’s hands as he’s the Tony La Russa to my Jim Leyland.

Below is our team and here are the full draft results.

Position	Player	Round/Pick
C	Russell Martin	R25 Pick 319
1B	Joey Votto	R1 Pick 7
2B	Neil Walker	R14 Pick 176
SS	Alexei Ramirez	R10 Pick 124
3B	Mike Moustakas	R12 Pick 150
OF	Andrew McCutchen	R2 Pick 20
OF	Adam Jones	R5 Pick 59
OF	Shin-Soo Choo	R6 Pick 72
OF	Colby Rasmus	R16 Pick 202
OF	Michael Brantley	R17 Pick 215
1B/3B	Lance Berkman	R8 Pick 96
2B/SS	Gordon Beckham	R23 Pick 293
UTIL	Alex Presley	R19 Pick 241
SP	Cliff Lee	R3 Pick 33
SP	CC Sabathia	R4 Pick 46
SP	Brandon Beachy	R7 Pick 85
SP	Tommy Hanson	R13 Pick 163
SP	Colby Lewis	R20 Pick 254
SP	Hiroki Kuroda	R24 Pick 306
RP	Carlos Marmol	R9 Pick 111
RP	Jason Motte	R11 Pick 137
RP	David Robertson	R15 Pick 189
Bench RP	Mike Adams	R18 Pick 228
Bench RP	David Hernandez	R21 Pick 267
Bench SS	Stephen Drew	R22 Pick 280

Draft notes:

• Picks 1-2: This was my third snake draft of the year (15-team LABR, Razzball Expert league) and 7th was the earliest pick I’ve had (Grey got 7th in the Razzball expert league, I had 10th).  This position had worked out well for me by nabbing a 1B (Votto/A-Gonz) and Longoria on the turn.  We got the 1B we were hoping for (Votto edging out A-Gonz by a hair) but the 20th pick put us in a rough position as Longoria was long gone (pick #15) and our last OF target (Giancarlo) was picked at #19.  After last year’s 2nd round SP (F-Her) worked out only okay (and seemed to put Grey on tilt), we ended up settling for Andrew McCutchen.  No doubt he’s a reach but I’ll take bets that he works out better than all but maybe one of the next 5 position players taken (Reyes, M-Teix, Wright, Beltre, and Castro).
• Picks 3-4:  We had the 3rd draft pick slotted for SP and I had delusional hopes that one of the big three – Verlander/Kershaw/Halladay – would make it back.  With all three + Lincecum off the board, it was a coin flip between Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez and Grey pushed hard for Cliff Lee.  After a slew of position players came off the board with the next couple of picks, I pushed hard for us to draft another SP in the 4th round (vs. wait for the 5th/6th round).  My preferred choice was taken 3 picks ahead (Greinke) so settled for Sabathia.  Doubting myself now whether Hamels would’ve been a better call but the strategy proved smart as 4 more SPs went before our 5th pick.
• General Hitting – Nothing very exciting about our offense after those top picks.  Speed in the MI positions went at a premium (Andrus, Gordon, Jemile Weeks) so we focused on R/HR/RBI value in the middle infield and got some speed (Choo, Brantley, Presley) in our OF.  This definitely isn’t a dominant offense but there’s some upside and hopefully it can keep us at least middle of the pack on offense because….
• General Pitching – ….if we’re going to succeed in this league, our pitching has to dominate.  This team has top 2 potential across W/K/ERA/WHIP.  The low IP cap gave us (or at least me) the courage to reach a little on Beachy and take the risk with Hanson – both have so much promise.  Lewis and Kuroda are more matchup plays at least in the beginning of the season.  The IP cap really drove our MR quality + quantity – we’re expecting high K/9 and strong ERA/WHIP from K-Rob and Mike Adams.  With daily changes, we’ll able to slot them in every day.  Hopefully b/w them and David Hernandez, one ends up getting the closer job before year end – otherwise, we should stay middle of the pack as long as Marmol and Motte stay healthy.

As I alluded to in my 3rd baseman posting, first base scares me greatly this year in a deep league format.  Outside the big six – Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, & Mark Teixiera – I see very little reliability from a position that could leave you hurting if you aren’t an owner of one of those guys.  Don’t agree with me?  Well go look at the 1st baseman that come after those 6 on Mock Draft Central to round out your top ten: Konerko, Hosmer, Morse, & Berkman.  Your 11th is Freddie Freeman; the quintessential average first baseman.  I know people want to consider Konerko safe, but he’s 36.  I prefer not to be the first person in line to find out when the wheels come off guys like him.  Then there’s Hosmer – a 22 year old who can’t take a walk.  I like his career long term, but even fangraphs is projecting him around 23/13.  Steals are nice, but I want 30 HRs from my 1st baseman and I want them now!  Round things out with Morse – a person with very little track record though I do kinda trust him – and Berkman.  Hey, if I don’t trust Konerko at 36, why would I trust a guy who had his worst major league season in 2010 and hit 24 of his 31 HRs in the first half of his rebound 2011 campaign who is also 36 and won’t have Pujols in his lineup anymore?  And was that a long sentence or was it just me?  Point being, I do not want to leave the first round without a 1B this year.  Taking Teixiera would most likely ruin my perfect draft, but I would grab him nonetheless.  However, if I could get one of those first 5 this year, I’d feel comfortable taking a risk on Paul Goldschmidt around the 12th.  There are a lot of upside plays later in the draft that I have no problem taking a gamble on, but I want at least one of my first basemen to be an offensive rock for me.

I’ll Avoid

Freddie Freeman - Well duh, ONC, you’ve already said you don’t trust him.  Actually, I didn’t say I have no faith in him, I said he was boring.  Like Gaby Sanchez boring.  But Sanchez’ ADP is 196 while Freeman’s is 120; I called and left a message with mockdraftcentral about this one and they haven’t gotten back with me yet.  Wanted to know if it’s a girls name discount or something.  I also asked them about why guys disappear from the rankings when you filter by position like why I can’t see Berkman and have to rewrite my post because of it.  Don’t they know I have a day job and need to leave for work right now?  Neverthewho!  Some people believe the end of the season was the start of a breakout.  Some people also believe that aliens built Egyptian pyramids.  You can believe whatever you wanna believe.  Just keep it off my History Channel.  I came here for facts!

Ryan Howard – Didn’t have a great season last year then fell down, went boom as the final play of the Phillies playoff run.  He hasn’t played for long but he was a late prospect; dude is 32 coming off a really bad injury.  I think there are better gambles you can make at 176 ADP.

I’ll Go For:

Adam LaRoche - Nestled in the bosom of the the 26th round is a name that many are familiar with from fantasy baseball years past.  LaRoche – which is french for ‘The Roach’, though I don’t know if that’s the bug or the thing you pass around the lava lamp while making philosophical ruminations about Scooby Doo – isn’t sexy, for sure.  He’s a been there, done that kind of guy who gives you 25 HRs and 80 to 90 RBI with a .270 average when healthy.  Considering the health risks of Kendrys Morales (18th round) and Justin Morneau (14th), you’re taking much less risk with his shoulder holding up than you are with the other two.

Chris Davis - Oh yes, I went there.  The hatred of Davis runs deep.  Going back to 2010, he was supposed to be a 30 HR hitter in the middle of a dangerous Texas lineup.  But its hard to stick in a lineup when you strike out 35% of the time.  Though he jacked 21 HRs in 2010, he had a .238 average and showed a lack of patience at the plate with a 5.7% walk rate.  Truthfully, none of these potholes in his game have necessarily changed.  What HAS changed is he’s on a team that doesn’t mind a guy that strikes out 200 times in a season.  If they’re willing to ride Mark Reynolds at 3B while he hits .221, why would they show Davis the door?  Look for 25 HRs, a crap-ton of K’s and don’t expect an average above .250; you shouldn’t be disappointed with finding that with a 297 ADP.

Situation to Monitor: Oakland

They’ve got 4 guys competing for the starter’s role in Oakland this year.  One guy has a great OBP but no power: Daric Barton.  Two of them have great power, ok OBP but a craptacular K rate: Chris Carter & Brandon Allen.  And then there’s Kila Ka’aihue. I just can’t quit this man.  Kila seems to fit everything that Moneyball is supposed to be about: I get on base via walks or I hit a HR.  Kansas City only brought him up last year because they needed someone to cover first while they groomed Hosmer’s game and his scroatee (that’s my term for goatees grown by young men who can’t really grow them.  They’re scruffy lookin.  Scruffy + Goatee = Scroatee.  Get it?  Yeah, whatever to you too!  PS, don’t go look up the Urban Dictionary on that one.  Or do if you need reverse psychology).  Back to the point: That type of confidence in a player doesn’t breed…well, confidence in a player.  This one should play out fairly quickly in spring training but my bitcoins are on the Kila monster winning the job.

Mike Stanton times 5.  That’s really all I want in my outfield this year.  Is that so wrong of me to ask for?  Sadly I know this is not a reality, not even in a fantasy world so I’ll have to make due with 4 Non Stantons…somehow.  I’m not going to lie and say OF is deep in a league setting like this but OF is also where you see the most turnover and opportunities throughout the season.  Coach wants Yonder Alonso’s bat in the lineup, so he throws him in left field.  The Texas outfield is in the infirmary ward, time to go pick up D. Murphy for a couple of weeks.  Just make sure its the Rangers D. Murphy and not the Mets D. Murphy.

My realistic perfect 5 outfield set would start with taking Mike ‘don’t call me Mike, call me Giancarlo‘ Stanton in the 2nd round because I’ve already got my 1B in the first.  My next OF to grab would be B.J. Upton in the 5th or 6th to give me steals without giving up on having power.  After that we fly on down to the 8th or 9th and snag Jayson Werth and then don’t do anything about our OF again until the 13th round taking Logan Morrison.  Then I hold my nose and slide all the way down to the 17th and pick up Vernon Wells.  I’ll be backfilling my gaps with my previous positional needs that I’ve mentioned while putting together my pitching staff.  I am not going to concern myself with speed a huge amount except in the wee hours of the draft.  I have adhered to and subscribed to SAGNOF since before I knew what it was.  Thanks Grey for putting a hard to pronounce acronym on something I once couldn’t describe.

I’ll Avoid:

Alex Gordon – In looking at Alex Gordon’s line last year, I have a hard time finding a fault with it.  Good Runs, RBIs, average, Steals, and HRs.  But scratch and sniff that surface and I have cause for concern.  He’s not a really good basestealer as he was only 17/25.  For you non-math majors that’s a 68% rate, or as I like to call it, the score you got on your last Geometry exam; It wasn’t good then and it’s not good now.  He hit 3rd and leadoff throughout the year.  The runs don’t drop off at leadoff but the RBIs do.  Everything went just right to get that line last year.  If you get 18 HRs, 13 SBs, 65 RBIs and a .285 average, are you happy you drafted Gordon around the 5th or 6th?  If you answer yes, you’re easily happified and I’m not talking to you anymore.

Ichiro Suzuki - This is not because of last year.  To be fair, I’ve been anti-Ichiro for the last couple of years and have been proven wrong.  It’s hard betting against someone with a .326 career average so cut me some slack.  My main issue with Ichiro is his move in the lineup.  The Mariners want to start the year with Chone Figgins (I always like to replace the ‘n’ in his first name with a ‘d’ while pronouncing the ‘CH’ combination correctly.  It makes me feel better as a Mariners fan; you can use any of the various definitions on Urban Dictionary to find out how I feel about Figgins with that information).  This means they want Ichiro to bat 3rd in the lineup.  Last time I checked, infield singles when someone is already on first usually lead to a GIDP.  Ichiro will be 38 this season, has very little power, a high ground ball percentage and is being switched to an RBI position which will decrease his stolen base opportunities.  Have I negative Nelly’d this enough for you yet? Fine, he’s also a potty mouth.

I’ll Go For:

Ben Revere – So he’s not going to win you any HR contests, but you weren’t really looking for HR contestants in the 235 ADP range were you?  Ben Revere is fast.  So fast you didn’t even notice he is being tabbed as an OF starter for the Twins until you saw this post.  In 117 games last year, he stole 34 bases.  If you do what I tell everyone not to do which is extrapolate that over a season, you are finding 47.07692 steals in the late rounds.  How you get that stuff on the right side of the decimal is beyond me, but math doesn’t lie.  Now you understand why my perfect outfield draft doesn’t include going high on basestealers early in the draft *smugface*.

Nolan Reimold – I had about a bajillion of these late round OF flier thingies I wanted to write up but chose Nolan because I like what they’re doing philosophy-wise in Baltimore; filling their lineup with guys whose motto is ‘hit a HR or strikeout’.  It’s like the Blue Jays philosophy minus pitch recognition.  Nolan won’t win you a batting title but if they give him 500+ ABs, you are probably looking at .250 with 20 to 25 HRs.  Think of him as a just in case for Vernon Wells or Logan Morrison.  I wonder if any parent with a family name of Case has ever named their son Justin before?  I also wonder how therapy went for him.

Situation to Monitor: Washington

There are a lot of things I don’t trust about the Nationals lineup this year (I almost went with a situation call in my 2B or SS section because I see Ian Desmond getting the boot, moving Espinosa to SS and having Lombardozzi gap-fill until they call Rendon up later this summer.  Yep, I just cheated; deal with it.  Now back to our OF blurb).  Its not that I don’t like the players involved, I don’t like what management thinks of them.  Washington has tried like mad to get B.J. Upton to be their centerfielder to no avail and might be giving Roger Bernadina a shot this Spring.  They also sorta gave him a shot last spring by bouncing him up and down and in and out…hrm, that sounded a bit obscene.  The point is, the Nationals don’t seem comfortable with Bernadina in a starting role.  Plus they’ve got this little known kid down on the farm named Bryce Harper whom they’re quite smitten with.  I like Bernadina’s skill set, the Nationals don’t and Harper is going to sell a poopton of tickets when he gets called up.  The only way Morse gets moved is if Adam LaRoche is not healthy so Bryce won’t likely play in LF.  Werth is getting paid too much to be sat so he’s going to stay in the outfield.  That leaves Roger and the people who drafted him getting bounced up and down and in and out and not in a good way.