That title is for all of you metrosexual readers, and you thought I’d forget about you. My apologies to our four girl readers that I didn’t go with the title, “A’s Sign the 4th Yoenis Brother.” I know how much you love their music. So the A’s signed Yoenis Cespedes yesterday, the latest Cuban raftee. Is Cespedes Spanish for six feet? That’s gotta be a challenge to get them all in the batter’s box! Though it will make it easier to run up outfield fences like Bo Jackson and he’ll have three times the hip rotation of the average hitter. He’ll be faster, but 1) Will have three times the chance of pulling a hamstring and 2) Will have to dive headfirst or he’ll be real easy to tag out. So the A’s signed the Human Cespedes, but what can we expect from him for 2012 fantasy baseball?
Please, blog, may I have some more?2012 Fantasy Baseball Draft
I recently took part in a 2012 fantasy baseball mock draft which probably helps explain the title of this post. Clever, huh? I was on the phone for the better part of the draft. I don’t tell you this to excuse my picks. I think the team is fine. I was going on memory though, so there’s no reason to ask why I took Gallardo with Greinke still on the board even though in my top 20 starters for 2012 fantasy baseball post I do have Greinke above him. Greinke would’ve been the right pick there, but they’re tomato-tomahto so it’s no big whoop. During a real draft I wouldn’t be shooting the shizz on a phone call though, especially not with Matthew Berry. Geez, I get it, I should draft Tyler Colvin. Chillax already! Anyway, here’s my 2012 fantasy baseball mock draft and some thoughts on certain picks:
JOE MAUER, GREY? REALLY? WOW, WHO ARE YOU?
Please, blog, may I have some more?Valentine’s Day is coming a day early this year. For a limited time only, get your loved one a fantasy baseball league! That’s right, hearts aflutter, snitches. It’s that time of the year. Since back in June when you abandoned your fantasy baseball team because it was totally sucking and you returned to your cubbyhole of Doritos and Freezer Pops, you’ve longed for this day. As Bob Marley sang, this is your redemption song, mon. Or womon, for our three girl readers. It’s time again to join some fantasy baseball leagues. Before you close all of your extraneous porn windows and rush to sign up, let’s explain how these fantasy baseball leagues are going to work. We’re going to have a bunch of leagues and crown a winner from each, then we’re going to crown ONE winner from all of the winners. We will be crowning the winner by taking each team’s points and multiplying it against a ‘league competitiveness factor.’ If you want to see how it worked last year, go here. So we’re going to fill up as many fantasy leagues as we can for the next couple of weeks. Each fantasy baseball league will be a mixed league, 12 team, snake draft, roto, 5×5, 5 OFs, one Middle Infielder, one Corner Infielder, one Utility, 9 pitchers, 20 game eligibility, 180 Games Started. The lineup is also known as: C/1B/2B/SS/3B/CI/MI/5 OF/UTIL/9 P/3 BENCH/1 DL. The fantasy leagues will be played in ESPN and they will be free to join. They are not at Yahoo because they don’t give non-leaguemates the ability to see the leagues.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Finally, we come to the end of the 2012 fantasy baseball rankings. (Can we start games already?) A little birdie told me we’re opening up our commenter fantasy leagues on Monday. Giddy to the up. Okay, you know that I like Lucas Duda more than Melky Cabrera in the top 60 outfielders for 2012 fantasy baseball. You know I like Zack Cozart better than Jhonny Peralta as seen at the top 20 shortstops for 2012 fantasy baseball. But you don’t know how I feel about where these guys fall in the bigger picture. Is Zack Cozart above Lucas Duda? Yup. So to show you where I think players fall in relation to each other in 2012 fantasy baseball drafts, I’m putting together a top 300 for 2012 fantasy baseball. This still needs to be taken with a grain of salt. If you have a shortstop already and Zack Cozart is still on the board in the 17th round, you don’t draft him if you see Lucas Duda and you need an outfielder, even though Lucas Duda is below Zack Cozart on this list. So I might take someone at 200 over someone at 180? Yes, every draft is different. With the top 10, there’s almost no latitude. With the top 100, there’s a decent amount of latitude. With a top 300, there’s lots of latitude. You taking someone at 185 is more or less the same as someone else taking someone at 235. So if you see someone who’s ranked at 250th, but want them at 200, then do what you do. Because of the length of the top 300, there’s no pithy comments with each name, but you kinda do need to know what I’m thinking for each name, so I advise you go over each position in the 2012 fantasy baseball rankings. The top 100 and top 300 is what I would have at my drafts, along with the Point Shares and the top 20 rankings posts. I already went over a top 100 for 2012 fantasy baseball, so I’m not going to cover them again. Actually, that post went to 101, so I’m starting here with 102. This top 300 will go from 102 to 300. Finally, see our list of all players with multiple position eligibility. Anyway, here’s the top 300 for 2012 fantasy baseball:
102.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
It’s quite possible that Jacoby Ellsbury can provide more first round value than most any other player selected, especially if he goes late in the first.
I have been a huge Ellsbury supporter for some time, ranking him seventh before his disastrous 2010 campaign.
Please, blog, may I have some more?With the 2012 fantasy baseball rankings for every position done, we turn our lazy eye towards the top 100 for 2012 fantasy baseball. These 2012 fantasy baseball rankings are one part La Bamba and two parts LDP. They own a cat, a dog and a lizard in a two bedroom apartment where pets aren’t allowed. Know why? Cause they don’t care! None of this top 100 for 2012 fantasy baseball is meant to surprise. *jumping out of a closet* Boo! Sorry, that was meant to surprise. This top 100 is just taking my positional rankings and putting guys in The Big Picture. You really should read each ranking post because the blurbs in this top 100 are on the skimpy side because there’s so many of them. Obviously at a hundred players, some guys just didn’t make it. About 200 or so, to be inexact. It’s okay, there will be a top 300 too. Shortly, Sloth, you’ll have your Baby Ruth. Not to get all biblical on you, but this is the gospel. Print it out and take it to Mt.
Please, blog, may I have some more?We fill out the 2012 fantasy baseball rankings with the last few hitters, the top 5 utility players for 2012 fantasy baseball. Tomorrow we take this mother to one hundred! Not one hundred utility men. The top 100 overall. Then we take this to 300! Again, not 300 utility men. Okay, these players are only eligible at DH aka Utility. Frankly, I don’t think you should draft any of these designated hitters. They don’t allow enough flexibility. For example, what if you had Vladimir Guerrero clogging up your Utility spot last year and you really wanted to pick up Desmond Jennings? You would’ve been wretched, retching on all fours to borrow from The Decemberists. These guys have no position eligibility for fantasy baseball. As with past rankings posts, this top 5 for 2012 will be broken up into tiers, and their 2012 projections will be included. Anyway, here’s the top 5 utility players for 2012 fantasy baseball (they suck, enjoy!):
1.
Please, blog, may I have some more?The 2012 fantasy baseball rankings are just about in the bag, but first we look at the top 20 middle relievers for 2012 fantasy baseball. No, next we’re not going to do the Top 20 Guys Who Will Have The Most Balks. Chillax. The only people that seem to pay attention to middle relievers are those that play in a Holds league. That’s wrong, I tell ya. A great way to balance out your ratios is by carrying a few middle relievers on your staff. (BTW, Ron Jeremy can carry three middle relievers on his staff.) Say you had Francisco Liriano last year and he mistook your team’s ERA for his toilet, but you also had Jonny Venters. With just Liriano, you had the 5.09 ERA dump to clean up. With Venters and his brand new toilet brush, you had a 3.81 ERA. If you also carried Tyler Clippard, you had a combined 3.24 ERA. Not to mention, you had 5 vulture saves. 9 junky wins. 8 maids o’ milking. 7 Gary Matthews Jr.’s leaping. Oh, and your WHIP went from Liriano’s 1.49 to 1.19 and had an additional 200 Ks. Okay, school’s out, Alice Cooper. Now, with that said — yes, I pulled out the “with that said” — this middle men post is for 5×5 leagues where you want to handcuff your closer to potentially snag some saves and get good ratios. I projected Holds for these guys, but they are not the top 20 Holds guys. They are the most valuable when you consider vulture saves, Ks and ratios. Anyway, here’s the top 20 middle relievers for 2012 fantasy baseball:
1.
Please, blog, may I have some more?On the heels of the top 20 closers for 2012 fantasy baseball — or heals if you’re talking strictly about Huston Street and Andrew Bailey — comes every closer for 2012 fantasy baseball. This is the post you’ve all been waiting for since earlier this morning! Sorry to put you through that hour and a half of anguish/anticipation or anguishipation. You were a melancholy soul. But now you’re happy — yay. It’s still Monday funday! There were quite a few moves this offseason with closers relocating to greener pastures, or in some case, just different pastures. Maybe that’s best expressed through the cliché mash-up — the grass isn’t always greener pastures. Andrew Bailey moved, Mark Melancon moved, Ryan Madson moved, Huston Street moved, Heath Bell moved, Rafael Betancourt moved into the closer role, Sergio Santos moved and Joe Nathan moved. A regular ol’ closerousel that we haven’t see the likes of since Tony La Russa retired (technically, that’s correct; though not exactly that long ago). Anyway, here’s all the closers for 2012 fantasy baseball:
$12 Salads
You know that restaurant your girlfriend/wife/what-have-you likes to go to that charges, like, $12 for a salad?
Please, blog, may I have some more?The 2012 fantasy baseball rankings have reached the next to next to next to last stop with the top 20 closers for 2012 fantasy baseball. These top 20 closers are different than all of the other rankings. The closers on the top of this list you should not draft and there are closers that aren’t on this list that you should be targeting. Shortly, there will be a list of every team’s closer and setup man. I’m thinking this afternoon. Monday funday! The projections are also a bit wonky since you can’t predict saves. It’s a fool’s errand. If fool’s errand means what I think it does. Some well-known projectionists (not the pimply kid unspooling Albert Nobbs) don’t even attempt to predict saves. Saves come down to opportunity. This is yet another reason why you shouldn’t draft the top guys. Nevertheless, my projections are listed along with where I see tiers starting and stopping. Anyway, here’s the top 20 closers for 2012 fantasy baseball:
1.
Please, blog, may I have some more?