In other news…

Jerome Williams – The Angels’ starter has won all 3 of his Angel starts with this past one by far the best – 8 IP with just one hit (a Trayvon Robinson HR) and a walk.  Nothing to see here.  Just a 30 year old journeyman who’s perhaps half a notch more tolerable than Tyler Chatwood.

Chase Utley - Pulled out of the game after being hit in the helmet.  The Phillies brass are concerned he might have a mild concussion but Charlie Manuel is confident it’s just a standard variety ‘noggin burner’ and he just needs to rub some ‘piss ‘n’ vinegar’ on it.

Matt Cain – 7 IP, 2 ER, loss.  Same old song.  He’s now 11-10 despite a 1.06 WHIP.  He’s a career 68-73 despite a career 1.19 WHIP.  He should retaliate against the offense – I suggest he takes a dump in the pine tar.  Just don’t lose your balance or you’ll end up with sticky buns and tempt Pablo Sandoval.

Aaron Harang – Beat the Giants with a 7 IP, 1 ER, 7 baserunner, 3 K start.  He’s now 13-5 for a team that’ s 19 games under .500 (62-81).  He’s like Steve Carlton for the 1972 Phillies except he’s not lefty, not an above average pitcher (3.74 ERA/1.39 WHIP), and has never allegedly said that the world is ruled by 12 Jewish bankers meeting in Switzerland.

Ian Kinsler – 2 HRs to up his season total to 28 and tie for the team lead (with Nelson Cruz).  If it weren’t for the .245 AVG, he’d be in the conversation with Cano and Pedroia for most valuable fantasy 2B (.245/101/28/71/23).  Or as an incompetent announcer would phrase it, “You talk about second baseman who can hit…Ian Kinsler…”

Justin Verlander - Snagged win #22 but gave up 4 ERs thanks to 2 HR / 4 RBI by his kryptonite – Shelley Duncan.  Clearly Verlander can only effectively pitch to batters shorter than him and he’s just lucky that there aren’t a lot of 6’5″+ hitters.  The Yankee and Red Sox scouts should be out recruiting locked-out NBA players for playoff rosters.  If there’s one lesson to be learned from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, it’s that if the other guy is going to go tall, you’ve got to do the same.  If there is a second lesson to be learned from MMPR, it is that if you’re producing a show that has kid actors, it is best to hide their faces behind masks so you can swap in other actors when the original ones get too old or expensive.  Saved By The Bell would still be on if it was set in Milwaukee and each of the kids wore a different sausage costume.  (Kelly Kapowski – Polish sausage.  Slater – Chorizo.  Zach – Bratwurst.  No one qualified for Italian Sausage until the summer season with Stacey Carosi.)

Victor Martinez - Hit a 7th inning grand slam.  His .325 AVG and 89 RBIs are great for a catcher but that was only his 10th HR of the year.  And he’ll have only DH-eligibility next year.  V-Mart is going to be discounted like he’s Wal-Mart.  (Correction: As noted in the comments, V-Mart has 26 games at Catcher this year so should retain C-eligibility next year.)

Daniel Bard - The Sawx’ rumored closer in waiting ruined Tim Wakefield’s billionth chance of being one of the 13 worst pitchers with 200 career wins by posting a 5-spot thanks to a single, HBP, 3 BBs, and the next pitcher giving up a run-clearing double.  That said, aside from having only 2 wins, Bard has been everything a Mr. B could’ve hoped for (2.76 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 66 Ks, 1 pity save).

Jacoby Ellsbury - 4 for 5 with a HR (#25), 3 RBIs, and 2 Runs.  5 more HRs away from 30-30.  And only 2 HRs and 44 SBs away from joining Rickey Henderson and Eric Davis in the illustrious 27-80 club.  (Oddly enough, both done in 1986 – Davis in 415 ABs!).

Manny Acosta – Got the save for the Mets as Parnell and Izzy threw 30+ pitches the night before and no one else in the bullpen had 299 saves.

Carlos Lee - Hit his 15th HR of the year – and his 3rd in the past 8 games.  Maybe El Caballo doesn’t need to be taken to the glue factory just yet.

Andrew McCutchen – The Dread Pirate HR’d twice against the Astros.  He’s now at 81/22/85 but only 20 SBs and .269.  Jeff Francoeur has 20 SBs.  Braun has more than 20 SBs.  Can’t the Pirates hire Omar Moreno to be his Davey Lopes?

Chris Carpenter - Shut out the Brewers on 4 hits, 2 BB, and 5 Ks.  He also allegedly yelled an expletive at Nyjer Morgan.  Maybe he just mispronounced his name.

Rafael Furcal – Another HR – his 4th in the last 8 games.  He had 4 in his first 63 games.  Even with the sudden power burst, wow do his stats look bad this year.  .215 AVG?  5 SBs?  When did Rafael Furcal turn into Rafael Belliard?

Roy Oswalt – The 2nd best Roy in Philly is looking close to his old magical self again with a 7 IP, 7 K, 2 ER effort vs. Atlanta.  I’m having a premonition – Oswalt pitches well through the regular season + 1st round of the playoffs, makes some bad throws in the championship series, says he’s going to retire to spend more time with his family and tractor in Mississippi, and then end up playing again in 2012, 2013, and 2014.  It’s just the Mississippi way.

Jemile Weeks – 4 for 5, now batting .303 with 22 doubles, 21 SBs, and 0 HRs.  Growing up, Jemile was always the fast one, Rickie was the strong one, and Nynind’haph was the seductive one.

Brett Pill - 2 games, 2 HRs, for the Giant rookie 1B who mashed in AAA the past two years while the Giants skipped over him to promote rookie tease sensation Brandon Belt.  Proof once again that when grabbing for the Belt, it’s better to be safe and take the Pill first.

Early congrats to the owner of team Bill Bergen c. 1909 (aka commenter ‘Tom’) who has the early lead. Your team must really suck. Although they can never suck as much as your team’s namesake. E-mail us your address at info@razzball.com and we’ll send you a free t-shirt. The same goes for the owner of the Pesky Pole Dancers in the Razzball Commenter League. For those unfamiliar, we worked with a company to design two t-shirts – a Sparky Anklebiter shirt and a “It’s Tough Being In A Platoon” shirt. They’ve got several other t-shirts as well that are sans Razzball fingerprints. Buy one of the t-shirts now and receive a free once-used envelope and invoice with your name on it!

Early congrats to the league, Razzball 5, which so far has the highest competitive index of 107. It’s probably because you’re collectively out-pacing the 1250 IP cap but at least your innings so far have stuck.

The competitive index is based on the point totals of the top 8 teams in each league. If your league is bad (good?) enough to have 3 teams that fall below the top ‘Razzball Dummy’ team, I use the ‘Razzball Dummy’ team’s points.

Second to last note: I had Vin Mazzaro on my bench for his historic 14 ER in 2+ IP. Sonavabench!

Last note: If you’re in one of the Fantasy Razzball Leagues, fill out this form to add your Razzball Commenter Handle:

Onto other fantasy baseball news….

Jake Peavy - A 3 hit shutout with 8 Ks against the Indians who’ve recently been scalping opposing pitchers.  To quote the great Larry King, “Sorry Mr. Westbrook but the best Jake pitching today is Jake Peavy”.

Bartolo Colon- How fitting.  Jake has his first great comeback start and the Fatman nearly matches him (8 innings, 0 ER, 3 hits).  Now they just need to thank their doctor who I think first starred in the Six Million Dollar Man.

Pedro Alvarez – 3-run HR for Alvy.  Maybe he’s finally figuring out how to get the lobster in the pot.  Reminds of this old joke about two elderly Pirate fans sitting on the Roberto Clemente Bridge.  One of them says, “Boy, the Pirates’ <fill in 3rd baseman> has been really terrible.”  The other says, “Yeah, I know, and too few at-bats.”

Jon Niese – 7 shutout innings with 7 Ks.  You made your Aunt and Uncle proud!

Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman - Yes, the Cardinals were victorious against the Astros and Bud Norris (with that last name, shouldn’t he be a Texas Ranger?) but both Holliday (quad) and Berkman (wrist) were out of the game by the 5th inning.  Much like the rest of our existences, they are ‘day-to-day’.  Bud Norris must’ve roundhouse kicked them with his mind.

Mark DeRosa – Left the game in the middle of an at-bat when he re-strained his wrist.  That hurts more than having your wrist restrained – depending on who’s doing it.  If it’s Mrs. DeRosa, I would not be check-swinging.  The official announcement is ‘day-to-day’ but I’d move the versatile DeRosa to ‘Left Out’ in all but NL-only leagues (where we unfortunately have him).

Kyle Lohse – Another strong (8 innings, 1 ER, 7 baserunners) yet not dominant (3 Ks) start.  He should change his last name to Wihn.  He’s now 5-2 with a crazy low BABIP (somewhere in the .215 range).  His ERA/WHIP might be due for regression but he’s still worth starting while he’s on this streak.

Craig Kimbrel – Okay, maybe it’s officially time to start worrying.  Tonight was blown save #4 and it was an ugly one – 2 ER & 4 hits  in 1/3 of an inning to spoil the Braves second straight extra inning victory.  This is after Jonny Venters threw two shutout innings in the 9th and 10th.  If it weren’t for the anti-lefty sentiment that fuels closer decisions and McCarthyism, Venters would be closer by now.  But my guess is Kimbrel won’t be a fugitive from the closer role as he’d been dominant his previous 4 outings (4 IP, 1 hit, 9 Ks).

Mark Reynolds – 0 for 5 with 2 Ks and a BB in the Orioles 15 inning loss to the Yanks.  He did manage his 2nd sB of the year but his average now stands at .184.  To those of you who said he couldn’t repeat last year’s .198 AVG, well, I guess you’re still technically correct.

Julio Teheran – 4 innings, 2 ER, 8 baserunners, and 1 strikeout.  This is after his first start where he threw 4 2/3 innings and managed 1 strikeout.  I know it sounds pervy but I’d trade in this 20 year-old phenom for a Minor.

Yovani Gallardo – A six inning win with 2 ER and 9 Ks.  That’s three straight wins for Yovani.  Have we finally seen the end of his evil telenovela twin – Oyvani Goneyardo?

Elliot Johnson - 2-3 with 3 RBIs as he started for the 3rd straight night.  Sam Fuld might be Mr. April but looks like someone is auditioning hard for Mr. May (TM to Dave Winfield).

Trevor Plouffe – 2 for 4 with 3 RBIs.  He’s shown some power in the minors (15 HRs in 445 AAA ABs last year) and a K-rate (22%) that screams .250-.260.  So, best case, he’s a J.J. Hardy in hi prime type.  Worst case, he’s 2011 J.J. Hardy.  Either way, I don’t think anyone minds seeing Gardenhire say “See ya” to Casilla when Nishioka comes back.

Neftali Feliz – A blown save after Hosmer took him deep to star the 9th.  Ron Washington was tempted to bring in Arthur Rhodes to face the lefty rookie but, when he approached him, Rhodes responded in a world-weary voice, “I’m getting too old for this s**t” and shared how he plans to spend his retirement.

Michael Dunn - Quick shoutout to the Mr. B‘s.  Dunn now has 25 Ks in 19 innings this year.  He can come in handy in daily leagues where you need K’s.

Clay Buchholz – Unlike Steve Howe and Dwight Gooden, Buchholz was able to go face-to-face against Coke and come out unharmed (7 shutout innings, no decision).  Buchholz is pitching well of late (he’d won four of his last 5).  More importantly, he’s been putting up some K’s (he’s now averaged 6 in his last 3 games).  His K/9 and BB/9 ratios were very average last year (6.2 and 3.5 respectively) and they’ve been about the same this year.  If he can keep K’ing guys like he has in the past 3 games, his value goes up significantly.

Danny Duffy - Making his first major league start, you can imagine the pressure Double-D must’ve felt to fit in with his Royal teammates.  4 innings and 10 baserunners (including 6 walks) later….son,  you’re going to fit in just fine.  Ignore for 10/12-team mixed leagues but I’d keep an eye on him for deeper leagues.

Scott Hairston – Is it me or does this guy have the face of an anthropomorphic frog?  No wonder why he’s an outfield while his father and brother are infielders – he’s a natural at shagging flies.

Early congratulations / unintended jinx to…

1. The Pesky Pole Dancers who are in 1st place among the 456 participants (38 leagues of 12)! And thanks for putting an image in my head of Johnny Pesky pole dancing. At least you didn’t name it after this guy.
2. Everyone in RCL 5 as you are currently the most competitive league (competitive index of 105).

We’ll do our best to update the standings on a regular basis. We’re currently talking to a commenter about becoming the league commissioner of which the duties will be to update the standings regularly, mine for interesting data, and sell used cars in Milwaukee.

League Competitive Index is based on the total stats for the whole league. The index page can be found here. The points formula is courtesy of Tom Tango at InsideTheBook.com and is: HR + SB + R/3 + RBI/3 + (H-.27*AB) + 2*W + 1.5 * SV + K / 5 + IP – (ER+H+BB/ 2).

One last item. It would be great if we can attach each team to a Razzball Commenter handle. Please fill out the below form so we can add your handle to the Master Standings page (note: you can also enter this for a leaguemate if you like).

But what happens when a financial industry wizard and a certifiable baseball GM scheme together to implement the same strategies that fueled the recent Wall Street collapse?  In the case of the New York Mets franchise, disaster happens – the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.

In The Skim Is In – How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team From First to Worst, financially-successful journalist and sportswriter Mike Lupica chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Dante-like journey from World Series team to a paragon of all that’s wrong in America.  By misquantifying the game’s tangibles, Bernie Madoff and ‘boy (was he not a) genius’ Omar Minaya were able to skim out that extra 2% that separates a losing organization from a winning organization–they were able to deliver to New York something that the Royals had never brought to Kansas City: a pyramid of incompetence that entombed a whole franchise.

Following are some excerpts from the book:

Tricking Yourself Into Thinking You’re Smarter Than the Competition:

….Minaya, along with passionate sidekick Tony Bernazard, developed metrics that let them take advantage of aspects of the game that they felt were undervalued such as FIS (fluency in Spanish) and LoCoZo (short for ‘loco como un zorro’ which translates to crazy like a fox).  As Minaya saw it, “People would see a 40 year old Moises Alou as injury-prone and unlikely to repeat his past successes but we knew he still spoke fluent Spanish and anyone who pees on their hands has LoCoZo to spare.  For $15 million, we got two years of .340+ AVG with power from Moises.”  To the rest of baseball, they saw that Moises only managed 377 ABs in those two years and this money could have been invested in a billion better ways.  But it was strategies like this that helped Minaya feel he outsmarted baseball by tying up unwanted players like Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo to multi-year contracts, ‘outfoxing’ the Yankees and Mets to sign Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran to $100 million dollar contracts, and cutting losses with uni-lingual, even-tempered prospects Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom, and Brian Bannister.

Whiffing On Andrew McCutchen:

….Mets scout Rodrigo Ciudad was accustomed to life as a Mets scout.  Responsible for scouting all of the United States, Rodrigo’s region was nowhere near the Mets’ preferred baseball hotbeds of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Venezuela.  With most teams employing multiple scouts in his region, Ciudad tended to focus in warm weather climates that were more conducive to baseball talent and his love of fresh mango dusted in sugar and chili powder.  It was on one of these mango-missions that he heard about a Florida high schooler named Andrew McCutchen.  Ciudad liked what he saw in the young outfielder and was even more encouraged when the Mets didn’t sign a top free agent and would keep their 1st round pick.  Unfortunately, Minaya lost a bet with Jeff Wilpon over who would get to make the first pick in the 2005 amateur draft.  Wilpon, the owner’s son, ignored Ciudad’s pleas, saying “We’ve already got a better version of McCutchen in Lastings Milledge.” and spent the 9th pick of the 2005 draft on Mike Pelfrey.  To add insult to injury, the hapless Pirates drafted McCutchen and the Reds followed that pick with Texan High Schooler Jay Bruce.

Turning A Lucrative Franchise Into an Over-Leveraged Shell

….Fred Wilpon was always wary of ‘get rich quick’ schemes.  He made his money through shrewd real estate investments.  If George Steinbrenner was an IPO that struck it rich, Wilpon was a trustworthy mutual fund – steadily accruing value over time.  Bernie Madoff was the same way.  He wasn’t in business for the quick buck.  He was in it for the slow billion or so bucks.  They quickly became friends and, for 10 years, didn’t overlap business with friendship.  Wilpon started by investing $10 and, upon getting $11.50 back the next year, slowly invested more and more funds from his company (Sterling Equities).  The consistency was welcome to the Wilpon as inconsistency might’ve required him to do research into how the money was being made.  Smart enough not to meddle in the day-to-day dealings at the Met offices, Wilpon focused on building up the right-side of the Sterling Equities balance sheet (to the tune of $500+ million in debt), building a new stadium, and starting a new TV network.  His financial prudence led him to avoid selling branding rights to the new stadium to a ‘fly-by-night’ company like Enron, striking a deal with the responsible CitiGroup.  You can imagine the disappointment when his trust in Wall Street and consistent profits proved to be his very downfall….

The format is 14 team, MLB, 5×5, 1250 IP cap, Roto, Snake Draft with the following roster format:  C/1B/2B/SS/3B/4 OF/CI/MI/2 UTIL/9 P/3 Bench.

The four differences  vs. our other expert leagues are:  1) Only one catcher, 2) 4 OF and 2 UTIL vs. 5 OF/1 UTIL, 3) Snake draft vs. auction draft, and 4) 1250 IP cap.

The roster differences are minor as we generally don’t spend a lot on catcher anyway and we planned to draft a 5th OF as one of our UTIL spots.  The snake draft was a somewhat welcome departure vs. auctions as they tend to take less time and keep us sharp for snake draft commenter questions.

The IP cap was a factor in our decision making.  It requires that teams use the equivalent of roughly 5.5 full-time starters (180 IP each = 990 IP) and 3.5 relievers (60 IP each = 210 IP).  So our plan was to draft only 4 quality starters and we’ll play matchups for the rest.

Otherwise, our strategy going in was just to draft as good a team as possible.  See below for our roster.  You can see the other rosters here and post-draft comments here.

Overall, I think we succeeded on drafting a team that has a shot to win.  We got what we think are 4 solid SPs (F-Her, D. Hudson, Lilly, Garza) and two Hodgepadres (Stauffer, Richard) which we can start at home.  The offense has a solid mix of upside plays (Cruz, Castro, Alvarez, Nishioka) and reliable vets (Posada, Miggy, Morneau, Torii).  I ran the rosters against our projections and our team came out on top with our biggest strengths in HR/RBI/AVG/Saves and our biggest weaknesses in SB/Wins/Ks.  But everything’s so close (e.g., 6 teams within 6 SBs of each other) that you have to take it with a grain of salt.  As I mentioned in the NL LABR post, I don’t think you can win a league at the draft (assuming you draft against peers) but you can certainly lose it.  And we didn’t lose it.

A couple of other notes:

1) I’ve found that our post-draft projected AVG is looking better across a number of our teams.  I think the improvement I made in calculating the impact of AVG in Point Shares has helped.

2) I found that our rankings – based on Point Shares – had a number of outfielders at the top of our draft boards for a lot of the draft.  This is either because I’m smarter than everyone else and value OFs correctly or I’m dumber than everyone else and value OFs incorrectly.  Either way, we stuck to a strategy where we wouldn’t draft more than 2 OFs in the first 9-10 rounds and felt comfortable with our two top OF choices (Cruz, Pence) who were also near the top of the Yahoo! default rankings by the time we picked them.

3) Several teams stocked up on Middle Relievers in response to the 1250 IP cap – conceivably because the best middle relievers will deliver better ERA/WHIP/K per inning than lower-level starters (I think starters still provide a better W/IP ratio).  The only flaw I see in the logic is that determining quality Middle Relievers in the preseason is a fool’s errand.  There just aren’t a lot of ‘dependable’ middle relievers.  So we were more than happy to fill out the rest of our hitting slots and grab Stauffer/Richard vs. speculate on Middle Relievers.  They’ll be plenty of opportunities to go MR fishing during the year if we want to go that route.

Let us know what you think of the team….

Our team’s performance in this league last year mirrored our top hitter Justin Morneau’s season – a great start with plenty of 2nd half headaches.

The format of the league is 14-team H2H, 5×5 roto (1 point per category you win for week), weekly changes, auction draft, 2 C /1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/3 SP/2 RP/4 P/4 Bench.

Grey wrote a recent post on H2H draft strategy. For this specific draft, our two main strategies were:

1) Draft at least 7 quality starting pitchers

H2H teams tend to throw more starts per week than in standard leagues.  So the pitching talent on the free agent wire is weaker (because more SPs on rosters) and the impact of top starters is watered down by all the additional starts.  We wanted at least 7 quality starters so we can take advantage of the pitchers with the best matchups (including 2 start weeks) and avoid having to compete too much with all the other teams over the free agent pitching crumbs.  If that meant losing out on top tier starters, so be it.

2) Focus offense towards high R/HR/RBI.

Grey and I both feel that SBs are streaky where H2H rewards steady.  So we focused our offense on the steadier R/HR/RBI stats with a goal of being just middle of the pack in SB and AVG.  We wanted just enough in SB and AVG that we could break even on these categories while winning the other three the majority of the time.

Below is our roster.  We spread the dollars around to a ridiculous degree – ending up with only two players above $20.  This wasn’t our plan but our competitors went beyond our player values on the top tier players (including a ridiculous $62 bid for Hanley Ramirez).  We felt that the player depth didn’t warrant such high bids and that our stinginess would be rewarded as the draft wore on.

Based on my calculations, we ended up with $306 in value on our roster for our $260 – more than any other team.  That counts the 4 bench players.  My rough estimates on just the top 23 players – based solely on starts and using standard roto – is that we’re a top 3 team that’s very strong in R/HR/RBI (top 3 in each) and weakest in ERA/WHIP (which we hope to improve by maximizing matchups).

Mike Napoli C $13
Kurt Suzuki C $6
Justin Morneau 1B $21
Adam LaRoche 1B $8
Kelly Johnson 2B $13
Ryan Raburn 2B $10
Starlin Castro SS $7
Neil Walker 3B $6
Matt Holliday OF $32
Mike Stanton OF $19
Bobby Abreu OF $9
Nick Swisher OF $9
Jose Tabata OF $7
Denard Span OF $4
Domonic Brown OF $6
Daniel Hudson SP $9
Matt Garza SP $9
John Danks SP $8
Gio Gonzalez SP $8
Edinson Volquez SP $7
Jhoulys Chacin SP $7
Ian Kennedy SP $5
Johan Santana SP $3 (to stash on DL until mid-year)
Heath Bell RP $11
John Axford RP $10
Drew Storen RP $7
Joe Nathan RP $5

NOTE:  We still have about 10 spots available for Fantasy Razzball – the game where you try to manage the worst team possible.  If you’d like to sign up, click here.  If you would like more info on the rules/format, see here.

Grey has his rankings based on watching a ton of games, poring through stats, fantasy acumen, and whimsy while my Point Shares rely on my cooked-up methodology (honed after a couple years) and various inputs that I’ve grown to trust (ZiPS, Marcel, FanGraph projections, Fantistics for playing time projections).  Aside from tweaking some playing time projections, I just let the player data rank itself.

Since commenters often like to pit us against each other, we figured we might as well make a game out of it.  I converted Grey’s rankings to MLB 12-team dollar values by crediting the same dollar value per rank that I have (e.g., his #1 overall pick gets the same dollar value as my #1 overall pick).  This allows us to focus on the dollar value differences vs. just number of picks – because obviously a guy I pick for #10 and he picks for #60 is more noteworthy than a guy I put at #210 that he puts at #260.

The assigned rosters net out to $368-$369 worth of 12-team MLB value according to each owner but only valued at $215-$220 by the competitor.  Perusing the rosters, you can see that Grey’s team is stronger in the corners and 2B/SS while mine is stronger in OF and C.  This gives a sense of how we weight the various positions.  There really isn’t any clear trend in pitching except maybe Grey gives more weight to consistent, reliably healthy closers where the agnostic Point Shares are willing to take on the risk of Street and Nathan.  I expected something similar in terms of risky starters (I don’t adjust Point Shares for ‘riskiness’) but we both ended up with a number of risky pitchers (all of Grey’s besides Gallardo are on my risky list where I have Latos and Nolasco).  I think this goes to show that younger pitchers are harder to value and thus more volatility in ranking systems.

Note that neither of us are actually proposing these rosters.  For instance, I would never suggest Luke Scott as a 1B but there really weren’t any other 1B which I valued higher than Grey.  And I can’t imagine Grey would choose to invest so little in OF.

We’ll revisit these rosters as the season goes on.  I can see several ways to compare the teams including 5×5, using a modified version of Tom Tango’s point formula, and using the default ESPN or Yahoo points systems.

So what do you all think?  On which team would you place your bet?

We had an awesome time at the draft.  It was pretty crazy to be in the same room with a number of guys that we’d only known through the little headshots they have on their website.  Plus, the draft was held in Phoenix – giving us the opportunity to catch two Cactus League games (nothing too notable except that Lonnie Chisenhall and Drew Pomeranz of the Indians look really good) and eat at Pizzeria Bianco (potentially the best pizzeria in the US).

We are in the 13-team NL-only league which is C/C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/10 P.  The reason for the 13th team and 10 pitchers (vs. 9) is to make the roster depth equivalent to the 12-team AL-only league.  The budget is $260/team.  After everyone has filled their starting roster, there is a snake draft where we pick 6 reserves.

Below is our roster (To see all the rosters, see this post on USA Today’s Fantasy Windup blog).  We feel pretty good about the team.  I think you can lose the season at the draft but you can’t win one…..and I don’t think we lost it.

C  R. Barajas $3
C   D. Mesoraco $1
1B  A. Pujols    $40
2B D. Espinosa    $13
SS  J. Reyes    $29
3B C. Blake    $5
OF  R. Braun    $37
OF  L. Morrison    $18
OF  M. DeRosa    $5
OF   S. Hairston    $2
OF  N. Schierholtz    $1
CI    Jeff Baker    $4
MI   N. Walker  $18
UT   J. Francisco    $2
P    Y. Gallardo    $21
P    C. Marmol    $20
P    J. Vazquez    $11
P    H. Kuo    $6
P    C. Hensley    $5
P    C. Richard    $5
P    C. Capuano    $4
P     R. Wolf    $3
P    M. Lindstrom  $2
P   T. Gorzelanny    $2

Reserve:
C Eli Whiteside
2B/OF Eric Patterson
3B Mat Gamel
P Yuniesky Maya
P Aneury Rodriguez
P Zack Braddock

One big difference in a draft this deep against such experienced competition is that we couldn’t follow our usual strategy of “find the best bargains”.  We didn’t expect to see any bargains in this draft and that proved correct.  We made three big bets (Pujols, Braun, Reyes) that will likely make or break our offense.  But who would you rather bet on?  (okay, maybe not Reyes but SBs are expensive either in $ or the players other stats).  I don’t love the Neil Walker and Logan Morrison picks but they are guaranteed playing time and should be solid R/RBI producers without hurting our AVG.  Our pitching staff could use a real 2nd starter (I’d consider Vazquez a #3) but we should be close to league average in most categories – hopefully Kuo or Hensley get us some cheap saves and 4 of our bottom 6 SPs (counting the two in reserves) can post decent numbers.

We’ll keep y’all posted on the team as the season goes on…

I have compared the ESPN results with my Point Shares to identify the relative bargains (and overpriced players) in standard leagues .  You can see the comparison vs. all ESPN’s top 200 players here.

There are two Point Shares ranks in the spreadsheet:  180/80 and 153/107.  Point Shares values hitters and pitchers alike as it is based on how many points the player would add to the average team (replacing the average drafted player).  If you valued hitters and pitchers equally, you’d invest 13/22 into hitting and 9/22 into pitching.  Since there is no standard for valuing draft picks, it’s easier to divide it into the standard $260 auction budget which gives you 153/107.  In most drafts, hitters go at premiums.  The standard split I find with hitters vs. pitchers is 180/80.  Since that’s the more common draft approach, I’m using the 180/80 split for this post.

Quick shorthand for the below.  Any player with a positive (+##) is being picked that many picks after their estimated value.  Any player with a negative (-##) is being drafted ahead of their value.  Plus is good value.  Minus is bad value.

First Basemen

In both the ESPN live drafts and Point Shares (180/80 split), the top 7 1Bs are within the first 28 picks (Pujols, Votto, A-Gonz, Miggy, Teixiera, Fielder, Howard).  Point Shares are slightly more bullish on Votto (5th vs. 9th), Miggy (6th vs 12th), and Fielder (15th vs. 24).  The other four actually match up within one pick.

The ‘fair value’ rates continue through Dunn (+3 in PS) and Morneau (+1 in PS) and then the poor values start kicking in as people panic on 1B depth.  Kendry Morales, Konerko, Butler, and Adam LaRoche all are being picked 16-63 picks ahead of their Point Share value.  The relative values outside the first tier of 1Bs are Carlos Pena (-4 picks vs. PS), Derrek Lee (+6), and Gaby Sanchez (-7).

Recommendation:  Try to get one of the first 9 1Bs and, if not, be patient as there will be values later in the draft.

Second Basemen

Historically, I’ve found 2B/SS are overpriced in ESPN leagues.  Except Dan Uggla who I seemed to have on every team the last 2 years.  Things have changed and I think it has something to do with injuries – three of the top 5 2Bs are coming off injury-shortened seasons (Utley, Pedroia, Kinsler).  And Rickie Weeks at #7 is no sure thing for 150 games either.

For the first 7 2Bs (Cano, Utley, Pedroia, Uggla, Kinsler, Phillips, Weeks), the only player going well above Point Shares is Robinson Cano.  He’s going #5 in ESPN which is way above his PS rank of #26.  My projection for him is 94/25/98/5/.304 – if I switch this out for 110/30/100/5/.320, then he moves to #7.  I like Cano a lot but 2B is deep and I think there are 1B and OF 1st round targets that are more likely to deliver that type of offensive line.  Utley (#19) and Pedroia (#31), and Phillips (#57) are all within a couple spots of my rankings with Uggla going from the biggest bargain to the 2nd biggest reach (9 picks over value).  Kinsler and Weeks come at 12-18 pick discounts but that’s assuming they reach 550 ABs which they’ve each accomplished once in the past four years.

The remaining 2Bs are all over the map.  The overpriced:  Martin Prado (-36), Aaron Hill (-38), Gordon Beckham (-86), Chone Figgins (-47), Howie Kendrick (-60) .  The underpriced:  Ben Zobrist (+20), Kelly Johnson (+2), Neil Walker (+23).  Brian Roberts is squarely in the middle at 2 picks over value.

Shortstop

As usual, most shortstops are being overpriced but there are some bargains.

Overvalued:  Derek Jeter (-26 picks), Jimmy Rollins (-56), Elvis Andrus (-47), Stephen Drew (-18), Rafael Furcal (-53), Ian Desmond (-34), Erick Aybar (-81), Juan Uribe (-93), Alcides Escobar (-99)

Undervalued:  Jose Reyes (+15), Alexei Ramirez (+17), Starlin Castro (+25)

Correctly Valued:  Han-Ram (2nd pick), Troy Tulowitzki (+1, 7th in PS vs. 8th in ESPN)

So if you’re not going to spring for Han-Ram or Tulo in the 1st round or Reyes in 3rd round, I’d wait and try to get the communists (Alexei and Castro) at their ESPN values.

Third Basemen

Last year, I found all 3Bs to be overvalued.  It’s a bit more mixed this year.

In the first tier, Longoria is going a little higher than I’d like (4th vs. 10th) as are Zimmerman (22nd vs 38th) and the soon to be 3B-eligible Youkilis (23rd vs 36th).  But I think David Wright (13th pick), A-Rod (20th pick) and Jose Bautista (32nd pick) are all solid values.  It goes downhill fast from there:  Beltre (-65 picks), Michael Young (-63), Aramis (-54), McGehee (-44), Sandoval (-22), Ian Stewart (-50), and Polanco (-166).  The two bargains are Pedro Alvarez (+23) and Mark Reynolds (+97).  Yes, that’s a 97 pick difference for Mark Reynolds.  Which is crazy because he was going around #18 last year (and I cautioned that was too high).  Here are my projections:  88/34/93/13/.231.  His line last year was 85/32/79/7/.198 but that came with a really low BABIP (.257).  I’m not saying to draft him at 55th (the Point Share calculation) but he seems to be the best value now – especially if you get him near his ESPN ADP of 152.

Catcher

Only 9 catchers have an ADP below 200 in ESPN drafts.  The more established catchers seem to be going at about fair value if not a little higher:  Mauer (-7 picks – 26th vs. 33rd in PS), V-Mart (+2), McCann (+2), and Geovany Soto (-4).  It looks like most of Matt Wieters’ hype has worn off because he’s only going 14 picks ahead of PS (172nd vs 186th).

The bargains are:  Buster Posey (+22 – 23rd in PS vs. 45th in ESPN) and Carlos Santana (+38), Mike Napoli (+109).  I’ve got Posey at 84/21/90/3/.299, Santana at 79/19/83/8/.267, and Napoli at 70/26/75/6/.255.  Maybe these projections are slightly bullish but I think all three are possible (except if Mike Scioscia starts coaching the Rangers).  I’m always trying to get a big discount on catchers or I punt so I’d wait until the 5th round for Posey, 9th round for Santana, and 13th round for Napoli before pulling the trigger.

Outfield

Carl Crawford is the top OF in ESPN ADP – going 3rd behind Pujols and Han-Ram.  I have him 8th overall and behind two other OFs:   Braun (3rd vs. 7th in ESPN) and CarGo (4th vs 10th).  I love both those guys if they are on the board after the first 2 picks (and you can take a 1B on the turn).  I’m finding that OFs are generally available at a discount vs Point Shares.  That holds true throughout the draft so I’d stick to the BRAN plan and try not to draft more than 1 OF per 5 rounds to avoid stocking up on OFs only to find better bargains on OFs in later rounds.

Here are some bargains: Matt Holliday (+7), Nelson Cruz (+17), Shin Soo-Choo (+22), Andrew McCutchen (+14), Jayson Werth (+17), Jacoby Ellsbury (+10), Hunter Pence (+13), Andre Ethier (+21), Mike Stanton (+28), BJ Upton (+24), Jay Bruce (+27), Curtis Granderson (+26), Drew Stubbs (+43), Brett Gardner (+30), Torii Hunter (+49), Carlos Quentin (+35), Nick Markakis (+67), Bobby Abreu (+51), Rajai Davis (+46), Nick Swisher (+59)

Here are some overpriced OFs:  Ichiro (-12), Alex Rios (-13), Shane Victorino (-7), Delmon Young (-9), Michael Bourn (-25), Colby Rasmus (-9), Juan Pierre (-7), Vernon Wells (-29), Grady Sizemore (-54), Manny Ramirez (-73), and TRavis Snider (-78).

Starting Pitchers

This is the position where I’m most surprised.  Every year, I find that I overvalue starting pitchers vs. ADP.  For this post, I’m using a modified ranking which bumps up hitter value and takes down pitcher value after finding most drafts weight offense heavier.  One additional factor behind this decision is that last year was the ‘year of the pitcher’ as ERA/WHIP fell across the board.  At the same time, the performance for Aces has stayed relatively flat.  To consider an SP in the first 15 picks, I want either a projected WHIP near 1.00 and/or 250+ Ks.  I don’t think Halladay or F-Her are going to deliver either of those marks.

But the ADPs for starters are as high as I’ve seen them in years.  ESPN has 4 starters in the first 18 picks (Halladay at #6, Lincecum #14, F-Her #15, Cliff Lee #18) and 10 in the first 4 rounds (48 picks).  Last year, I think Halladay and Lincecum had ADPs closer to #20.  My first inclination is to think my weighting is too severe but my rankings for hitters line up pretty well with ADP.  I think we’re just seeing a situation where ESPNers are moving starters up their draft boards.  My only guess is that the lower offensive counting stats are making pitchers look more tempting in comparison.

I think the best bet this year is to be patient and find pitching bargains throughout the draft.

Here are the best bargains I’m finding: Felix Hernandez (-10),  Justin Verlander (-1), Dan Haren (-8), Mat Latos (+6), Josh Johnson (+10), Jered Weaver (0), Max Scherzer (-9), Shaun Marcum (-10),  Ted Lilly (+5), Colby Lewis (+8), Daniel Hudson (+37), Jeremy Hellickson (-10), Ricky Nolasco (+43), Ryan Dempster (+14), Edinson Volquez (+1), CJ Wilson (+13).

One word of warning – a number of those pitchers in the bargain list are on my ‘risky pitcher‘ list.

Relief Pitchers

The relative value of closers in ESPN ADP and Point Shares is about even.  There are differences, though, in specific player values.

Here are some bargains:  Neftali Feliz (+7), Joakim Soria (+4), Carlos Marmol (+24), Jonathan Papelbon (+15), Jonathan Broxton (+19), Huston Street (+44), John Axford (+10), Francisco Cordero (+12), Jose Valverde (+29), Matt Thornton (+75), and Craig Kimbrel (+22).

Some overpriced relievers:  Brian Wilson (-12), Mariano Rivera (-10), Francisco Rodriguez (-28), J.J. Putz (-8), Brad Lidge (-12).

I’d stick with the BRAN strategy on relievers.  In a 12-team league, I’d want at least one closer in the first 9 picks and eventually have at least 3 closers (preferably 4).  When in doubt, go for guys with stron K potential (Thornton, Kimbrel, Lidge, Nathan) over true SAGNOFs like Ryan Franklin and Brandon Lyon.