Fantasy Baseball Advice

I’ve got a double Roundtable post this afternoon as I got too busy with life and whatnot to post the one from last week.

The first one was hosted by Patrick Cain of the Albany Times-Union Fantasy Baseball section.  His advantageous location in the heart of New York State politics makes his blog the must read for the Governor and his staff (as in his staff must read it to him – the NY Guvn’r is blind, people!  If he can’t see prostitutes, we New Yorkers assume he’s much less likely to frequent them.  Wonder if he does the Ray Charles thing and feels their wrists to know if they’re skinny or not?).  Anyway, here’s the link and the question:

What cold starts should I be reading into…and why?

I answered this one about 2 weeks ago but my advice seems fairly prescient.   Worth checking out.

The second one is from Patrick DiCaprio of FantasyPros911.com - the site that fantasy pros like Grey and I go to only in the case of an emergency.  I kid of course as one of the 911 (Mike Podhorzer) is beating me both in an NL league and in the Fantasy Razzball standings (will do a post on the standings later this week).  Here’s their link and question:

Whom do you prefer for the remainder of the year, Aaron Hill or Howie Kendrick?

What – you expected Shawn Hill vs. Kyle Kendrick?  The answers on this one proved to be rather consistent.  Go figure.  On a side note, Kendrick would be a tough last name if you were an old Jew because the fellas would all nickname you Schmendrick (the Howie would fit in well too).  It would be almost as bad as being JJ Putz or Japanese pitching star Fakokta Mashugana.

Tom Verducci of SI has posted his annual ‘Year After Effect’ post which poses that young pitchers who threw more than 30 innings last year than they had the year before as injury risks.  I had reference this theory as part of my risky pitchers tests.  For those who haven’t read this and are too lazy to click on it now…..or even now….I did find that significant pitching volume increases year-over-year does seem to have a carry-0ver effect but pitchers who threw high percentages of breaking pitches were more vulnerable (and a combination even worse).

A quick comparison of Verducci’s 10 vs. my risky pitchers shows the following:

• 3 pitchers we agree are risks (Lester, Pelfrey, Eveland)
• 5 pitchers that I feel can handle it because of their pitch mix (i.e., lack of breaking pitches), body type, or irrational exuberance (Hamels, Billingsley, Lincecum, Danks, Jurrjens)
• 2 pitchers I didn’t touch on – Kershaw (didn’t have enough major league pitches to qualify) and Niese (Met pitcher who didn’t make the team out of spring training)

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.  Verducci does claim a high level of success (”Of those 24 at-risk pitchers, 16 were hurt in that same season. Only one of the 24 pitchers managed to stay healthy and lower his ERA”) but does ‘healthy’ mean makes every single start?  For fantasy purposes, if Hamels misses 5 starts and pitches as effective as last year, that’s not going to disappoint drafters.  Peavy was injured in 2008 but the part that really hurt was his team wouldn’t score for him so his Wins tanked.

While on the subject of Verducci, I never voiced a POV on his book with Joe Torre – ‘The Yankee Years’.  I enjoyed it.  I think Torre was sincere in his comments (on other people) and Verducci did a good job writing and reporting around him.  The three things that still resonate are:

1) It’s surprising that Joe Torre put his name on a book like this.  He seemed the ‘keep it in the locker room” type.  This book takes swipes at several players not to Torre’s liking.  The A-Rod stuff, in particular, goes well beyond what is necessary (forgetting the A-Fraud nickname).

2) Joe Torre could’ve aimed his candor a little more at himself.  How could he not admit that he mismanaged bullpens and/or his success is completely dependent on having 1-2 rubber-armed middle relievers in his bullpen (like Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton in 1996-2000)?  Torre must fantasize about a guy like Scot Shields.

3) Mike Mussina definitely doesn’t pull punches.  See this quote on Mariano Rivera.  I remember some other pretty harsh quotes about less likable fellows like Carl Pavano.  Definitely interesting to read but makes you wonder what he was really like as a teammate.

Adam Ronis of Strong Island’s Newsday.com hosts the Fantasy Roundtable this week.  He asked…

Do you have players that you will absolutely not draft even if they fall far in snake drafts or go cheaply in an auction and if so why? Include examples.

Can’t say I was super enlightening on this one but feel free to judge it yourself…

Andy Behrens of Yahoo! Roto Arcade invited Razzball into their 16-team mixed league that they are christening a ‘Pro-Am’ since 9 of the players are fantasy bloggers and 7 are avid players from Fantasy Baseball Cafe boards and Y! Roto Arcade commenters.

Andy posted all the rosters as well as some Q&A over in this post.  It’s a good read.  Some post-draft thoughts:

• 16-team drafts take FOREVER if you’re picking on one of the ends.  We were 14th.  Luckily, Grey and I tag-teamed it and kept ourselves entertained with a running commentary on the picks.
• You either have to be a little more flexible in 16 team leagues or be willing to accept bad value.  We ended up following our BRAN Strategy but had to improvise when Peavy and Webb failed to reach us with the 46th pick (3rd round).  We ended up mirroring my FantasyPros911 NL-only draft from a week ago and going Catcher crazy.  McCann was at the top of both our catcher lists and we liked him better than settling for Haren.  We ended up snagging Pablo Sandoval (C-eligible in Y! leagues) in the 8th round as we were incredulous that he was still available (guys like Napoli were coming off the board by the 10th round).
• These guys were middle infielder crazy:  Furcal in the 4th.  Figgins, Tulo, and Uggla in the 5th.  Cano, Jeter, and Michael Young in the 6th.  You get the idea.  Never thought twice about waiting it out.  Like Kelly Johnson in the 9th round (122nd pick).  Freddy Sanchez (19th round) and Elvis Andrus (20th round) should chip in for AVG and SB respectively.
• Outfield dries up quick in a league this big.  You know it’s bad when you’re forced to draft Frenchy in the 17th round.  But Beltran/McLouth/Maybin/Lewis are a solid first four and felt Rasmus in round 22 (something like pick #340) is a nice upside play.
• Not loving our pitching staff.  I like our Shields/Cain/Cueto troika less than my 12-team NL of Volquez/Cain/Scherzer.  I hope Carmona doesn’t make me look bad for championing him in the 16th round.  At least our relief situation is solid with Lidge, Francisco, and Devine (edit: doh!).

Juan Pierre is like a piece of paper.  You fold his ABs in half but it just makes him twice as strong.  People scoffed last year when I boldly kept my HR projection for Juan Pierre roughly the same (0.5 from 0.6) despite seeing his projected ABs go from 615 to 350.

Let’s see what happened:

Rudy Gamble’s pre-season projections:
350 AB, 0.5 HR, 24 RBI

Juan Pierre’s actual stats:
375 AB, 1 HR, 28 RBI

Yes, Juan Pierre hit the HR.  Thanks to a 2-run blast on September 15th against a Pirate hurler named Marino Salas to ‘deep RF’.

Pierre increased his HR output by #DIV/0!% vs. 2007 despite a 44% decrease in ABs from 2007.  I’ve looked at the stats for tons of power hitters and no one has been able to increase HRs by that type of percentage even when they increased AB from the previous season.

So what is on tap for 2009?  Well, I have Pierre projected for 280 ABs which is about a 20% drop from 2008.  But I’m going to project him for a Herculean 1.3 HRs.  That’s a 30% increase vs. his 2008 actuals and 160% over my 2008 projection.

I’m doubling down on  you, Juan.  Don’t let me down!