fantasy baseball strategy

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Fantasy Baseball Pitchers, the 2nd Half Performers

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The other day I went over some 2nd half hitters.  Today, it’s time for everyone’s favorite 2nd half fantasy baseball pitchers.  Or maybe these won’t be your favorite pitchers.  These are decisions you have to make on your own.  I can walk you to the fantasy baseball water, I cannot drink it for you.  Similarly to hitters, players get in grooves or slumps.  So if a pitcher has been terrible for the last month, but showed flashes in the 2nd half of last year, he’s worth considering, but he’s not suddenly going to be great, i.e., recent history should be weighed.  Anyway, here’s some 2nd half fantasy baseball pitchers for 2010:

CC Sabathia – 1.56 ERA in 2008′s 2nd half to lead the league for pitchers over 60 innings.  He was ranked 7th for 2nd half ERA in 2007 with a 2.76.  Last year, Chubb rock’d a 2.74 ERA, the 9th best in the majors.  Though his K-rate is down.  Though, Part II:  The Return of Though, he does have a 3.61 career ERA.  Though, Part III: Though Lives, he is usually better in the 2nd half.  Though, Part IV:  Though Part Three Confused Me.  Though, Part V:  Why Do They Keep Making Thoughs?

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Fantasy Baseball Hitters, the 2nd Half Performers

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Here’s some 2nd half hitters for fantasy baseball who should be better than they were in the first half.  To come up with this list, I scoured the last three years of post-All-Star Break numbers, ran it through a supercomputer that’s bigger than your Peugeot, pasted the supercomputer-generated names to my shirt like dollar bills on a wedding dress then went to a palm reader to help me pick ten names out of the thousands.  The palm reader’s name was Erica Karabell.  Anyway, here’s the best 2nd half fantasy baseball hitters for 2010:

Derrek Lee – Last year, he played the 2nd half like he was walking onto a yacht with an apricot scarf.  I think last year was an anomaly, which is a fancy word for saying ignore Derrek Lee’s 2nd half.  But if you’re choosing between the schmohawk behind door #3 and Lee, then I’d go with Lee just for the chance he can repeat even a tiny bit of last year, so that’s negating the negation.

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Fantasy Baseball Trading, Giving or Getting Headley

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Headley’s an example.  You don’t necessarily have to give or get Headley for this example to work, but a comment I got today made me think of him.  Someone was offered the trade of Miggy Cabrera and Chase Headley for Haren and Kershaw.  Whether you think this trade is fair or not is besides the point, Headley is the point.  He’s the sore thumb in this trade.  To break this down into a real world example, if you were trading someone for a blueberry pie and you had to give an apple pie and one other component.  To sweeten the pot of pie, would you A) Throw in whipped cream?

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Fantasy Baseball, The No Trade, Cuz

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Sometimes you just can’t trade a guy in your fantasy baseball league.  For whatever reason, the rest of the teams don’t believe in your guy.  Whether it’s someone who has been doing well who people aren’t sure if they’re for real (Corey Hart) or someone who has been struggling (Berkman), no one in your league will trade for them.  You’ve tried to sell lower than even their value warrants, but no bites.

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Fantasy Baseball, Best Pitchers of July

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These are the leading pitchers in the major leagues for last three July’s.  Do I think every pitcher does the same thing every year?  No, I don’t.  But pitchers do tend to follow patterns.  If these players were good in July for the last three years, there’s at least a chance they will be good this year.  I emphasized last year’s July over the previous years and omitted names that I thought wouldn’t be available anywhere.  Then I wrote the names on bingo balls, threw them in a large rotating cage and had a priest pick them out.  What?  That’s how I always do it.  Anyway, here’s some top fantasy baseball pitchers for the month of July:

Carlos Zambrano – Has an ERA of 1.93 for the last three July’s.  By far his best month.  Except for maybe December when the Big Z can be seen drinking Mai Tais on the white sand beaches of Bermuda.  Keep in mind Z gets so amped up in July that he loses his shizz in August, which is his worse ERA month over the last three years.

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This Is My Trade Protest

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Here at Razzball we don’t believe in protesting a fantasy baseball trade, but we do fully support passive-aggressive, sarcastic belittling.  So if someone in your league completed a trade that makes you wish they’d walk into oncoming traffic, you’re in luck!  Here’s a Mad Libs-type tirade to post in your league’s messageboard because when met with pettiness, you should retaliate with more pettiness.  Simply copy the below and fill in the appropriate words.  You may use this post to antagonize your closest friends, enemies or frenemies with the express written consent of Razzball.com.  Also, feel free to post your version in the comments.

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Fantasy Starters Dominating Hard To Pronounce Acronyms

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If you go through the top pitchers for Wins or Ks or ERA or WHIP, you might see one set of names.  You know the names, Ubaldo, Garcia, Price, Pettitte, Buchholz, Wainwright… The guys that are actually helping you win your league.  Well, I decided to look at some more obscure (depending on your definition of obscure, I suppose) stats and see if maybe they’re giving us a different picture.  Some pitchers that can be had for cheaper or even grabbed off waivers that are pitching well just not yet putting up the numbers in the categories that matter for fantasy.  Yet’s the key word.  The best is yet to come for these pitchers.  Anyway, here’s some pitchers that are pitching well in relative obscurity for fantasy baseball:

Bronson Arroyo – Leads the major leagues in Opponents’ Quality OPS* (OPP_Qual_OPS) with .689.  As defined by BP, not the gas company, “(S)hows you what a pitcher has allowed for average, on-base and slugging rates, but also tells you how those hitters have done against the rest of the league.

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Hitters Coming Correct

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If you’ve ever watched a game (if you haven’t, I suggest it sometime) and thought, “Everything this doode hits is dropping in.  And why am I spelling dude wrong when I’m saying it aloud?” then you know where I’m going in this post.  Some guys are just born lucky, other guys sit under bird cages hoping they’re crapped on.  To refresh (that’s your cue to skip ahead, if you know this shizz):  BABIP is a quick way to know how much luck a hitter is having.  There’s more to it, but for the purposes of this, a high BABIP for a hitter and it means the hitter could hit a bloop single just over the pitcher’s head with the infield drawn in.  Below .200 and the hitter could hit a line drive into the Grand Canyon and it would get caught by Alice on the back of a mule.  Then there’s HR/FB%, which is a quick way to know if a hitter is hitting more home runs than what makes sense for that player’s amount of fly balls.  Then there’s LD%, which is the percentage of hits that are line drives.  Line drives are usually a sign of solid contact aka a player is hitting the ball hard.  Finally, K% or the percentage a hitter Ks.  Anyway, here’s some hitters that have been lucky or unlucky so far for fantasy baseball:

Jose Bautista – HR/FB% is way above where his career marks are.  Also, has 6 homers that are “Just Enoughs,” which is 2nd in the AL.  (BTW, that site I just linked to is a good place to lose 2 hours.)  Doesn’t take a genius to see Bautista’s start to the season is unheard of for him, but how long will it last?  Will it be a career year or a career 1st half?  I’d bet on the latter.

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Don’t FIP Out, They’ll Be Better

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The other day I looked at the pitchers that were getting lucky for fantasy baseball.  Today, we hold that up to the mirror and see how the other half lives.  You know, the losers that should be winners.  The Jon Cryer’s.  Or is he just a loser?  How about these guys are the Ronald Miller’s?  They’re going to go from total geek to total chic.  These pitchers are either not leaving men on base at a normal rate and/or they’re giving up hits like there’s 7 Pat Burrells behind them.  They couldn’t get lucky with a bottle of Rumplemintz and Lindsay Lohan.  But that could all change.  Anyway, here’s a list of pitchers with the biggest difference between their xFIP and their ERA.

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Strasburg, Stanton Are Upside Your Head

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I wanted to talk about what Stephen Strasburg and Mike Stanton can provide for you in fantasy baseball this year.  Then I realized I had already and again and again.  Strasburg can throw a perfect game today and nothing will change in my mind.  Stanton could hit 7 bombs by the fifth inning and… Well, I actually like rookie hitters better than rookie pitchers, so I might continue to like Stanton and not tell you to sell him.  Though it doesn’t seem likely.  Instead of going over again what I’d expect from those two, I wanted to talk about rookies in general and what we’ve gotten so far from them in fantasy baseball.  As I’ve said before, rookies and Craigslist ads that read, “5′ 7″, 120 lbs., fitness model who loves cooking and cleaning and sex” are often very similar.  Expectations and reality don’t always run hand in hand.  Don’t always believe the picture.

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