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0Now it’s time for everyone’s favorite game, Fantasy Baseball, Fun With Numbers. Ding, ding, ding… Bassoon… Triangle! Triangle! Triangle! Cow bell! More cow bell! One last ding. In today’s installment of Fantasy Baseball, Fun With Numbers, we’re going to look at some outfielders and try to figure out if maybe the numbers tell a different story than their names tell. Anyway, here’s the latest in Fantasy Baseball, Fun With Numbers:
Player A – Last season, 95/17/71/.303/29
Player B – Last season, 112/22/66/.280/12
Player A is Johnny Damon, Player B is Curtis Granderson
Player A – In 362 at-bats Pre-All Star, 50/4/39/.285/23
Player B – In 379 at-bats Pre-All Star, 50/5/31/.253/21
Player A is Alex Rios, Player B is Carlos Gomez
Player A – In 248 at-bats Post-All Star, 36/9/39/.278/9
Player B – In 268 at-bats Post-All Star, 46/9/25/.299/13
Player A is Krispie Young, Player B is Matt Kemp.
Player A – In 218 at-bats Post-All Star, 42/9/36/.335/3
Player B – In 198 at-bats Post-All Star, 46/10/37/.288/3
Player A is Andre Ethier, Player B is Mark DeRosa
Player A – In 557 at-bats last year, 66/15/84/.293/7
Player B – In 575 at-bats last year, 80/10/69/.290/14
Player A is Garrett Anderson, Player B is Delmon Young
Player A – In 356 at-bats last year, 52/15/42/.250/1
Player B – In 340 at-bats last year, 53/20/55/.235/2
Player A is Justin Upton, Player B is Jim Edmonds. This is not an endorsement of Jim Edmonds, but a warning on Upton.
Player A – In 502 at-bats last year, 74/17/61/.249/6
Player B – In 461 at-bats last year, 59/22/73/.260/6
Player A is Jeremy Hermida, Player B is Cody Ross
Player A – In 221 at-bats Post-All Star, 30/7/29/.299/11
Player B – In 231 at-bats Post-All Star, 38/4/20/.290/15
Player A is Lastings Milledge, Player B is Jacoby Ellsbury
Player A – In 247 at-bats Post-All Star, 38/11/35/.296/2
Player B – In 251 at-bats Post-All Star, 43/9/29/.311/14
Player A is Josh Hamilton, Player B is Shane Victorino… VICTORINO!
Beautiful! More food for thought prior to Sunday’s draft! Excellent examples and observations, as always!
Wait what’s wrong with J-Ups?
I must be a dork as I think this is an incredible exercise! Just what I need to really get my head spinnin before my draft friday.
@Colin: I wouldn’t say that anything is really wrong with upton, he’s just young. I think that he will he will have a monster year, just not this year. Just remember a guy with 20-25 HR with not many SB and a mediocre average is not hard to find.
This is a dynamite piece. But I gotta have more cowbell.
great post. I like removing names from numbers for people to see their subconscious biases. I hadn’t realized how much I’d faulted Milledge for borderline sucking first half last year. It also showed me how disproportionate my lingering doubt about Ethier was to his actual starting position entrenchment
Also I think you made this entire post so you could profess your undying love for Victorino whilst hating on Hamilton concurrently
Amazing to think that Ellsbury got benched for those numbers…
Derek Carty just wrote a piece about how McLouth has a legit shot at 30/30 this season. CBS has him ranked in a tie for tenth amongst outfielders. In a team team league, this equates to 4-5th round in my experience. Does his second half of 44/7/29/12/270 warrant caution?
victorino is studly and is finely getting his due. I took him in the 8th last year, and this year he’s a 4-5th rounder…. solid.
I don’t know what to think of Ellsbury. If Taveras plays a full season with a little bit of luck in the average department they will have similar seasons. Unless Jacoby is a legit .300 hitter but he seems like a guy that could bat .280 again.
He went 4th round in my recent draft, and that seems like a reach while Victorino went 6th.
I guess I do know what to think, he’s not someone I want in the first 4-5 rounds when I can get similar if not better guys later.
Love this. Now, when is that head to head strategy coming, Grey? Maybe instead of writing a whole post, you could sum it up in like 25 words or less. I might even click on the Pedialyte ad on this page if you help a brother out.
True confession time: I traded Victorino away for Swisher during Spring Training last year.
So that stuff you’ve all heard about White Sox fans being total meatheads? It’s twu, it’s twu!
@sean: I think Ellsbury was benched not for these post-ASB numbers, but for batting .245 and .247 in June and July, respectively (with BABIPs of .300 and .299.) Because of his speed, though, his BABIP should conceivably be .320-.330, making the ~.290 average most plausible.
@cockyphoenix: Hehe
@sean: No, just don’t expect McLouth to be more than he was last year either. He’s not going to take another step forward. But last year again from him is solid.
@bpasinko: Yeah, agreed. He was benched last year in the 2nd half. People seemed to have forgotten this.
@IowaCubs: Sorry, my bad. What do you want, H2H draft strategy? I feel like there’s more in-season strategy to discuss. Draft strategy — Take consistent guys over streaky guys (Guys like R. Howard or Kuroda move down a bit). You can punt a category, though it’s still not ideal. An unbalanced roster can easily win. Taveras, Bourn and Crawford with Cust, Giambi and Hacky Stevenson can win a league.
Great comparisons. I loves me some Milledge this year.
@grey you saw my team on the forums, I have Adam Jones and Felipe Lopez on my bench, but someone just dropped Justin Upton in the inital waivers, do I drop Pelfrey for him? It’s a keeper league also..
@Grey: Hacky Stevenson? Is he the ballhog in my YMCA basketball league?
Hey guys I had a live in person draft Saturday night. It is a 10 team 5×5 H2H yahoo league. My team is as follows. What do you think of it?
C- VMart 1B- Votto 2B- Cano 3B- Miggy C. SS- Rollins
OF- Holliday, Kemp, Dunn UTIL- N. Cruz
Bench- Sandoval, Ethier
SP- J. Santana, Haren RP- Jenks, Capps
P- Gallardo, Greinke, Hanrahan
Bench- Josh Johnson, Big Unit, Motte, Cueto
@agarthered: Yeah, I’d grab Upton.
@IowaCubs: Was that enough? Or did you want more?
@B.J.: Your team is solid. You’re light on steals and Sandoval should be your catcher so you don’t need V-Mart — trade him. I like your pitching. You have a top three team if you in-season manage right.
@Grey – I thought you weren’t sold on Krispie’s 2nd half?
Thanks for the reply Grey! What should I be looking for in return for V-Mart? I’m just worried I won’t get good value for him because people will remember him for his piss poor ’08 season. There is an owner in my league who could use an upgrade over Doumit at C and has a TON of speed guys. Would Victorino be a good target?
@James: And I love Kemp. I’m not passing judgments with this exercise, Hamilton is not Victorino. I’m simply pointing out some stats that might have certain players seen in different light. Maybe Victorino should be appreciated more and Justin Upton less.
@B.J.: Victorino would be a great target.
Hey, Grey. I read this article about Strasburg… Although contradictory, I think I may have blown a load and found Jesus at the same time. In addition, I’m Jewish, so Strasburg basically makes me question every aspect of my being. Do I take him over Gamel in a minor league draft? Am I right to be thinking Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan’s love child?
Fuck forgot to post link… http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=sh-strasburg032409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
@Grey – I understand – I was hoping you were going to say his strong spring might be changing your mind, but I didn’t think that was a case.
@Cubbies299: Supposed to have nasty stuff, but I still want Gamel.
@James: Well, I like Krispie, but I don’t think he’s suddenly found the elixir of the Gods in a few weeks of ST.
@Grey – Ha
Here’s my team in a 14 team h2h points league. What do you think.
Starters:
C: Doumit 1B: Votto 2B: Pedroia: 3B: Gordon SS: Drew OF: Sizemore, Carlos Lee, Corey Hart
P: Billingsley, Capps, Danks, Lilly, Wandy, Soria, Chris R. Young
Bench: Renteria, Adam Jones, Kendry Morales, R. Spilborghs,
De La Rosa, Hanrahan, Randy Johnson, Kawakami
@B.J.: Just curious — how did you get this team? I’m assuming you took Miggy in the 1st, Rollins in the 2nd, Santana in the… 3rd? Holliday in the.. 4th? Kemp in the… 5th?
Are ten-team leagues really that much shallower than 12-team, that all these guys fall a round or two?
@ agarthered, you should absolutely be scooping up Upton in a keeper league without batting an eye. While I dig the caution on Upton for this year, it’s really important to note that the brother threw up an .816 OPS in the majors in his age TWENTY season last year. Given his pedigree and obvious talent it wouldn’t seem unreasonable to expect a jump into the mid-.800s tiis season, and that would put him in the top 10 as a RFer. After that…shit, sky’s the limit for him.
@ bpasinko, the Victorino point is totally valid, but I think that speaks more to Victorino not getting his just due rather than Ellsbury getting overrated. Ells was benched last year after going through normal rookie struggles (specifically failing to adjust to inside pitching), and only then because the Sox had the luxury of another legitimate starting CFer to slide into his place. He started to implement quality counter-adjustments in August (.287/.337/.404) before tearing it up down the stretch (.340/.367/.521 final month). He’s got a real smooth Johnny Damon-esque approach to slapping the ball around, and with his speed should be good for consistent BABIPs above league-norm. I’m with royce! in pegging him as more of a legit .290/.300 hitter going forward, and his minor league career line of .314/.390/.426 seems about right in his prime years. For this year he should be better with a full season under his belt, and his speed at the top of Boston’s lethal lineup for a full season makes him an absolute lock for 100-120 runs on top of 50+ bags. 4th round might be *slightly* early, but not by much…
@Cubbies299: Just remember, Strasburg is two or three years from the majors. And his big claim to fame is that he can throw almost as hard as Joel Zumaya. So he might end up being… Joel Zumaya. Maybe not load-worthy.
@arniegrape2k: I’m not a huge fan of Pedroia, Lilly or Renteria, but other than those three schmohawks, I like your team. Probably a little light on power, which isn’t a great place to be but in H2H you might be able to work around that. Your pitching looks fine outside of Lilly.
Thanks for the reply grey. That was my first comment on here, but I’ve been reading here since last year. Looking forward to the start of the season.
i just did a quick razzball search and was surprised not to find anything at all on Daniel Murphy. Did I miss something? Manuel has stated Murphy will be batting 2nd in the Mets lineup between Reyes and Wright.
I’m strongly considering picking this guy up but I’d have to drop someone decent for him like Choo.
How good can he be?
@BVV: Why isn’t Strasbourg on the same schedule as Price or Morrow? That is, he should be up (for good) by the middle of next year, perhaps after a cup of coffee at the end of this year.
Personally, I like picking up Strasbourg in early May (a month before the draft), waiting for the Yahoo! hype machine to start churning out articles on him saying he’s gonna be up in the fall, then packaging him, right then and there, with a lesser piece to acquire a strong piece from a flailing team.
@Frank Rizzo: Well, there’s only so much time in the day so he might be underrepresented, but I think I mentioned him in the forums somewhere. I don’t think he’s going to stick in the number 2 spot and he’s weak for an OF. I’d say he projects to about 70/12/65/.280/10, which is Kelly Johnson in the outfield. If he was eligible at 2nd, he becomes more attractive.
@ Baron: I took Miggy with my 1st pick #5, Rollins in the 2nd, Holliday in the 3rd, for some reason people just kept letting Santana slip so I took him in the 4th. People were loading up on bats to start the draft and I typically don’t draft pitching early but Santana in the 4th was way too good of a value to pass up.
@B.J.: And Kemp lasted to the 5th? Sweet.
@Baron Von Vulturewins: Is Strasburg really 2-3 years away? I’m not saying he’s starting games in July for the Nats, but shouldn’t he be in their rotation in 2010?
@Tarasco’sSecretStash: It probably is about Victorino not getting his due, than Ellsbury being overrated. But I don’t think Victorino is alone. There are several OF that can steal you some bases, granted not the auto 50 Ellsbury seems to do. He’s a great player and I’d like him on my teams, just not where he’s drafted, there are too many similar OF that you can grab later that’s why I’d say he’s slightly overrated if you will.
@ Baron: yea I was surprised Kemp was still there in the 5th. I had been targeting him in all of my mock drafts and was pleasantly surprised he fell to me in the 5th.
Overall, I love my team and think it’s a definite contender but I don’t want to be overconfident going into the year.
I did speak with Victorino’s owner and he said he is willing to move him and when I offered him VMart he passed. Saying he is content with Doumit as his C. This guy is absolutely stacked with steals. He’s got Reyes, Crawford and Victorino as starters and Werth who could be good for 20+ steals.
I have Alexei at 2b, Reyes at ss, Stephen Drew at 2b/ss and Felipe Lopez on my bench.
My starters are Greinke, Cain, Josh Johnson, Bedard, Carpenter.
If the other owner is willing (he has Johan Halladay, Oswalt) should I swap Stephen Drew for John Lackey and throw Felipe Lopez in at my 2b/ss?
@Tarasco’sSecretStash Yeah I couldn’t believe when I saw someone had dropped him, I’ll be trying to get him (I have 5th on waivers), I’m also thinking Gamel, Headley are pretty good pickups eventually..if only I had more bench spots haha.
@Grey: Thanks for the advice. Anyways, whatcha think of my 14 team Keeper League?
C: Ianetta
1B: Swisher (my weak point)
2B: Uggla
SS: Tulowitzki
3B: Wright
OF: Crawford
OF: Kemp
OF: Krisby
Util: A Gordon
Util: Brian Roberts
SP: Hamels, Kazmir, Vazquez, Lowe, Jared Weaver, Price
RP: Mariano, Devine, Corpas, Nunez, Lyon, Wade (holds)
BN: Kouz, F Lewis, Morales
Also, Lindstrom appears to be coming back okay. Safe to drop him for James McDonald, Spilborghs, or Uehara? (I’m starting to like Uehara as an upside bottom of the rotation starter)
@Cubbies299: Outside of Wright, your top power guy is your 2nd baseman. I’d consider that your weak point. Your pitching is solid though if Hamels and Kazmir stay healthy. Nunez is starting the season as the Marlins closer, I wouldn’t drop him yet.
I always love fun with numbers.
pre-all star numbers don’t say anything about a rios since he bounced back in the second half. Or was that an endorsement for rios on how was able to salvage the season?
what are your projections for the two of them? I have more of the same from gomez and between 2007 and 2008 for rios, so around 100 20 80 25 .300
I think the WBC could get him hot early like he was in 2006, when he was great until he got that staff infection around the all star break and lost his strength.
@peter: Rios is obviously capable of a lot of steals, but steals are about wanting to run, so that’s on him. I do think he’s capable of more home runs. Gomez is capable of a lot of steals, low average and a few home runs.