Fantasy Baseball Advice

All of these rookies are worth grabbing at the right spot, but I wouldn’t reach for any of them.  Sorry if that sounds boring, but sometimes Grey needs to instill some right-wing fantasy baseball conservatism into the equation.  Longoria, Soto, Tulowitzki, Braun, Michael J. Fox in the first year of Family Ties, etc. panned out.  But for every time you scored with rookie nookie, there was a time when you struckout, Adam Jones, Johnny Cueto, Fukudome, Towles, Hughes, Parra, Justin Upton, Brian Bonsall, etc.  If you click on the links on the players below, you’ll see I covered all of these rookies for 2009 fantasy baseball back in November/December.   (These fantasy sleeper, rookie doodes are in no particular order.  Well… Technically, I did wrote them down in an order so they are in some order…)  Anyway, here’s some rookies for 2009 fantasy baseball:

David Price – I think he hits 150 innings and makes a huge difference for the teams who own him.  I’d pursue him like a third or fourth fantasy starter.

Matt Wieters – He’s been discussed ad nauseum since I discussed him way back in November.  I won’t have him in any league.

Cameron Maybin – I’m going to go out on a limb and say he’s a top 30 outfielder at the end of the year.  That’s a hunch more than anything.   What, I can’t have crushes?

Colby Rasmus – I like him in NL-Only leagues if he leaves spring training with a gig.

Travis Snider – Cheap source of 20 homer power.

Elvis Andrus – Liked him a whole lot more before Omar “I Will One Day Die At The Hands Of Jose Mesa” Vizquel joined the team.

Andrew McCutchen – Keep your eye on him in NL-Only keepers.  He might be a doughy bagel as soon as 2010.

Carlos Carrasco – I like him more than most, but he needs an injury to someone else to see some RT (that’s Rotation Time.  Acronyms don’t work as well when I have to explain them.)

Brett Gardner – I loved him back in November.  Now I’m a bit lukewarm.  If he can find legitimate PT, he swipes 30 bags.  Two things are going in his favor 1) Melky’s his main competition.  2)  See Number One.

Kenshin Kawakami - Two parts Kuroda, one part Hideki Irabu.

Jason Heyward – Keep Heyward in mind in NL-Only keeper leagues.  He’s my early frontrunner for NL ROY for 2010.

Chris Dickerson – Dusty Baker is talking of playing veterans.  Oh, Dusty.  You card!

Mat Gamel -  If he leaves camp with a full-time gig, he will be worth owning in mixed leagues.

Taylor Teagarden – I’d like him more if the Rangers didn’t have Saltymochachino in front of him.  Yet, I still like him.  I like Salty too.  To quote your Mom’s favorite movie title, “Something’s Gotta Give.”

James McDonald – If McDonald gets the fifth starter job in The Los Angeles City of Los Angeles (<–required by Anaheim law), he could be a great NL-Only sleeper.  James McDonald is a fantasy sleeper?! That’ll be a big seller in Google searches.

FTBOTR is For The Back Of The Room, that’s who this post is for.  Our 2009 fantasy baseball projections have been posted.  These 2009 fantasy baseball projections are not quite like every other site’s fantasy projections.  Ours come in the form of Point Shares. This is a very basic system to understand, this is our Player Rater.  Let’s look at David Wright, who comes in first on the 10-team 2009 projections list.  David Wright will give you 5.49 Points in your ten team league over the average third baseman.  So if you have Kevin Youkilis (.05 Point Shares) at 3rd and you trade him for David Wright, you’ve essentially gained a bit more than 5 points in the standings.  That’s not too hard to understand, right?

These specific 2009 fantasy baseball projections use Marcel’s stat projections from the site TangoTiger.net.  Rudy uses these projections because they are free. He will also be putting together 2009 projections for Point Shares using a few other free services. Then he will do one cumulative Point Shares spreadsheet using all the projections systems.  If you run a site and would like Rudy to use your projections, I’m sure there’s some way we can work this out.  Finally, a bit of good news for those in auction leagues.  Rudy added dollar amounts to the Point Shares spreadsheet, so go check it out.  For those who want projections in the form of stats and not Point Shares, I will personally be going over every single worthwhile player in my annual top twenty posts in January and giving you some of my own 2009 fantasy baseball projections.  Stay tuned for those.  In the meantime, have a great holiday and hopefully whereever you are the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser are on speaking terms.

While regurgigating Jobacum, I mentioned Gamel is a lot like Ryan Braun. All hit, no field. In Single-A ball in 2007, Gamel made 53 errors in 128 games.  In that post, I said that he plays 3rd like Jenny McCarthy at a celebrity All-Star game, but I think I was overestimating his glove work.  Kenny Mayne might be a better comparison.  Last year Gamel cut his errors to 30, but still led Double-A with the most errors by a third baseman.  Oh Gamel, you’ve done it again!  If he could just get to the big leagues as a third baseman, his bat will be one to own in fantasy.  But can he help your fantasy baseball team in 2009?

Bill James projects a full-time Mat Gamel in 2009 hitting 18 home runs and over .300 in 150 games.  I think that’s being too conservative on the power, but too generous on the games played.  If Gamel gets a full-time gig out of spring training, I think we could see 27/80/.300 and 40 errors.  The Brewers also realized Gamel’s glove isn’t ready for the majors and now have in place the third base blahtoon of Mike Lamb and Bill Hall.  Gamel is probably destined for the outfield, but the Brewers outfield is a bit crowded right now.  Gamel needs Corey Hart to tongue kiss Casey Kotchman and come down with a bad case of mono for Gamel to see any significant time in the Brewers outfield in 2009.  I’m sure the Brewers want Gamel to play 3rd; I’m almost positive Gamel wants to play 3rd, but inspiration meets perspiration meets no fielding ability, doesn’t add up to a major league 3rd baseman.  Unless the Brewers play Gamel in short left field in front of Braun, the glaring flaw in his defensive game makes him too much of a liability for the Brewers and too much for you, except in deep keeper leagues.