David Freese has an OBP higher than his slugging, which is only a good sign when you’re Joey Votto. His .224/.298/.259 line is begging you to beg me why you still have him on your roster. What’s cooler than being cool? David Freese! Somewhere, Mr. Freeze says, “Ice to see you, David.” Here’s the deal: his plate discipline appears to be just as good as last season. The only significant change is in his batted ball data, where he’s hitting a lot more ground balls and less fly balls than he’s hit in his career. This looks like something that is highly likely to normalize as the season progresses so, like Jim Cramer, I’m going to tell you to, “Buy! Buy! Buy!” In fact, I expect him to produce near his career .290/.350/.430 line for the rest of 2013. Color me optimistic, Radiohead, but I’ll be buying low on Freese. Anyway, here are some other players who have hit me with their best shot in OPS leagues:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Angel Pagan
We are almost through April and most fantasy baseball owners fall in two categories. There are those owners that have gotten off to a good start and feel pretty comfortable about their teams. Maybe almost too comfortable. Then there are the “OH-MY-GOD-WHAT-HAVE-I-DONE!!!!” owners. You know who you are. I feel ya. I do. Hell, I’ve been there. Something has gone astray. You didn’t draft well or you had a minor Jerry Maguire freak-out moment and then proceeded to make a bad trade. This stuff happens to everyone, so how do you start to right the ship? There are some moves that you can make that to either stop the bleeding or to continue a fast start.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Jered Weaver owners just found another reason to get down on one knee (although shelling out for a ring causes a similar sensation). Weaver will be going to renowned SoCal ‘Doctor of the Skateboarders’ Ollie Ramp. “I usually see these occur when some knucklehead tries to ride a railing and takes a header…or I guess an elbower.” Well, thank God for my Jered Weaver overrated post that helped all of you avoid Weaver in the preseason. Right? *crickets, birds chirping, a little fat kid running through a sprinkler* So, some of you drafted him anyway? Show yourselves for the world to see. You will not be mocked. You will be pointed at derisively. Okay, that’s mocked. The Weaver Drafter, “Everyone was down on Weaver, in the non-sexual way, so he came at such a discount… Besides, you were worried about his decreased velocity, falling K-rate, lucky ERA… You never said anything about him breaking his non-throwing elbow.” Hopefully, kind sir, they have an Excuses For Drafting Weaver category in your league. He’ll be back in 6 weeks. I look forward to others putting him on their DL until then. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Hold on, Alabama Shakes. This title isn’t meant for you to run out and take a crowbar to an injured player’s knee. Instead, I’m handicapping injured players in terms of their value. In a way, this is an expansion upon an article I wrote about how Corey Hart compares to Allen Craig. I’ve heard people argue that you can’t predict injuries, so you should draft players with confidence who, though they have an extensive injury history, are currently healthy. To me, it doesn’t make sense to make that assumption, as if injuries have no lingering aftereffect or increase in chance of future injury. Just because we don’t know the full extent of something doesn’t mean we should ignore it. So, it’s worth building this potential risk into the price you pay or the round you draft that player. It is the same approach that you can use to value players who are currently injured. Does this sound controversial? Perfect, that means you’ve followed me so far. I’m going to use this approach to evaluate a few players. The goal of this post is to reduce the uncertainty of how injuries affect a player’s value, particularly in OPS leagues. Anyway, here’s how I value some of these players:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Trying to find a worthwhile steals guy in an OPS league is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But who looks for needles in haystacks anymore (sorry Amish readers)? A better comparison would be trying to find a sane prediction out of Matthew Berry’s bold predictions. In all seriousness, Mr. Berry is as talented a writer as I am experienced at being a fantasy baseball league commissioner. Speaking of which, y’all should sign up to be in a Razzball Commenter League and even be a league commissioner, which you could add on your resume (you can even add me as a reference). One more plug: some of the Razzball writers just began a mock draft. You should follow along at #RazzballMock (I’m @votetomjacks if that wasn’t already obvious). It’ll be the bee’s knees. Let’s get the buzz going! Anyway, if you’re wondering how it feels trying to get steals in an OPS league, I suggest you read A Tale of Two SAGNOFs. Essentially, there are very few steals guys that won’t hurt you too much in the OPS category, which makes these players that much more valuable. Did I mention that this article was inspired by a few awesome commenters in last week’s article? Now I did. My fellow Razzballers, here is a batch of 30+ steal players that won’t hurt you (too much) in OPS leagues:
Please, blog, may I have some more?The top 60 outfielders for 2013 fantasy baseball become a sloppy mess towards the end. I almost went with guys like Leonys Martin over, say, Angel Pagan, but that’s upside for upside’s sake over a known entity. Guys near the top of the 80 outfielder post, which will be up next, like Adam Eaton and Leonys Martin are great, but I can’t rank them above guys who have shown 10-15 homer and 20-30 steal skills in the majors, even though I could see owning Eaton or Martin before Pagan. I’ll just wait until Pagan is drafted by someone else and then lay my big, beautiful, blue eyes on upside outfielders. With these outfielders, we’re officially in a crop of players (or maybe that’s crap) that won’t even be drafted in some shallower leagues. If you have only 3 outfielders in your 10-team league, you might never see Michael Brantley drafted. In deeper leagues, where these guys will be drafted, you need to match up needs with wants. I want Ben Revere if I have heavy RBI/power guys on my team. I don’t need him if I have, say, Reyes, Aoki and Ichiro. Oh, and if I had Reyes, Aoki and Ichiro, I might consider fantasy rugby. All of the 2013 fantasy baseball rankings are there. As always, my projections and tiers are included. Anyway, here’s the top 60 outfielders for 2013 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?The Yankees’ extra-bat-off-the-bench in the playoffs, Alex Rodriguez, will be out for six months, following surgery on his hip that is set to take place in January. Guess A-Rod doesn’t want to be out of service for the holiday season. “Hey, I got a date with this smoking hot, butchy female and she wants me to dress up as Santa and sit on my lap. Can we do this whole hip-ma-whosie Jan one?” That’s A-Rod talking to his doctors. Yes, A-Rod says Jan instead of January. BTW, I Googled A-Rod surgery and the first article was at Latino dot Fox. A-Rod is as Latino as Taco Bell. On the fo’ really tip, why can’t he go into surgery right now? He’s getting paid approximately four hundred million this year and he wants to delay surgery so he misses an extra month of the season? The $17 million that went to Russell Martin just shook its head, incredulous. If there’s a legitimate reason for the delay that I didn’t read about, there’s no legitimate reason, so don’t bother telling me about it. Maybe if Pasta Diving Cap’n Jetes would get hip surgery in December than A-Rod would, as well. Well, even before Rodriguez came down with the appropriate hip problem, he shouldn’t have been drafted. He’s actually done us all a favor. Now he’s pushed himself so far down draft boards that you won’t even have to think about it in, say, the 12th round. For 2013, I’ll put his line at 40/13/44/.263/6 in 300 ABs. He’s firmly in the “Do Not Touch” section of your draft board. Anyway, here’s some more offseason moves for 2013 fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Moving, in short…is a bitch. Like, is there anything more torturous on the planet earth than moving? The boxing. The bubble wrap. The calling of the friends who desperately try and come up with excuses as to how they are busy.
Please, blog, may I have some more?After the Orioles played 18 innings on Tuesday, delirium set it in and they said, “We’ve had two bean and cheese burritos since 6 o’clock and we have to pull a double shift ice trucking. Somebody gives us a Christian side hug right now or we’re calling up Dylan Bundy.
Please, blog, may I have some more?The Mets went into their minor league system and pulled a giant rabbit out of their hat with Matt Harvey. *terrible Jimmy Stewart impression* Mr. Potter, I knew a Harvey once. Back in 1955, see, and Danny Kaye asked me to sneak this guy named Harvey out of his bedroom at 2 AM.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
