Fantasy Baseball Advice

Usually on Friday I go over one player who can be looked at keeping in keeper leagues, but the other day in the comments I was asked for some general fantasy baseball keeper league strategy.  A request and dedication, if you will.  For illustration purposes, let’s look at last year’s Chase Utley keeper post.  Go ahead, read it.  This’ll be here when you return.  Welcome back!  Okay, in that post I told you to keep Marmol and Utley.  At the time, Utley was about to have hip surgery and Marmol wasn’t the closer.  In my oversized brain, I figured, hip surgery be damned, Utley would still be a top hitter at a weak position. Which brings me to my first fantasy baseball keeper point:

1. Top hitters at weak positions rule in keepers.

Utley, Mauer, Hanley, et al. are top keepers.  I’m not a fan of drafting Mauer very early on in redrafts.  But in a keeper league, I’m assuming you have him for a lot cheaper than he’ll go in redrafts, especially when considering he went late in 2009 drafts because of back issues.

2. Value is a trump card.

In the above Utley/Marmol example, I knew Marmol would be very cheap on your team because he was nothing but a middle man in 2008.  Though he had the stuff to be the closer in 2009 and Kevin Gregg blocking him — ha!  Are you keeping Marmol over Miguel Cabrera?  Not unless Nurse Ratched just gave you a lobotomy.  Would I have told you last year to keep a 20th round Marmol over, say, a 8th round Vernon Wells?  Yes, I would’ve.  Another example of value as trump card, Derrek Lee in the 6th round or Kendry Morales in the 20th round?  Kendry Morales wins.

3. Try to figure out who your leaguemates are keeping.

Or the inverse of that, who will be available on draft day.  This is sometimes easier said than done, but you should be able to gauge more or less the guys that will be kept.  For instance, if there’s going to be no top 3rd basemen in the draft, it makes Kevin Youkilis in the 3rd round a lot more appealing.

4. When in doubt, keep a hitter.

I’m not opposed to keeping a pitcher or two, but if I could have my druthers — those are MY druthers! — I’d keep hitters.  Same that holds true for redraft leagues holds true for keepers.  Pitchers are unpredictable from year to year.

5. Take a gamble on upside.

Some players have top 50 upside.  Think The Dread Pirate.  Am I gambling on upside over a proven commodity?  No, I’m not.  But if you keep, say, 5 keepers, take 4 proven guys and gamble on one guy to have some upside.

6. Don’t be cute; go for the win this year vs. the future win.

This point couches point number five.  Don’t overload on future talent.  I’m sure Strasburg will be dynamite.  He may even be dy-no-mite.  That doesn’t mean you’re playing 2011 before 2010 even starts, future boy.

USA Today might no longer appreciate the insights shared by Larry King in his long-running column but we at Razzball were thrilled when he accepted our invitation to share his thoughts on Fantasy Baseball….

Greetings friends, acquaintances and ex-wives!  Wow, another baseball season is in the books!  I’d like to tip my hat to Joe Girardi.  If I had a son, I’d name him Joegirardi King… I haven’t been this excited for a Yankees win since the Civil War… Don’t worry, Philadelphia – at least you still have that delicious cream cheese….  The last game reminded me of the time I had lunch with Wolf Blitzer.  I fell asleep during both…. I wish there were fjords in Kansas…. The only thing new Cardinal hitting instructor Mark McGwire has to apologize for is his killer smile…. I hope Cole Hamels’ mom teaches him a thing or two about spunk… If I threw a party, I’d invite Carlos Ruiz and ask him how he squats behind the plate.  My knees don’t work so good anymore… I was enchanted by Sandra Bullock’s performance in All About Steve.  When she does an accent, Oscar says, “Yes!”… I don’t think Chone Figgins is going to leave the Angels because it’ll take too long to teach everyone at another stadium to say his name correctly… Why can’t I find my pajamas?  I’m cold…. The best restaurant on the Upper East Side is the alleyway behind Le Cirque where the bus boys hang out and smoke… I’m bucknaked as I type this, and I’m not typing with my fingers… Where has Celine Dion been? I’m dying for a music-inspired soundtrack for James Cameron’s latest, Avatar…  Speaking of which, am I the only one that wants to pronounce it Ava Tar?… If Sean Casey is the Mayor, then Mark Grace is the Comptroller… The player I most identify with in the Major Leagues is Manny Ramirez…We both are from a New York borough…We both use erectile dysfunction pills…We both pee at inappropriate times…. Ah, there’s my pajamas, who put them in the microwave?…. The Pirates fans better get their season tickets early, you got Akinori Iwamura now!  I regretted not buying a baseball team until watching Frank McCourt’s ordeal.  Such a shame as Angela’s Ashes is one of my favorite books of all time.  Let’s just hope that Peter and Maya Angelos stay together…

With Grady Sizemore dealing with an elbow issue and Tom Sizemore responsible for The Smoking Gun updates, finally we have a Sizemore that had a good 2009.  Scott Sizemore is the 2nd base prospect for the Tigers.  I know what you’re thinking, Crapolanco’s got 2nd base locked down, son.  Well, Dad, Crapolanco is entering free agency this winter so his time in Detroit may be over.  So, let’s assume that 2nd base is vacated for Sizemore in 2010, can he help you in fantasy baseball leagues?

In 520 at-bats between Double and Triple-A, Sizemore hit 17 homers and stole 21 bags while maintaining .308/.389/.500. He only lost about 60 points in slugging when he moved from Double-A to Triple and his line drive rate actually got better.  (More on Scott Sizemore’s minor league numbers.)  One drawback is he’s starting to ripen late for a prospect (he’ll be 25 years old in 2010).  He needs to make the move this year.  And, to be fair, if he played outfield, I may not be talking about him, but at 2nd base giddy-up.  Leyland has shown he doesn’t have any qualms about playing a rookie.  Incredibly, he batted a rookie third for about 200 at-bats in 2009.  Also, knowing Leyland’s tendency to save trees by Liquid Papering lineup cards, he may simply replace Polanco in the two hole with Sizemore. With a starting job, Sizemore could mean 80/14/70/.275/16 with upside from there.  This is exactly the kind of guy I would take a flier on at MI late in 2010 fantasy baseball drafts.  If he doesn’t pan out, then you grab Felipe Lopez or some other schmohawk.  So if you go with Sizemores for $300 and the answer is, “He has two working elbows and a blood alcohol level under .25.”  The question is, who is Scott Sizemore?

What I’d really like to see is a Major Leaguer go to Cuba to play.  Kevin Youkilis grows out his beard another five inches, jumps in a raft and paddles to Havana.  He tears up the Cuban Leagues on a steady diet of fastballs and plantains.  This could end the Cold War for good. (It might already be over.  I’m not good at history.)  Dayan Viciedo is the latest Cuban prospect to defect (actually Aroldis Chapman is the latest; whatevs, it’s an introductory paragraph).  With his defection… (Speaking of which, talk about a word that had nothing going for it.  You don’t want a defect in anything, unless you’re defecting from somewhere… I found that interesting.  Semantics?  Perhaps.) Dayan hit well in spring training and people were saying that the White Sox had done it again with a Cuban prospect, just like Alexei Ramirez; this was before that was an insult.  Early on, Viciedo struggled in the minors (Scouting the Unknown went over Dayan’s minor stats in June), then turned things around a bit as the season progressed.  So can Dayan Viciedo help your fantasy baseball team in 2010?

I’m going to say doubtful with a chance of “not at all.”  As with other recent Cuban raftees, Viciedo likes to swing the bat and doesn’t do much walking.  In his first year of the minors at Double-A, he had a .317 OBP with 89 Ks to 23 walks.  He can probably have success with this approach, because he do what he do.  His line drive percentages went up in the 2nd half of the year, showing he was making better contact.  Really his terrible April brought everything down.  Interesting (to me, at least), in April he had his lowest line drive rate and highest fly ball rate as his numbers suffered.  The Akron Chapter of Speculating on Small Sample Sizes says, maybe he was trying to do too much in his first month of minor league ball.  He’s still (supposedly) only 20 years old.  Another year (or at least a half year) will do him good.  Best case scenario, two to three months in Triple-A and a mid-summer call up.  Worst case scenario, we don’t see him until 2011.  Outside of keepers, I wouldn’t bother with him in your March 2010 drafts.

We continue our 2010 fantasy baseball keeper posts with B.J. Upton.  At first, I was going to write about Justin Upton, but I figured he was such a no-brainer that I didn’t need to dedicate a keeper post to him.  Of course he’s a keeper.  B.J.’s much more interesting.  In his short major league career, he’s shown all the tools that once had the scouts drooling over him.  B.J., tools, drooling, you do the math.  Unfortunately, he hasn’t shown them all the tools at the same time.  A B.J. hasn’t had this many ups and downs since Chloe Sevigny in The Brown Bunny.  The closest B.J., um, came was at the age of 22 in 2007 when he hit 24 homers and stole 22 bases while batting .300 in 474 at-bats.  That season led everyone to the assumption Upton was a sure 30/30 threat.  Unlimited potential.  He was like Hal Ashby before the 80’s.  Then Upton’s age 23 season came and his power disappeared.  Hrmph.  Reports came out that he was playing with a torn labrum in his left shoulder.  It zapped his power.  We excused him.  The 44 steals made the medicine go down.  In 2009, it was more of the same and this time the average bottomed out, too.  So where’s the power?  Is it ever returning?  What’s up with the average?  Is he steals and nothing else?  To the point, is B.J. Upton a solid fantasy baseball keeper for 2010?

Let’s tackle average first.  In 2009, his line drive rate fell (15.4% from 18.9% in 2008) and his walks plummeted (9.2% from 15.4% in 2008).  Meantime, his fly ball rate went through the roof (for him) from 30.6% in 2008 to 40.3% in 2009.  His K-rate also went up.  This leads me to think he was swinging at balls he didn’t used to swing at and trying to do too much with them.  This isn’t much of a limb, the numbers bear this out with him swinging at nearly 5% more pitches outside the strike zone.  This might sound Tim McCarverish, but he needs to relax, wait for his pitch and his average should turn around.  I’d bet on a .270 average from him in 2010.  As for the evaporated power, it’s a bit trickier.  His home run per fly ball ratio in 2007 was 19.8%.  That seems to be an outlier.  He’s probably closer to a 10-12% home run to fly ball hitter.  That still puts him in the 15 homer range.  The steals are there, obviously.  So if a 15/40 hitter with a .270 average is a keeper for your team, I’d keep B.J. Upton.