Fantasy Baseball Advice

I’d like to dedicate this opening paragraph to one of our 2008 faves Mark ‘Mini-Donkey’ Reynolds as he reached 200 Ks and is poised to shatter the previous record of 205 Ks set by the very same Mark Reynolds last year.  (Luckily, he’s also shattering his record for Runs, HRs, RBIs, and SBs too.)  We are tempted to call up MLB to ask how much it would cost to sponsor a Razzball Windmill of the Year Award.  It’s got to be hard to fail that much and still have the overall success that Reynolds is having this year.  It’s like that guy in the bar who comes onto 10 girls out of his league and then scores with the 11th.  You have to be impressed with his triumph but the 10 failures are, in their own way, more impressive.  Anyway, kudos to the Grand Diamondhack and onto the rest of what’s going on…

Derek Lowe - D-Lowe forfeited a favorable start tonight when he left after two innings (and 3 ER) with a blister on his ring finger.  Luckily the blister isn’t on his little finger or his thumb or he’d really be in dire straits.

Gavin Floyd – He saw D-Lowe’s 2 inning start and saw him one inning better before leaving with a bad hip.  A 4th inning might’ve qualified him for a Win…..if you used the Joba Rules.  Decent chance he’s toast for the season so don’t waver to waiver.

Hideki Matsui - Hit his 25th HR of the season as part of a Yankee win.  I would’ve thought Matsui would’ve needed to move back to one of those glorified Little League stadiums they have in Japan to ever clear 25 HR again.  Luckily the Yanks built one instead.

Ian Stewart - Returned after missing most of the last week with a bad back to hit a 2-run HR.  He’s now 7-for-30 in September with 5 HRs and 14 Ks.  He’d be a 50 HR threat if they ever triple the size of the ball or the bat barrel.

Jonny Gomes - Hit his 20th HR of the season in 254 ABs.  Incidentally, that’s 2 more than Jay Bruce, 18 more than Chris Dickerson, and 19 more than Willy Taveras.   Hitters moving from the AL to the NL must feel like that kid whose birthday fell a day after the Little League cutoff and got to play an extra year.

Francisco Rodriguez & Brian Fuentes – The former and current Angel closers continue to bedevil fantasy owners with blown saves last night – adding to their already 5.00+ ERAs in the second half.  Like a bunch of Latin Lidges.  If they are still available in your league, lock in their backups – Kevin Jepsen for the Angels and…um…uh…never mind on the Mets.

Franklin Morales – Closing the circle of blown saves, the interim closer of Fuentes’ former employer gave up 3 ER in the final inning of a 4-0 game.  Kazaam!

Roy Oswalt – Being shut down for the season due to lingering back issues.  Half price sale on Astros.com for “Roy & Wandy then starve our chances of winning like Ghandi” T-Shirts!

Braden Looper - Improved his record to 13-6 for the Brew Crew despite a near 5.00 ERA.  Manny Parra is 10-10 with a 6.42 ERA.  Parra is obviously just about 1 1/2 earned runs per game from being a dominant pitcher.

Bartolo Colon – Cleansed from the ChiSox roster today.  If I was Vince McMahon, I’d sign him and Sidney Ponson as a tag team christened as the Piñatas.

Brian Duensing went seven innings with no earned runs, 11 baserunners and 6 Ks.  I almost started him, but he was going vs. the A’s and they’ve hurt me so many times this year.  I think I owned the losing pitcher for every one of their wins.  The rest of the way, Duensing gets the Tigers twice and the Royals once.  Not terrible starts.  The Tigers hitting isn’t as good as their record and the Royals, well, ya know.  Duensing probably won’t provide you with a ton of Ks, but he has solid control and a last name that sounds like an Indonesian prison.  (BTW, his last name may only sound like that because of my new favorite TV show, Locked Up Abroad.  Next time I go abroad, I’m not even going to mule in any exotic fruit.  BTW II, instead of mule, shouldn’t they call these smugglers jackasses?  I apologize to any of our drug dealing readers.  You know who you are.)  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

B.J. Upton – Didn’t played for three games, then returned to go 0-for-3 in the 2nd game of yesterday’s doubleheader as the Rays fade from the playoff picture.  In September, the Rays have the 2nd worst Run total while batting .214.  Good to know for match ups.

Brad Lidge – You’re the manager of the Phils, let’s call you, Charlie Manuel.  So you’re “Charlie Manuel” and you have a 5-2 lead going into the ninth vs. one of the worst lineups.  Do you go to your ramshackle closer to try to build his confidence or do you go to ramshackle setup man-turned-closer or do you interrupt Brett Myers, who’s in the middle of boxing a kangaroo?  You go to Lidge, who nearly blows the save, and avoid Madson who blew the save on Saturday.

Ryan Madson – For the Phils nightcap, they decided to go with a less-aged scotch and gave Madson the save.

Pedro Martinez – 8 IP, 0 ER, 7 Ks, then he poured out an eyedropper for the dwarfs who weren’t there.

Kyle Davies – 6 IP, 7 baserunners (one hit).  He gets the White Sox next.  It’s not an ideal match-up, but Davies has now thrown four solid starts in a row and shut out the White Sox the last time he faced them in Chicago.

Pete Orr – HR yesterday.  He can cross that off his bucket list.

Ian Desmond – 2-for-5 yesterday, 4-for-4 on Saturday.  Tomorrow… lassoing the moon!

Paul Maholm – 8 IP, 0 ER.  It’s not a September run in the H2H playoffs unless you’re starting guys you don’t trust.  Maholm gets the Padres next.

Lance Berkman – HR yesterday and his third in the last four games.  Waco my airplane…

Tommy Hunter – 9 IP, 2 ER.  And the Rangers are in the top half of the league in pitching.  Zoinks!

Chris Carpenter – 6 IP, 7 ER.  Sorry to talk real baseball, but this start might’ve cost him the Cy Young.

Derrek Lee – Hit his 32nd homer yesterday.  After a terrible April and a yawnstipating May, he hit a random homer in June and I said, “Now has his average up to .253.  I know, big whoop!  But, and I might be alone on this island, I think he’s got a month or two hot streak in him.”  And that’s me quoting me!  Turned out he had about a four month hot streak in him.  Unfortunately, the steals have completely vanished from his game.

Torii Hunter – HR yesterday.  Since I’m looking down at my nuggets to offer up nuggets, when he was at 17/13 on July 3rd, I said, “My gratuity calculator is telling me if you own Hunter, you’ve gotten more production from him than you will if you continue to hold him.” He’s now at 21/16.  So he’s gone 4/3 since early July.  That’s like one week from Robot Jones.

Mark Buehrle – 7 IP, 2 ER.  After his rough stretch following his perfect game, he seems to be settling down.  He gets the Royals next.

Kendry Morales – 1-for-3, No reason to talk about him here, but this caught my eye.  He’s been caught stealing 7 times and he’s been successful one time.  Elias Sports Bureau said this is the most caught stealings for a guy who shouldn’t be running in the first place.  Actually, they didn’t say that, but something that was overheard this week in the Elias Sports Bureau compound, “For the first time ever, Natalie, in stats research, had a nervous breakdown when Jim, in Human Resources, refused her Mafia Wars invitation.”

Russell Martin – Back to back games now with homers.  Nice of Martin to show in mid-September.

Chad Billingsley – 4 IP, 3 ER, 8 baserunners vs. the Giants, who are just barely above the Padres as the worst offensive team in the league.  Oh, Billingsley.

Juan Uribe – HR yesterday.  If you need MI pop, he’s poppin’.

Jake Peavy – Thinks he can return by this weekend vs. the Royals.  He said yesterday, “The stamina was definitely better, the sharpness of everything (that can easily beat the Royals), the fastball command (that will strike out Royal hitters), the breaking ball (that the Royals hitters won’t be able to hit), so I’ll be ready to get in a game (versus the Royals) sometime soon.”

Hideki Matsui – 3-for-5, HR, 5 RBIs yesterday.  When he got home, his wife congratulated him.  She’s very animated.

Derek Jeter – 3-for-5, 3 Runs.  Big weekend for Jeter as he passed Gehrig’s Yankee hit record.  Now he only has one hallowed Yankee record left, the Most Times He Has To Defend A-Rod Without Actually Defending Him Only To Later Write A Book Defaming Him.  Record currently held by Joe Torre.

Adrian Beltre hits the DL with Jockular Sphincteritis as a grounder clipped one of his testicles.  It’s the best contact he’s made all season.  When reached for comment, Beltre said, “Aw, nuts!”  After being badgered, he yelled, “Stop busting my balls!”  Turns out, Beltre doesn’t wear a protective cup.  He claims it’s uncomfortable.  You know what else is uncomfortable?  A bleeding testicle.  Beltre could be out for the season, but he hasn’t really been much use this year so his owners shouldn’t worry.  On a related note, I wonder if he’ll let his teammates sign his cast.  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Jonny Gomes – 3 HRs.  Half of me (the Lily Tomlin half) wishes Dusty would start benching Gomes again for no good reason, because I don’t own him anywhere.  – Quote from Grey after he picked up Wladimir Balentien for Thursday’s short schedule day.

Bronson Arroyo – 9 IP, 3 baserunners, 3 Ks.  Arroyo was on my list of pitchers to watch in the 2nd half, and he now has 4 straight solid starts and only one poor start since the All-Star Game.  MLB’s Non-approved supplements + marginal pitchers = fantasy gold.

Jorge Cantu – HR yesterday.  He is so long overdue for a hot streak it’s not even funny.  Man, the hot April guys are the hardest to cut, aren’t they?

Hideki Matsui – 2 HRs yesterday to bring his total to 19.  He just needs about 6 more homers to really confuse people next year when it comes time to draft.  “Hmm… need one more outfielder… Screw it, I’ll grab Matsui.  He’s good for 25 homers.  That’s Jason Kubel-ish!”  Slot Matsui in for two weeks, snooze alarm goes off and drop him.

Jake Peavy – Three shutout innings in his rehab start and two baserunners.  His Sox debut is set for the 28th vs. the Yankees.

Kevin Kouzmanoff – 5-for-5, as he bats .283 away from Petco.  Do you think any Padres hitters have a no trade clause?

Mike Rivera – 2 HRs yesterday.  I saw the homers listed next to M. Rivera and I really thought Mariano hit two homers for the Brewers.  I’d prefer to own Mariano.

Victor Martinez/Ryan Howard – Both stole bases yesterday.  According to Elias Sports Bureau, this was the first time two slow guys stole a base on the same day since Bob Horner and Steve Balboni stole a base in 1985.  Actually, they didn’t say that, but here’s something that was overheard this week at the Elias Sports Bureau compound, “For a record five times this week, Ken, in the mailroom, advised the company to save money by putting the intended address in the return address field and leaving off the postage, so the Post Office ‘returns’ the mail where it’s supposed to go.”

Matt Capps – 2/3 IP, 3 ER.  Kazaam!

Dexter Fowler – 4-for-5 yesterday.  Nice, but it’s not HAGNOF, it’s SAGNOF!

Jason Marquis – 7 IP, 1 ER, 6 Ks.  If you started him here, nay, if you own Marquis, you have cojones.  Speaking of Joneses.

Garrett Jones – 0-for-4, 4 Ks.  Me and Mr. Jones, our thing is no longer going on.

Prince Fielder – 2 HRs.  Okay, but Ryan Howard and Victor Martinez stole bases.

Gil Meche – 5 IP, 4 ER, in his return.  He’ll be covered more in this afternoon’s Buy/Sell.  If you’re a time traveler from the future, don’t spoil it for anyone.

Justin Verlander – 8 IP, 5 baserunners, 8 Ks.  My head is spinning from how many Ks Verlander is racking up?  My head isn’t meant to spin!

Clay Buchholz – 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 Ks.  He has enough major league innings under his belt that I would give him a chance if he were on waivers, but beware the unbalanced schedule.

Ryan Dempster – 7 IP, 6 ER.  I wouldn’t own Dempster.  I said it in the beginning of the year and I haven’t wavered on him once.  (Clever pun point for Grey.)

Shane Victorino – 2-for-5 as he filed charges against the guy who threw beer on him.  I could see if he threw the beer on Josh Hamilton, but c’mon, it’s Wrigley.

Neftali Feliz – Has 13 Ks in 6 innings and only one baserunner (a solo homer to Adam Kennedy).  MR. B’s unite.

Josh Hamilton – 4-for-4, 2 RBIs and 1 Run.  Let’s hope this good day doesn’t send him on a misbehavior spiral.  Hopefully he just gets another tattoo and calls it a day.

Fangraphs, a great site to get lost in for a few hours, has this stat called O-Swing %.  I don’t know if they invented it, but they probably did because they’re smarter than us.  The O-Swing % is not the amount of times you can fail to satisfy a woman prior to her swinging her arm and knocking you to the floor.  Repeat, it is not that.  Though, if someone can come up with that stat, let me know.  No, the O-Swing % is, “The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.”  Yes, they may as well call this the AlfonsO-Swing %.  Hackers score high, methodical, patient hitters score low.  Doesn’t mean high is bad and low is good.  Some guys hack and have always hacked.  B. Giles never swings, but he never swings because, when he does, the ball trickles to 2nd base.  I was more concerned with the hitters swinging more often at balls outside the strike zone than their career norm.  How do you apply this list to fantasy baseball?  Don’t consider these guys prime candidates for bounce backs.  They’re not battling simply bad luck, they’re pressing.  Anyway, here’s some fantasy baseball hitters that have lost the strike zone:

Bengie Molina – At 49%, he also happens to be number one  for the major leagues for swinging at balls.  As you can imagine 49% is a terrible rate.  His career is 32.5%.  He’s pressing.  Why?  Brian Sabean has already said that Posey’s time is coming soon and Molina’s time on the Giants is winding down.  Tick-tock, veteran catcher, tick-tock.

Adrian Beltre – Career 29.9%, so far in 2009 he’s at a 38.3%.  This is what happens when you can’t turn to steriods in your contract year.  Is that Ice Ice Baby playing?  Nope, it’s Under Pressure.

Placido Polanco – 28.3%.  I’m no fan of Crapolanco and he’s proven my point thus far.  His BABIP is low for him so he might be swinging out of the strike zone to compensate for his bad luck.  Either way, blech.

Hideki Matsui – 20% with a career rate of 15.2.  In his abbreviated season last year, he had a hard time finding the right pitches to swing at and this has carried over.  Don’t feel bad for Matsui, when this whole baseball thing stops, he’ll have more time for his porn collection.

David Ortiz – 24.8% on the O-Swing rate and 68.9% of Sawx fans wondering if they can get anything for their Ortiz jersey on eBay.  Did he start pressing or are his eyes all moogly-boogly?  Whatever the case, he’s pretty far from his career rate of 18.4%.

Ah, May. The time when trees are in full bloom, birds return to sing a new spring song, and you look at your fantasy baseball team and think, Holy Crikey I’m stuck in eighth place and my top three picks all suck and my bullpen is a mess and boy oh boy do I need saves.

Well, guess what? Right now, there’s a creepy man outside your window, watching you weeping softly, and he’s thinking the very same thing. And you know what he’s about to do?

Offer you Torii Hunter and Chad Qualls for Grady Sizemore. And you know what’s worse?

You’re going to consider it.

I mean, what could be better? Hunter isn’t Sizemore, sure, but he’s still good — and you get the added bonus of a closer! It’s like getting a free player! It’s a two-for-one! And it makes perfect sense, right?

No. No, it does not make sense. Step away from the two-fer. Step away slowly.

Today we’re going to talk about something the Baron likes to call “talent dilution.” It goes like this. Let’s imagine every player on your team could be rated on a scale of 1 to 5. Superstars drafted in the first three rounds, like Sizemore, are 5s. Decent, mid-round players like Hunter are 3s. Midlevel closers (you know, the guys who went in rounds 12 through 15) are 2s. And all replacement level free-agent pick-ups are 1s.

Using this rough scale, you might say: Hunter + Qualls = Sizemore, because 3 + 2 = 5. Ergo, this trade is fair.

But think of this: The person getting Sizemore – i.e. the creepy guy outside your window RIGHT NOW – is going to upgrade from a 3 to a 5, then replace Qualls with, at worst, a replacement-level pitcher, e.g. a 1 (Arredondo in a non-holds league), or maybe even a 2 (say Tavarez is available, who might get saves). So while you wind up with five points worth of talent, he winds up with six or seven. In other words, he wins.

And that’s assuming you have a shallow FA pool with only shizztastic players available. Often, though, in a 12-team mixed league, there are perfectly good 2s and 3s – guys like Adam LaRoche and Travis Snider and Kaz Matsui and Hideki Matsui – just sitting there waiting to be plucked. Which makes the two-fer trade all the more attractive – to the guy getting one player and giving up two. Because you’re never just getting back one player – you’re getting one player plus a replacement to fill the subsequent hole.

Still, you might say: So what, Baron? What do I care if the other guy picks up a good FA? I’m busy identifying a weakness on my team and addressing it by trading a valuable chip! What’s wrong with that?

Well, as a result, you go from having one star player to two middling players. Then, later in the season, as other needs crop up, you look to make another trade – except now instead of Sizemore to offer, you have Hunter. If he’s a 3, what can he bring back? A 3, if you’re lucky. Or a 2 plus a 1. You know what he can’t bring back? A five. Like Sizemore.

And even if you don’t need to make another trade, you’re stuck with a team full of middling guys — it’s almost like you sat out the first five rounds of the draft so you could stockpile extra picks in rounds 7 through 20. Who are you, Bill Belichick?

For this reason, two-for-ones are almost always a bad idea to accept early in the season, and they ain’t great late in the season either. (Of course, you know your particular league better than I do. For example, in some leagues, the jostling for saves is so intense that you have to make two-fers to survive.)

For this same reason, though, two-fer-ones are great trades for you to make early in the season if you are giving up two to get one – even if you’re not sold on the replacement player you’ll be using. Because you are stockpiling value now, which will help you later, instead of divesting value now, which will hurt you later.

P.S. The other, much more efficient way to totally screw your team into the ground is by dropping slumping stars early so you can pick up hot FAs. Of course, no one thinks they are doing this at the time. But look back at how many questions like “I am so sick of Beckett killing me – should I drop him for Kyle Davies?” pop up in the messages.

It is natural to get frustrated when your stars – you wasted such high picks on them! You had such high hopes! – struggle while no-name guys shine. You want the shiny things! And who knows — maybe Kyle Davies is this year’s Cliff Lee!

But for every Quentin – who will blossom over the season into a valuable 5 – there will be ten Bonifacios, who burn brightly but flare out. Which is how you wake up in June with a team full of no-names like David (or Daniel) Murphy who had two good weeks back in April, while all the guys you dropped because they were slumping got snatched up by smarter owners than you.

Moral of the story: Don’t be that guy. Be the smarter one.