Fantasy Baseball Advice

Who doesn’t love to show their frenemies their fantasy baseball teams in October and say, “Look at what I won with?”  Then they see Juan Uribe and they’re confounded, “How did you win with Juan Uribe?”  That is the secret to fantasy baseball in September.  If you win your league, I guarantee someone will look at your team at the end of the year and be completely confused by some of the guys you own.  Cliff Pennington?  Robinson Tejeda?  Did the other teams in your league quit? No, you’re playing hot guys.  This is imperative at this time of the year.  Imperative is the important word to know.  Juan Uribe has not only been incredibly hot, but Uribe will confound your frenemies!  Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:

BUY

Juan Francisco – If I had to take a wild guess, I think Francisco will (try to) man the hot corner in the 2nd half of 2010 after the Reds unload Rolen for spare parts.  I say (try to) because Dusty doesn’t always play rookies.  Also, Francisco’s no guarantee.  He feels a bit to me like Troy Glaus, or even Chris Davis without the Bill James-inspired optimism, i.e., he strikes out nearly once per game and doesn’t walk enough.  He could provide some pop in deep NL-Only keepers.  This isn’t for you, mixed leaguers.

Robinson Tejeda – Wouldn’t be surprised if February Grey has nice things to say about Tejeda.

Ryan Rowland-Smith – He’s been good for a while now.  Like, the whole season.  So is Rowland his maiden name?

Vicente Padilla – After you read Uribe and now Padilla, I’m sure many of you are going to skim the rest of the post.  I don’t blame you.

Kevin Jepsen – SAGNOF!

Dan Wheeler – Could be the closer, but the Rays haven’t had a save since August.  It’s kinda not worth it, but if you’re in a pinch then I’d look at Wheeler since Maddon has said Howell and Balfour are on restrictions (bed by 9, no carbs and a low pitch count) for the rest of the season.

Matt LaPorta – Look at his last week of stats.  Yes, the MLP Package is finally on.

Drew Stubbs – Showing a bunch of power for a guy who looks like he wouldn’t be able to open the pickle jar.

Casey Blake – Currently murdering the ball like his brother, Robert… Well, you get it.

Brett Gardner – The Yankees are coasting into the ‘offs and Gardner could see an increase in playing time.  That means steals.

Kaz Matsui – Obviously, he’s the less glamorous of the Matsuis (Matsuii?) with a markedly smaller porn collection — buy at least a raincoat, man — but no hitter has been hotter over the past week.

Cliff Pennington – Batting near .400 over the last week with a homer and a steal.  And he sounds like a villain from an 80s movie — You spilled beer on my Izod!

Nick Swisher – Nick, your sideburns were just a crutch. Thank you, random italicized voice!

SELL

Yovani Gallardo – If you’re moving in the Tejedas and Uribes, you need to make room.  Gallardo is getting shutdown.  But he doesn’t wanna!  Yeah, that’s nice.  He should’ve been shut down a month ago.  Now I’m worried about him for next year because of all of his innings this year.  See, now you done worried me.

Chipper Jones – Lose the Glass Chipper.

B.J. Upton – Who’s the Boss?  Apparently, not the Bossman.

Rich Harden – Hasn’t been good recently and now he’s getting skipped.  I’m sure there’s better options out there.

Josh Hamilton – I don’t enjoy being right when I say a player is going to fail and they do.  Okay, let me rephrase that.  I do enjoy being right when I say someone is going to fail and they do.  There, that’s better.

Daisuke Matsuzaka returned from his bout of Terriblitis to pitch effectively vs. the Angels. 6 IP, 6 baserunners, 5 Ks. He almost looked as good as when he won the MVP of the World Baseball Classic.   Ah, yes, Selig, it’s a brilliant idea.  We’re a global game now.  Next time I’m in Italy, my paisans and I will talk all about baseball over our Chianti.  I’m not a huge fan of Dice-K (the walks), but he was solid in his rehab stint and he does get the Orioles next.  That’s not a terrible match up.  I wouldn’t own him, but we can still get along if you do.  One love!  Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Jake Peavy – The on again, on again, then off again, then briefly on, then briefly off, then on again comeback is on again for Saturday vs. the Royals.

Victor Martinez – Here’s an SAT question for you.  Martinez left the club for “personal reasons.”  Grey knows what it means when his girlfriend takes off a day from work for “personal reasons.” So this means that Martinez left the club because of what?

Michael Young – He kept saying he would return on Friday.  Then he returned yesterday.  Then he was lifted for a pinch hitter after one at-bat.  See what happens to liars.  He now says he really will be back this Friday.  Mmm-hmm.

Andy Pettitte – Will miss a start with a sore shoulder.  I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the Yankee team has a “sore shoulder” on and off for the next few weeks as they gear up for the playoffs.

Carlos Marmol – Piniella calls Marmol the closer for 2010.  With the amount of walks Marmol gives up, I don’t think Piniella should cancel the Milk of Magnesia bulk order just yet.

Tommy Hanson – 7 IP, 6 baserunners, 8 Ks and his 10th Win.  He has a 2.65 ERA on the year with nearly a K/IP.  He far exceeded my expectations for him or, really, any rookie pitcher.

Adam LaRoche – 4-for-4, 2 HRs yesterday.  Maybe if LaRoche starts playing in Venezuela in the winter, then by April he’ll think it’s the All-Star Break.

Matt Wieters – 3-for-4, 5 RBIs and a homer yesterday.  For everyone’s sake, hope he doesn’t have a great final three weeks, so people partially forget about him next year.

Geovany Soto – 2-for-5, 3 RBIs and a homer.  Speaking of catchers who drove you mad this year, Soto’s been hot in September, hitting over .350.

Yovani Gallardo - 5 1/3 IP, 7 ER, 12 baserunners.  YoGa, why do you stress me?  I would’ve totally accepted him getting scratched before this game rather than this start.

Robinson Tejada – 5 IP, 1 ER, 5 Ks.  He was highlighted in yesterday’s post about borderline starters.  You scroll down.  Also, it’s Ta-HEY-duh not Tay-HA-duh, but both are from Baní, Dominican Republic.  You think in Baní there’s a lot of people saying, “Is it hey or ha?”

Miguel Olivo – Hit his 20th homer yesterday.  He gets so incredibly hot when he’s actually hitting the ball and not striking out.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Olivo hits 5 more homers in the next two weeks.

Magglio Ordonez – Went 0-for-3 with a strikeout, but the 3 at-bats will mean he’ll make $18 million next year.  Just in case you wanted a reason to run into traffic.

Travis Snider – 2 HRs yesterday.  See about 4 1/2 inches above under Wieters for why we don’t want Snider to get too hot.  Unless, I guess, if you own him.  But that’s just selfish.  Think about us!

Nick Swisher – 6 for his last 13 with a homer as he hits over .300 in September.

Cliff Lee – The Adverb threw a shutout with 9 Ks vs. the Nationals.

David Ortiz – HR yesterday.  I don’t own him, so, honestly, I don’t pay too much attention to how poor Ortiz is hitting on a day-to-day basis.  But, with that said, he’s batting .233.  When he bats, the opposing team should move the left side of the infield into the dugout.

Roy Oswalt – 5 IP, 4 ER, 3 Ks vs. the Reds.  Charlie Hough wearing a Wolverine Mechanical Claw from Toys R Us could strike out 3 Reds.

Kaz Matsui – HR yesterday and has 4 steals in the last week.  I’m guessing here, but I betcha he’s going to be in Friday’s Buy/Sell.

Heath Bell – 1 IP, 2 ER and the Bell has tolled every time in his last three appearances, giving up 7 runs.  Meanwhile, Grey notices Luke Gregerson has 15 consecutive scoreless innings dating back a month.

Barry Zito – 7 IP, 2 ER, 9 Ks.  He gets the Diamondbacks next.  Not a terrible start, but he’ll be facing Haren.

Chipper Jones – Guess what?  Glass Chipper’s out for a few more days, might be longer.  Punt!

Carlos Beltran – 5-for-20, 1 homer, 2 RBIs, 0 steals and he’s sat out three games since his return.  Cust kayin’.

Francisco Rodriguez – Left the club to be with his wife as she gave birth.  This would’ve been so much easier if he would’ve just knocked up Aaron Hill’s wife.

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.

Admit it, you stay at the Luxor because it’s adjacent to the Mandalay Bay at a third of the price (and they have inclinators instead of elevators!).  You see a bottle of Acme Store Brand Tomato Sauce Medley and you think that’s not aftertaste, that’s a persistence of flavor!  Photoshop — bleh!  You have scissors and paste!  Cellphone?  You can yell really loud.  This, friends, is the economy of our times, so why not use some of that thriftiness towards fantasy baseball?  Sure, everyone would like to have ten first round picks and start Miguel Cabrera at their Utility spot, but it’s just not feasible.  You need some cheap alternatives.  Anyway, here’s some players that are going very early in fantasy baseball drafts and their cheap alternatives:

Adrian Gonzalez – Yes, his homers have been trending up, but he plays his home games in Petco and his average is trending down.  He also needed almost 700 plate appearances last year to accumulate 36 HRs.

Cheap Alternative:  Paul Konerko will match Gonzalez in power and be a lot closer in average than you might think.

Brian Roberts – Hey, it’s Grey’s favorite whipping boy.  In 600 ABs last year Roberts hit .296 with 9 home runs and 40 steals.

Cheap Alternative:  Kaz Matsui hit .293 with 6 home runs and 20 steals in only 375 at-bats.  If Matsui can avoid Jockular Sphincteritis, he should be fine late in a draft.

Chris Davis – What no one knew in Port Charles is Chris Davis is really Bill James’s biological son fathered out of wedlock with the au pair.  On next week’s General Hospital!

Cheap Alternative – Mark Reynolds.

Derek Jeter – Shocker, I know.  I wonder if he was butt ugly and got no poontang if he would be as overrated as he is.  Wait, let’s ask Khalil Greene.

Cheap Alternative:  Anyone.  I keed.  Mike Aviles will match Jeter’s numbers.  So if you think you need Jeter on your team, take a deep breath and grab Aviles eight rounds later.

Ichiro Suzuki – Itchy-san is projected for 7/.315/35.  Those numbers make me want Brian Roberts, at least he’s at 2nd base.  Seriously, you people are going to give me an ulcer.  Why do you want to see Grey suffer?  Why?!

Cheap Alternative: Cameron Maybin.  Sure, he may hit .260, but whatever.  Learn to cope, it’ll help you later in life.

Now 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.  So in this installment of Fantasy Baseball, Fun With Numbers we’re going to look at some 2nd basemen numbers and see if we can figure out why one is touted more than the other.  BTW, this is the first installment of Fantasy Baseball, Fun With Numbers, I’m only acting like I’ve done it before because I’m gooftarded.

Player A – In 395 Pre-All Star at-bats, 67/9/47/.314/9
Player B – In 372 Pre-All Star at-bats, 53/15/58/.280/19

Player A is Dustin Pedroia, Player B is Brandon Phillips.

Player A – Last season, 103/21/87/.285/6
Player B – Last season, 86/21/99/.286/1

Player A is Mark DeRosa, Player B is Garrett Atkins

Player A – In 77 at-bats in September, 15/2/22/.416
Player B – Cherrypicking this player’s best month of April where they had 107 at-bats, 16/3/17/.280/2

Player A is Asdrubal Cabrera, Player B is Orlando Hudson

Player A – In 340 ABs last season, 43/3/37/.306/11 — Largely drafted.
Player B – In 298 ABs last season, 46/3/28/.245/17 — Largely undrafted and rightfully so.
Player C – In 375 ABs last season, 58/6/33/.293/20 — Largely undrafted.

Player A is Howie Kendrick, Player B is Luis Castillo, Player C is Kaz Matsui.

Player A – In 120 at-bats Post-All Star, 18/4/13/.258/3
Player B – In 175 at-bats Post-All Star, 31/6/22/.263/6

Player A is Ian Kinsler, Player B is Rickie Weeks.

Cust Kayin’.