Fantasy Baseball Advice

On the heels of the top 20 closers for 2012 fantasy baseball — or heals if you’re talking strictly about Huston Street and Andrew Bailey — comes every closer for 2012 fantasy baseball.  This is the post you’ve all been waiting for since earlier this morning!  Sorry to put you through that hour and a half of anguish/anticipation or anguishipation.  You were a melancholy soul.  But now you’re happy — yay.  It’s still Monday funday!  There were quite a few moves this offseason with closers relocating to greener pastures, or in some case, just different pastures.  Maybe that’s best expressed through the cliché mash-up — the grass isn’t always greener pastures.  Andrew Bailey moved, Mark Melancon moved, Ryan Madson moved, Huston Street moved, Heath Bell moved, Rafael Betancourt moved into the closer role, Sergio Santos moved and Joe Nathan moved.  A regular ol’ closerousel that we haven’t see the likes of since Tony La Russa retired (technically, that’s correct; though not exactly that long ago).  Anyway, here’s all the closers for 2012 fantasy baseball:

$12 Salads

You know that restaurant your girlfriend/wife/what-have-you likes to go to that charges, like, $12 for a salad? Every time you go there, you have a thoroughly solid meal. No complaints, except you just paid $12 for a salad when you could’ve went to McDonald’s and stuffed you and your woman for ten schmools and had $2 in quarters left over to make the hotel bed vibrate. These closers are $12 salads.

1. Craig Kimbrel (Jonny Venters)
2. John Axford (Francisco Rodriguez)
3. Drew Storen (Tyler Clippard, Brad Lidge)
4. Mariano Rivera (David Robertson, Rafael Soriano)
5. Jonathon Papelbon (Antonio Bastardo)

Donkeycorns

Imagine you’re following a donkey, who’s wearing a wool cap, through a desert for 1700 miles. Why are you following a donkey? Because he promises you something wonderful and you just need to trust him. Does the donkey talk? Yes. Yes, he does talk. So when you and the donkey in the wool cap arrive at his destination, he removes his the wool cap to reveal a horn. The donkey is a unicorn and his gift to you for your trust is saves. These closers are Donkeycorns.

6. Jose Valverde (Joaquin Benoit, Octavio Dotel)
7. Brian Wilson (Sergio Romo, Santiago Casilla)
8. J.J. Putz (David Hernandez, Takashi Saito)
9. Heath Bell (Juan Leo Carlos Nunez Oviedo, Mike Dunn)
10. Carlos Marmol (Kerry Wood, Jeff Samardzija)
11. Joakim Soria (Jonathon Broxton, Greg Holland)
12. Joel Hanrahan (Evan Meek)
13. Ryan Madson (Sean Marshall, Nick Masset)
14. Kenley Jansen (Javy Guerra, Todd Coffey)
15. Jason Motte (Eduardo Sanchez)
16. Huston Street (Luke Gregerson)
17. Andrew Bailey (Mark Melancon, Bobby Jenks)
18. Sergio Santos (Francisco Cordero)
19. Jordan Walden (Scott Downs, LaTroy Hawkins)
20. Kyle Farnsworth (Joel Peralta, Jake McGee)

Brain Freeze

I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing apples, bananas and Chris Perez– Wait, he just gave up 12 earned runs and hit Asdrubal in the head with a pickoff throw. Brain freeze! Make it stop! Use the following closers at your own risk.

21. Frank Francisco (Jon Rauch, Ramon Ramirez)
22. Rafael Betancourt (Rex Brothers)
23. Matt Thornton (Jesse Crain, Addison Reed)
24. Joe Nathan (Mike Adams, Alexi Ogando)
25. Brandon League (Shawn Kelley, Hong-Chih Kuo)
26. Chris Perez (Vinnie Pestano, Tony Sipp)
27. Jim Johnson (Kevin Gregg, Matt Lindstrom)
28. Matt Capps (Joel Zumaya, Glen Perkins)
29. Brian Fuentes (Grant Balfour, Joey Devine)
30. Juan Abreu (Wilton Lopez, David Carpenter, Fernando Rodriguez, The Ghost of Ed Wade’s Toupee)

I don’t particularly like the term ‘beginner’s luck’.  If we won the LABR NL-Only Expert League (sponsored/hosted by Steve Gardner at USA Today), I imagine this dismissive term would be tagged on us.  Those smart-ass bloggers won LABR – such beginner’s luck!

Unfortunately, we’ll never know because we finished in a tie for 7th place and ‘Beginner’s average performance’ doesn’t have the same colloquial attractiveness.

(Congratulations to Doug Dennis who managed 41 pitching points (out of 65) after investing just $30 on pitching in the draft.  That’s what can happen with a little luck, a couple of good $1 picks (F. Salas, D. Gee), and an April trade for Ian Kennedy)

Coming out of our draft, we were feeling pretty good about our offense (which we spent about $180 of our $260) where we placed three big bets (Albert Pujols – $40, Ryan Braun – $37, Jose Reyes – $29) and three medium-sized bets (Todd Neil Walker – $18, Logan Morrison – $18, Danny Espinosa – $13).  While none of our ‘cheap’ picks played particularly well or stayed particularly healthy (Casey Blake, Mark DeRosa), these guys helped carry us to 51 points which was the 3rd best offense.  (Our in-season pickups had a modest impact – our three notable ones were Juan Rivera, Paul Goldschmidt, and Brandon Wood).

If our pitching – which we thought might be average – could only overperform a bit, we had a chance to compete for the title.  Those of you with 8th grade math skills can surmise that it performed awfully (14 points).  And that’s AFTER trading Pujols in an August trade for Cliff Lee who gave us a sick line of 60.2 IP, 1.19 ERA, 0.857 WHIP, 61 Ks.

Here’s a Spaghetti Western breakdown of our pitching:

The Good:
Yovani Gallardo ($21) – Can’t complain too much about 207.1 IP / 17 W / 3.52 / 1.215 / 207 Ks

Randy Wolf ($3) – 212.1 IP / 13 W / 3.69 / 1.319 / 134

Carlos Marmol ($20) – Yeah, wish we spent $15 for Kimbrel or Marmol blew less saves but 33 saves and 99 Ks (!!!) from a closer is solid.

Chris Capuano ($4) – The 4.55 ERA was ugly but 11 Wins and 168 Ks with an okay WHIP (1.349) was good value.

The Bad:

Clayton Richard ($5) – Ugh, why’d we draft this Hodgepadre instead of Harang or Stauffer?  The fact he only made it through 99 IP didn’t help.

Tom Gorzelanny ($2) – He pitched great (1.235 WHIP, nearly a K an inning) but he only pitched 100 innings as the Nationals preferred to give Chien-Mien Wang starts down the stretch and only managed 4 wins.

Matt Lindstrom ($2) – We were hoping for more than 2 saves and he was injured when Huston Street inevitably got hurt.  Hurts more when you think what gambling on a SP like Brandon Beachy ($1) or Dillon Gee ($1) might’ve netted.

Clay Hensley ($5) – We hoped he might steal the job from the pitcher formerly known as Leo Nunez.  He then switched to SP where he was sub-average.

The Ugly:

Hong-Chih Kuo ($6) – We really liked three middle relievers with some Saves potential – Kuo, Madson, and Venters.  If Kuo has a Madson-like year of 25 saves, it would’ve netted us 7 more points in Saves.  Yip!

Javier Vazquez ($11) – This really couldn’t have worked out worse.  Grey has covered this numerous times in daily roundups but here’s the painful story.  LABR rules dictate that anyone on a 25-man roster HAS to be started.  So we couldn’t bench Vazquez during his atrocious April/May.  It was either start him or drop him.  We prayed he’d go on the Disgraceful List or show some sign of a turnaround but all we got was one bad start after another.

Vazquez has always been one of those guys who Ks a lot but gives up too many HRs and underperforms on his ratios (career xFIP of 3.75 and ERA of 4.22).  There is no way Vazquez can be effective if he isn’t K-ing in the 8-10 K/9 range.  He started the season at about half that rate  so there was little hope for the K mojo (and any level of effectiveness) to return.  I dropped him sometime in May – after lobbying hard against a hesitant Grey – when Vazquez had a  line of 39.1 IP / 2 Wins / 7.55 ERA / 1.907 WHIP / 20 Ks.

So what did he do the rest of the way?  Only 146. 1 IP / 10 Wins / 2.83 ERA / 1.011 WHIP / 135 Ks.  My guess is just holding onto Vazquez – which we would’ve done had he not had a historically bad first 8 or so starts – would’ve netted us 10 pitching points (in Wins, Ks, and ERA) and put us close to the top 3.

Oh well…hopefully if they let us in next year, we’ll learn from these pitching mistakes and make a run for the pennant.  Or at least make new mistakes so we don’t look stupid when writing the end of season post.

I was like, “Yo, Grey, you gotta do a Closer Look, like, last week so everyone knows what is the haps on closers!”  Then I was like, “After the trading deadline, which I went over in Toto, not a whole lot changes.”  Then I was like, “What is “the haps?”  The happenings?  Then say that.  And ‘in Toto?’  Are you talking in code for ‘in Total Douchebag?’”  It’s a constant struggle with myself to give you the best product, and, when I don’t give you the best product, it’s usually me blabbering about how it’s a constant struggle to give you the best product.  Incredibly, in the last month there’s only been three closer changes.  Capps to Nathan, Bastardo to Madson, which only happened because Madson was briefly injured last month when I did the last Closer Look, and D-ork to the Brewers, making Izzy the closer, which has been well documented on this site, and by ‘this site’ I mean the one you’re reading right now, not the porn window you have open underneath it.  Anyway, here’s all of the closers for your fantasy baseball team, as of right now:

$12 Salads

You know that restaurant your girlfriend/wife/what-have-you likes to go to that charges, like, $12 for a salad? Every time you go there, you have a thoroughly solid meal. No complaints, except you just paid $12 for a salad when you could’ve went to McDonald’s and stuffed you and your woman for ten schmools and had $2 in quarters left over to make the hotel bed vibrate. These closers are $12 salads.

1. Mariano Rivera (David Robertson, Rafael Soriano)
2. Heath Bell (+3) (Chad Qualls, Ernesto Frieri)
3. Jonathan Papelbon (+1) (Daniel Bard)
4. Jose Valverde  (Joaquin Benoit, Al Alburquerque)
5. Brian Wilson (+1) (Sergio Romo, Jeremy Affeldt)

Donkeycorns

Imagine you’re following a donkey, who’s wearing a wool cap, through a desert for 1700 miles. Why are you following a donkey? Because he promises you something wonderful and you just need to trust him. Does the donkey talk? Yes. Yes, he does talk. So when you and the donkey in the wool cap arrive at his destination, he removes his the wool cap to reveal a horn. The donkey is a unicorn and his gift to you for your trust is saves. These closers are Donkeycorns.

6. Carlos Marmol (-3) (Sean Marshall)
7. Joel Hanrahan (Jose Veras, Chris Resop)
8. Craig Kimbrel (+3) (Jonny Venters, Scott Linebrink)
9. Francisco Cordero (Aroldis Chapman)
10. Huston Street (Matt Lindstrom)
11. Sergio Santos (+8) (Matt Thornton, Chris Sale)
12. John Axford (Francisco Rodriguez)
13. Leo Nunez (Edward Mujica, Mike Dunn)
14. J.J. Putz (+1) (David Hernandez)
15. Andrew Bailey (+3) (Brian Fuentes, Grant Balfour)
16. Kyle Farnsworth (+1) (Joel Peralta, J.P.Howell)
17. Joe Nathan (+5) (Matt Capps, Glen Perkins)
18. Drew Storen (-2) (Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett)
19. Ryan Madson (+11) (Brad Lidge, Antonio Bastardo) 
20. Joakim Soria (Aaron Crow)
21. Brandon League (+2) (Jamey Wright)
22. Jordan Walden (+2) (Scott Downs, Fernando Rodney)
23. Fernando Salas (+3) (Jason Motte, Octavio Dotel)

Brain Freeze

I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing apples, bananas and Kevin Gregg– Wait, he just gave up 12 earned runs and hit Brian Roberts in the head with a pickoff throw. Brain freeze! Make it stop! Use the following closers at your own risk.

24. Neftali Feliz (-3) (Mike Adams, Koji Uehara)
25. Chris Perez (-17) (Vinnie Pestano, Tony Sipp, Rafael Perez)
26. Kevin Gregg (-2) (Jim Johnson, Mike Gonzalez)
27. Mark Melancon (Wilton Lopez)
28. Javy Guerra (+1) (Hong-Chih Kuo, Matt Guerrier) 
29. Jason Isringhausen (-15) (Bobby Parnell, Pedro Beato)
30. Jon Rauch (-1) (Frank Francisco, The Ghost of the Seagull that Dave Winfield Killed)

While balancing a book on their head, the Blue Jays were poised to call up Brett Lawrie just when he fractured his hand.  That’s worst timing than the guy down at your local Chuckles nightclub doing an open mic set.  But flip our Supreme Buddha In Funny Poses day calender two months later and the hand is healed.  In two weeks at Triple-A since his return, he’s hitting near .350 with a homer.  Or as Lawrie would say on Twitter #yabuddy.  “You want to convey your emotional state while giving the most information possible, all in under 140 characters.”  That’s Lawrie explaining Twitter to his Grammie.  Lawrie should be up in the next two weeks.  So you have to decide if a .300 hitter with good power and speed at 2nd base is worth sitting on your bench until his call up.  #yabuddy  Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:

BUY

Hideki Matsui – Hello, time travelers from 2004.  You are not in 2004 anymore.  You are in 2011.  Hideki Matsui is just hitting again.  Though that is not Madonna on your radio, that is Lady Gaga.

Alejandro De Aza – Speaking of Lady Gaga, it’s Alejandro who’s not hot like Mexico.  He’s hot like a bagel that was toasted 15 minutes ago.  He could steal some bases like a motivated Alex Rios once did, that’s about it.

Collin Cowgill – I just went over my Cowgill fantasy.  I wrote it while picking through my garbage for my accidentally discarded contact lens.

Lucas Duda – It’s nice to have all the buys in one place, right?  I mean you guys (and three girls) do realize I go over just about all of these players all week long.  Just the other day, I was blabbering about how it’s Duda’s day and we’re off to the camptown races.  Duda, Duda, day!  Duda, Duda, day!  Duda, Duda, day!  Duda– Sorry, record was skipping.

Jason Bourgeois – Could be the best steals guy since Alex Sanchez stole 52 bases with nothing but a pair of used Keds and steroids.  He’s a must own as long as he’s starting – though Jason resents the implication that ‘owning’ him means he’s part of the proletariat.  You’ve been Marxed!

Jon Jay – From Bourgeois to a revolutionary diplomat, bring down the wall…between you and the light-hitting outfielders and Putin Jay!

Josh Reddick – Right now, he’s hitting like he’s getting tips directly from Ted Williams’ frozen head.  “I’m so cold, I think I see dead people.”  That’s a worker at a cryogenic lab getting a laugh from his co-workers.  Are we having a laugh?

Dexter Fowler – Hitting near .400 in the last week.  Why won’t you pick up Fowler?  Chicken?

Eduardo Nunez – Five steals in the last week.  It’s as simple as 1, 2, SAGNOF!

Jason Kipnis – Has started 3 times since he’s been called up and done a whole lot of nothing.  Call it a career!  He’s done!  Or maybe you give him a few more days.  You’re so reactionary, but that’s also why we get along so well.  Or is it?

Yonder Alonso – I just went over my Yonder Alonso fantasy.  I write it while being screamed at by Wally Backman.

Derrek Lee – Hello again, 2004 time traveler!  Don’t adjust your calender.  Derrek Lee is simply hitting again.  Oh, and we no longer refer to Lindsay Lohan as a star or Brittany Murphy as alive.

Edwin Jackson – Back in the league where he’s had little to no success, he’s bound to either prove us wrong or right.  Really, is there any other way?

Jeff Niemann – I told you to grab him last week.  You didn’t tune me out, did you?  I hate when you do that.  Maybe we should see other people.  I hear fantasy baseball (fill-in word for expert) dot com just broke up with their significant other.

James McDonald – Him and Maholm should think about why they’re so available in fantasy leagues.  It just seems, I don’t know, desperate.

Mike Adams – Grab him for potential saves and, if you also own Jon Jay, you can change your team name to The Waiver Wire Fore-Fodders.

Octavio Dotel – Salas has been fine in the closer job, but two hiccups and one mention of how much he liked Rasmus and Dotel could see looks.

Matt Lindstrom – Another totally speculative pick up in case of a trade.  Do I really think Huston Street gets traded?  No, probably not, but you just need to hold Lindstrom until Monday, then drop him if there’s no movement.  Hehe, I said movement.  Also, I could’ve put Bobby Parnell here.  Hey, look, I just did!

Edward Mujica – Looking more and more (and more?) like Nunez isn’t going to be traded, but, just in case, why not grab Mujica?  And instead of chewing gum, chew bacon.

SELL

Ian Stewart – Consider Chris Davis here too.  These guys owe me at least five hours of my life back for the amount of times I’ve picked up and dropped them.  To think I once christened Stewart with the Mini-Mini Donkey nickname.  You, sir, are no donkey.  Mini-Mini or otherwise.

Ryan Roberts – This drop is more for mixed leagues.  You and Roberts had a good run.  You originally thought you were drafting Brian Roberts and it turned out much better than you could’ve ever expected.  Now it’s time to move on.

Alfonso Soriano – Member back in April when I kept telling you how good he was?  Because he’s good in April.  We’re pretty far removed from then.  Right now at the plate, Gordon Shumway Soriano looks like he’s on the wrong planet.

Ian Desmond – Alas, he never got on track this year.  Has 3 homers and a .220-something average.  Steals or no steals, that’s p to the athetic.  To be clear, when I wear my flowery doily dress that I nicknamed my Desmond tutu, it’s for Jennings.

Ryan Madson hit the DL and some Bastardo took over, Broxton is a bastardo and Guerra is getting saves since Kuo can’t watch Lifetime without crying — assuming there are Dodger saves, Rauch was named the closer and Frank² started getting all the saves, Lyon is out for the season and Melancon looks terrible, La Russa changed closers three times since you started reading this run-on sentence, Jordan Walden has been taking pointers from Fernando Rodney and Kevin Gregg actually moved up the ranks.  Brain Freezes, your saves are cheap, but your headaches are senseless.  Anyway, here’s all of the closers for your fantasy baseball team, as of right now:

$12 Salads

You know that restaurant your girlfriend/wife/what-have-you likes to go to that charges, like, $12 for a salad? Every time you go there, you have a thoroughly solid meal. No complaints, except you just paid $12 for a salad when you could’ve went to McDonald’s and stuffed you and your woman for ten schmools and had $2 in quarters left over to make the hotel bed vibrate. These closers are $12 salads.

1. Mariano Rivera (+3) (David Robertson, Luis Ayala)
2. Jose Valverde (+3) (Joaquin Benoit, Al Alburquerque)
3. Carlos Marmol (-2) (Sean Marshall)
4. Jonathan Papelbon (-2) (Daniel Bard)
5. Heath Bell (-1) (Mike Adams, Ernesto Frieri)

Donkeycorns

Imagine you’re following a donkey, who’s wearing a wool cap, through a desert for 1700 miles. Why are you following a donkey? Because he promises you something wonderful and you just need to trust him. Does the donkey talk? Yes. Yes, he does talk. So when you and the donkey in the wool cap arrive at his destination, he removes his the wool cap to reveal a horn. The donkey is a unicorn and his gift to you for your trust is saves. These closers are Donkeycorns.

6. Brian Wilson (+5) (Sergio Romo, Jeremy Affeldt)
7. Joel Hanrahan (+8) (Jose Veras, Chris Resop)
8. Chris Perez (+1) (Vinnie Pestano, Tony Sipp, Rafael Perez)
9. Francisco Cordero (+3) (Nick Masset)
10. Huston Street (Matt Lindstrom, Rafael Betancourt)
11. Craig Kimbrel (-5) (Jonny Venters, George Sherrill)
12. John Axford (+1) (Kameron Loe)
13. Leo Nunez (+1) (Steve Cishek, Mike Dunn)
14. Francisco Rodriguez (-6) (Jason Isringhausen, Pedro Beato)
15. J.J. Putz (-8) (David Hernandez)
16. Drew Storen (+2) (Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett)
17. Kyle Farnsworth (-1) (Joel Peralta, J.P.Howell)
18. Andrew Bailey (+5) (Brian Fuentes, Grant Balfour)
19. Sergio Santos (Matt Thornton, Chris Sale, Jesse Crain)
20. Joakim Soria (+10) (Aaron Crow)
21. Neftali Feliz (-1) (Darren Oliver, Arthur Rhodes)

Brain Freeze

I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing apples, bananas and Kevin Gregg– Wait, he just gave up 12 earned runs and hit Brian Roberts in the head with a pickoff throw. Brain freeze! Make it stop! Use the following closers at your own risk.

22. Matt Capps (+5) (Joe Nathan, Jose Mijares, Alex Burnett)
23. Kevin Gregg (+2) (Koji Uehara, Mike Gonzalez)
24. Brandon League (+2) (Jamey Wright, David Pauley)
25. Jordan Walden (-4) (Scott Downs)
26. Fernando Salas (-4) (Jason Motte, Mitchell Boggs, Eduardo Sanchez)
27. Mark Melancon (-3) (Wilton Lopez)
28. Frank Francisco (Jon Rauch, Octavio Dotel, Jason Frasor)
29. Javy Guerra (Hong-Chih Kuo, Kenley Jansen)
30. Antonio Bastardo (-12) (Ryan Madson, Michael Stutes, Brad Lidge, Battery Throwing Fan)