Fantasy Baseball Advice

In September, Nick Markakis hit a wall like Super Dave Osbourne.  For the month, he’s currently ranked behind Grady Sizemore (who hasn’t played since September 3rd), Cory Sullivan and Justin Maxwell for value amongst outfielders.  If those names don’t sound familiar to you, they shouldn’t.  They suck.  Hold up, Albright.  You’re telling people to grab Edwin Encarnacion and drop Markakis? Yes, it’s a weird time of the year.  But if you hold onto guys for name value, you’re going to lose, especially in H2H leagues.  The flame has gone out on Sparkakis and it’s time to move on in one year leagues.  Anyway, here’s some more players to buy or sell this week in fantasy baseball:

BUY

Edwin Encarnacion – Need a guy that won’t run out a pop up?  Looking to fill your team with lollygaggers?  No need to look further!  For a limited time only, Encarnacion is batting third and hitting .400 over the last week.

Matt Thornton/Octavio Dotel/Scott Linebrink – Octatt Thornbrink, or some combination there within will get Sox saves.

Hank Blalock – Scroll down to morning post.  Go ahead, move your mouse.

Martin Prado – Ah… What to say?  Seriously, what?  He’s been hot recently (over .500 in the last week).  You need more?

Jody Gerut – Batting .500 over the last week with 3 homers.  His name doesn’t seem so girly now does it?  Okay, but not as girly as Suzy.

Every Padres Pitcher – They’re home for the final week.  Stock up!

Brian Duensing – Next week, he gets the Tigers and probably (teams’ final pitching schedules are iffy) the Royals.  He has an under 1 ERA vs. the Tigers in two games and the Royals’ bats have chlamydia.

Wade Davis – Gets the Orioles and the Yankees in the final game of the season.  He doesn’t come without risk, but crossing the street comes with risk, especially in New Delhi.

Rafael Furcal - About time.

Ronnie Belliard – Hitting for average, light power and speed and playing over Orlando Hudson.  Actually, Freddy Sanchez and Orlando Hudson should just start their own team.  The Dirty Hudsons.  They can play in Weehawken overlooking the grand Hudson River.  Instead of The Splash Zone, they can have The Rash Zone.

SELL

Ian Kinsler – Yay, he played more than 120 games.  Not well, unfortunately.  In September, he ran out of gas like OPEC in 2078. (Figures courtesy of Al Gore.)

David Wright – You’d think I didn’t like the Mets the way I’m pushing people to lose Beltran and Wright.  Not true.  Just this year.  Now to go along with Wright’s warning track power, he’s saying he’s scared coming to the plate because of Post-Plunking on the Head Syndrome.  Hopefully, he can get over this by next year, but for the final week I’d look elsewhere if there’s other options.

Chipper Jones – Seriously, drop him.

Any Pitcher That Has Pitched Their Last Game – Even if you’re simply putting in a middle reliever.  It’s do or die time, fellas (and two girl readers).  I’d wish you good luck, but luck’s for beginners and the leprechauns, use your skills!

Oh, they’re not just bad.  Nah, I outdid even myself this time.  On this drafternoon, I picked a team that is near-perfectly awful.  They simultaneously suck and blow.  On a scale of one to ten, they’re a negative seven.  I did the math!  Somehow I managed to get a team where not one hitter projects for more than twelve home runs.  If someone in the Royals brass gets wind of my drafting skills, I may get a job!  If you think I’m being facetious (which was recently outlawed in Madagascar), shame on you.  And shame on this team!  I took part in a fantasy baseball draft this past Saturday to pick the worst fantasy baseball team.  And I think I done did it.  My co-conspirators in this were:

Roto Rob
Tirico Suave
Drunk Jays Fans
Fantasy Baseball Cafe
Fantasy Pros 911
Hire Jim Essian
Sharapova’s Thigh
Fantasy Baseball Geeks
Beyond the Box Score

Come with me as I take out the trash:

Random thoughts about various rounds of the draft:

ROUND 1 – I had my eye on Ronnie Belliard like only Mrs. Belliard could ever know.  He’s eligible at 1st!  Need I continue?  Okay, he’s on the Nats.  Should I go on?  His K rate has been going up.  More?  He’s also eligible at 3rd.  All right, one more thing.  He’s projected for 400 ABs and 11 home runs.  Bleh, and thank you.

ROUND 2 – It was between Chone Fuggums and Lousy Castillo.  Had to go with the more shallow position of 3rd base.  Fuggums will probably get 500 ABs, and, I don’t know, 4 HRs.  Not a bad guy for the Not Corner.

ROUND 3 – And Lousy Castillo makes it back to me.  Projected for 487 ABs and… Wait for it… Here it comes… Hold on, I have an itch… All right, here it is… Zero home runs!  WTF?  How is that even possible?

ROUND 4 – Okay, I’ve waited on crappy outfielders long enough.  Skip Suckmaker, you’re mine!  Thank you, LaRussa.

ROUND 5 – I’m actually worried about my Runs at this point.  No, I didn’t just drink some Mexican water.  So to clog up my tailpipe, I select Erick Aybar.  He’s projected for less than 50 Runs and over 400 ABs.  Later I will add his Brother in Razzball Charms.

ROUND 6 – One thing I really notice about drafting craptacular players, everyone has a different draft sheet.  It’s like you got ten owners together that have all been in solitary confinement for the last six months.  Everyone knows who’s crappy, but nobody knows which order anyone else is going to take them, so guys last longer than you think they will.  Without further ado, Brian Schneider.

ROUND 7 – And because no one knows when anyone is drafting a player, you (or at least I) want to fill up your (my) Utility spot with another catcher that I know will rack up the ABs and little else — Yadier Molina.

ROUND 8 – Super futility man, Willie Aybar.

ROUND 9 – Finally, I take a pitcher.  Not just any pitcher, but a pitcher worthy of a Razzball Spotlight, Gorilla Ponson.

ROUND 10 – B. Giles because anyone who’s ever played any level of baseball can put up his stats.

ROUND 11 – Travis Ishikawa.  Everyone loses a job on your fantasy Razzball team, so backups are very helpful and Giants hitters are even more so.  Worst case scenario, Ishikawa and Belliard will make a nice blahtoon.

ROUND 12 – Vicente Padilla, probably my riskiest pick so far.  He can’t make it out of May with a job, can he?

ROUND 13 – Endy Chavez.  Nicest thing anyone can ever say about a guy on your Fantasy Razzball team, “He’s a great fielder!”

ROUND  14 – DeWayne Wise. Ozzie’s crazy enough to give him 500 ABs, but he’s not crazy enough to lead him off, is he?

ROUND 15 – Having played this league last year, I knew anyone I took on the pitching side would lose their job sooner than later if I was playing right.  With his 150th pick, Grey selects Danys Baez, a leading candidate for an Orioles rotation spot.  You heard me right, non-Orioles fans.  Baez might be an Orioles starter this year.  How’s dem apples?  Delicious!

ROUND 16 – Mark Buerhle.  Tried to balance all of the starters I was going to lose with a guy who can give me 200 lame innings.  There’s a chance I bench him until he gets cold.

ROUND 17 – Matt Harrison.  Okay, I’m a sucker for sucky Texas pitchers.

ROUND 18 – Jamie Moyer.  Another innings eater-slash-guy you can’t believe is still a major league starter.

ROUND 19/20 – Chris Dickerson and Gerald Laird.   Dickerson’s a K machine, but he’s the only guy on my entire team with any downside.  I’ll be honest.  I might be patroling the waiver wire for a Dickerson replacement.  As for Laird, it’s really hard to resist taking an extra catcher.  They’re all so good!

ROUND 23/24 – Jesse Litsch and Mike Pelfrey.  Some of you may be sad to see these guys here because you have them on your regular fantasy teams.  Let’s just say, I’m hoping these guys stay healthy because they could be in for an awfully wonderful year.

ROUND 25/26/27 – Kevin Frandsen and Cristian Guzman and Gabe Gross.  Not sure how this crapfecta lasted this long, but I just had to back up some of my other guys that are sure to lose playing time.  Actually, if I played my cards right, some of them might have lost playing time already.  Razztastic!

Dallas McPherson reminds a lot of myself, if I hit 42 home runs in my last year of Triple-A, or if I played in the minors or any sort of organized sport.  I was a city checkers champion in 6th grade. Cust kayin’.  Speaking of striking out, Dallas McPherson just struckout. And again. Whenever you’re reading this, there’s a good chance McPherson is striking out somewhere.  He’s like Mr. Furley in the Regal Beagle.  McPherson struckout 168 times last year in the minors.  That’s a lot.  I don’t know who holds the record for most strikeouts in a minor league season, because I’m too lazy to Google it, but I have to think McPherson challenged that record last year.  Remember they play less games in the minors.  168 is a lot of strikeouts.  A real lot.  He only played in 127 games.  He also walked a lot.  They call these players, Three True Outcome players, because there’s three possible outcomes when they come to bat, strikeout, walk or home run.  Okay, Alice Cooper, school’s out!  So why is Dallas McPherson is a fantasy sleeper for 2009?

Very few guys will give you the possibility of 30 home runs in the 20th round for your corner infidel.  Think about how huge this could be.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  You’re not thinking, you’re patronizing me.  Fine, I’ll continue anyway. Begrudingly.  Imagine you take Chone Figgins at 3rd — blech, I know, but bear with me — so now you have a major power outage from your 3rd baseman.  How do you make this up?  You grab McPherson real late.  Even in mixed leagues, McPherson should be drafted in the final rounds.  Some of the schmohawks that are being drafted around him are Bill “You Suck For Even Contemplating Drafting Me” Hall, Ronnie Belliard and Ty Wigginton.  None of those guys has the sweet, sweet upside of McPherson.  The Marlins GM has already said McPherson is penciled in at 3rd for 2009.  Pencils do have erasers, but unless something drastically changes, Dallas McPherson is going to be a solid fantasy sleeper for 2009.  If McPherson fails to land a full-time MLB job, he’s got a job waiting for him on one of T. Boone Pickens wind generator farms.