Fantasy Baseball Advice

2008 Fantasy Baseball is similar to every of year of fantasy baseball in its dissimilarity of the similar. Hey, I sound like Dr. Suess after three Coladas. (BTW, I’m not implying Dr. Seuss was a drunk. He seemed like a peyote man to me.) To paraphrase Sinatra, “Fantasy baseball surprises… Yeah, we’ve had a few.” Since it’s almost halfway through the 2008 season, here’s a look at the top twenty fantasy baseball surprises according to me. Who am I? The CEP (Chief Executive ‘Pert) for the number one fantasy baseball blog. That’s who. (Or whom. I can’t ever figure out the difference. I never said we were the number one Who/Whom blog. But if we were, Who would write for it. Or Whom. Or would they have one blog author that was Who and the dissenting opinion would be Whom?) Anyway, here’s 2008’s biggest fantasy baseball surprises:

20. Justin Duchscherer - Why isn’t Scot Shields starting for the Angels? Can’t Broxton go six? Damaso Marte has to be better than all of the Pirates starters, right?

19. Ryan Dempster - At least Dook-sheer was good as a reliever. Seriously, my head is spinning from Dempster’s season thus far. My head isn’t meant to spin!

18. Xavier Nady - Two days after the season started, I said pick him up cause you never know how long guys will stay hot. You are only lying to yourself if you listened to me. I didn’t even listen to me.

17. Cristian Guzman - What gets him on this list? Being less awful than is expected. Tallest midget on the list. (I didn’t use the term “little person” because “little person” groups midgets and dwarfs together. This seems to be selling both groups short. Pun obviously intended. Don’t make me point out the obvious!)

16. Nate McLouth - ADP 194. Yeah, that’s McValue.

15. Jason Bay - Maybe this is only a surprise to me, but I thought he was toast. (Here’s someone who never stopped believing.)

14. Jorge Cantu - More valuable than Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Justin Morneau, Aramis Ramirez, Garret Atkins, Carlos Guillen and the guy he replaced, Miguel Cabrera. Seriously, you could’ve drafted Cantu in the first round and it would’ve worked out for you. Now you figure out this game of fantasy baseball.

13. Jacoby Ellsbury - 34 steals; 36 steals for all Red Sox not named Jacoby.

12. Victor Martinez - Kelly Shoppach would’ve gave you more value. (For those unfamiliar with that name, it is not the name of Zach’s girlfriend in Saved By The Bell, but I don’t fault you for thinking so.)

11. Ervin Santana - Johan, Carlos and Tito move over; there’s a new Santana in town.

10. Miguel Cabrera - Joe Crede outperforming Miggy. Maybe Miggy should’ve stayed fat.

9. Rafael Furcal - He’s pulling a Kotchman and that’s just wrong.

8. Kerry Wood - Still healthy as he vies for Comeback Player of the Year honors. (BTW, recent winners of Comeback Player of the Year are Carlos Pena, Dmitri Young, Nomar, Thome, Konerko and Javy Lopez, so if Kerry makes it to October healthy, I still won’t be excited about him in ‘09.)

7. Troy Tulowitzki - When the injury came, half of me (the Lily Tomlin half) was actually happy I could pull him from my lineup.

6. J.J. Putz - Has made Mariners fan miss Miguel Batista, the closer.

5. Milton Bradley - In the beginning of the year, Milton Bradley would have punched you in your stupid face if you told him he was going to be in contention for a Triple Crown. Why? Because.

4. Carlos Quentin - CQ has performed much better than the crappy Coppola movie of the same name. (Speaking of which, at what point do The Godfather/Apocalypse Now favors end? The Coppola surname has wasted at least 300 hours of my life. And I’m subtracting the two hours for the wine tasting at his vineyard. My buzz was the least he could’ve done.)

3. Cliff Lee - The Mets hiring Zsa Zsa Gabor to replace Willie Randolph would be less surprising than his first 13 games started.

2. Edinson Volquez - I begged with you all to draft him before the year began. (BTW, in the same piece I point out how Karabell was wrong for being down on him. Seriously, he is ESPN’s top fantasy analyst — wow.) Of course, I didn’t even think Volquez would be sitting on the major league lead in strikeouts and ERA.

1. Josh Hamilton - Now the crack of the bat is the only crack Josh needs.

I don’t el-oh-el. It’s kinda girly. I don’t emoticon. It’s seriously not how a man with a ’stache rolls. A man with a ’stache rocks tight white shorts with his balls hanging out and does not care. That’s how a man with a ’stache rolls. A man with a ’stache doesn’t listen to Jack Johnson. A man with a ’stache drafts Ryan Zimmerman and then drops him just after the draft — Just. To. Prove. A. Point. That’s what a man with a ’stache does. A man with a ’stache cries when his vinyl collection falls out of his El Dorado on the way to his DJ gig. A man with a ’stache also cries when he loses Pujols to the DL. I am so effin’ effed in the effin’ Poo-hole. I’m praying he returns in three weeks like the Cards are saying. I’m hoping he doesn’t make a two column list with Pros and Cons on why he should just have elbow surgery while this other setback mends, because I know if I were making that two column Pro/Con list, I’d probably opt for surgery. I really think he might be gone for the year. Anyway, here’s what else I saw in fantasy baseball yesterday:

Alfonso Soriano - Will be out for at least six weeks with a broken bone on his left hand.  The only bright side to Soriano’s propensity for injury is his ability to bounce back from injury. Though he’s still going to be out. With Alfonso off the menu, the choices are now limited to Pie and Stale Cake (Jim Edmonds).

Victor Martinez - Will undergo MRI on his inflamed elbow. I think if you’re going to concoct an injury because you haven’t hit a home run in two months, you’d take the lie a little further than an inflamed elbow. Can’t he cook up a conspiracy that Jim Leyland passed around small pox infested blankets to all the Indians?  That would explain Pronk’s year as well….

Ryan Doumit - Third home run in two days. Is it me or does he remind you of Craig Wilson? (Not Craig T. Nelson aka Coach.)

John Lackey - Into the 8th giving up only 2 runs. I choose him as my AL Cy Young, then I jumped ship when he missed time with arm issues. Now I’m regaining faith in this Angel (sorry, that was dreadful).

Dan Uggla - Walk off grand slam. Wow, I wonder where he’d go, if I were drafting today… *wink wink Razzball Commenters’ League*

Andy LaRoche - My James Loney has a first name — it’s P-L-A-T-O-O-N. LaRoche’s here and he hit a home run. The Dodgers are only starting him against lefties for now. Add him to the marginal 3B pile.

Jason Kendall - Hit first home run of the year. Somewhere a tidal wave hit.

Ian Snell - Now this is the Ian Snell we all know and love! Oh, against the Nats. Well, made for a nice spot start for someone.

Luke Scott/Mark Reynolds - Mentioned them the other day as guys who are streaky and getting hot. Yup, more home runs.

Mike Pelfrey - We are haunted by Berman voices in our head saying - where was the Diamondbacks hitting - well the bats were in the Pelfrey!  Whoop!

Jorge Cantu - Hit two home runs. Yesterday in the Razzball Forums, I said this, “He (Cantu) gets to thirty. He’s overdrafted next year. He’s a disappointment in ‘09. Guaranteed.” I’ll tell you what, I can be quite authoritative when I want to be.

Kosuke Fukudome - The league’s definitely caught up with him, but he just hit another homer. 3 dingers in last two weeks. I put that into Japanese Google Translator then took that translation and put it into English Translator and out came this, “Wrigley blowing out. Jim Belushi could hit home run.”

Dioner Navarro’s batting in the .370s. Crapoli’s got ten home runs. Olivo’s not missing Miguel Cabrera’s hugs as much I thought he would. JR Towles seems at least a year away. AJ Pierzynski’s doing well — for him. Benjie Molina’s doing well — for Victor Martinez. Victor Martinez is doing well for Nick Punto.  I’ve split my teams between Navarro, Crapoli, Olivo and McCann. So far the team that has struggled most offensively is McCann. “Well, ain’t that the weirderiest of things, Grey?” Not really. And weirderiest isn’t a word. I overspent on McCann costing the rest of my team. Moral of the story. Punt catcher aka trade away any catcher that can fetch you something. So your homework assignment is to trade away Victor Martinez. If someone believes he’s going to turn it around, then turn them around, bend them over and… Well, get a piece for your team that you need. Anyway, here’s some more fantasy baseball players to buy and sell:

BUY

Rickie Weeks -His current 40 runs, 7 HR, and 9 SB are comparable with Upton and Phillips. His 19 RBI are a casualty of hitting 1st on an NL team. While he hit .235 last year, he’s improved all his fundamentals, his K rate is down from 28% to 21%, but his BABIP is .229, really low for a guy his speed. He should be able to hit at least .260 the rest of the way. Assuming, of course, he stays healthy. His .201 average lets you buy low. (BTW, if those numbers above spun your head a little, just take our word for it. He’s due.)

Jeremy Guthrie - 12 starts, 10 are Quality Starts. “Well, jeez, Grey, that’s a fluke, right?” Last year, he had an ERA of 3.70 in 175 IP. Don’t make me try and guess your password and pickup Guthrie for you.

Prince Fielder - Sure, the only thing up this year is his BBs. (That’s Boca Burgers, not walks.) So what are you worried about? He’s not fat enough to hit home runs? As Richard Simmons might say, “He’s got saddlebags like I have handbags, girlfriend!”

Alex Gordon - I was really counting on him coming out the gate hitting to his ability. Well, that didn’t happen, so if you don’t have him, I’d go out and get him because he had a solid 2nd half last year.

James Shields - They took the “Devil” out of their name. You don’t have to be scared of them anymore.

Chone Figgins - I don’t like all speed guys personally, but I also ask for three plates because I don’t like my condiments mixing. You gonna do everything I do? I know Figgins’s DL’d for his legs. I also know his owners are considering dropping him and would take just about anything for him. If you have an open DL spot, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make a run at him. Just know you may have to sit on him for three weeks to a month, but it’s a long season. That burst of speed in July may be exactly what you need.

Kevin Kouzmanoff - Another sophomore (the “o” is silent, like when you make love to your woman — oofa!) that is struggling more than I would’ve liked. But he came on (your woman while you were playing fantasy baseball– ouch!) last year, and can do it again.

Justin Huber - Psyche! Just making sure you’re paying attention.

Jorge Campillo - Left his last start with a finger boo-boo, so I was going to leave him off The List, but I’m mentioning him so you keep an eye on him for his next start.

Dan Wheeler - I’ll reenact a comment from late March, “The Nats say Cordero will be back next week, should I bother with Rauch?”

SELL

Joba Chamberlain - Expectations are unrealistically high. When everyone’s zigging, what do you do? Zag, man, zag. Don’t, obviously, trade him for Tony Pena Jr. and a walk-on part on Gossip Girl.

Jay Bruce - If you got him off waivers and your offense is already stacked, you could move him for a very valuable pitcher. Bruce probably won’t bat .500 for the rest of the year. Cust kayin’.

Conor Jackson - Mark Grace, who I think is the best color man currently working, watches Conor and says, “He looks a lot like me.” Gracie’s got a point.

James Loney - Gracie looks at Loney and he says, “Loney wishes he were me.”

Ryan Ludwick - The Queen’s Assassin aka Vincent can hit 25 home runs. He’s at 13. You do the math.

Carlos Gonzalez - I popped a zit into my bathroom mirror and it spelled out, “Good prospect, but little light on the seasoning. Has value in AL-only.”  What other fantasy baseball ‘pert oozes this kind of knowledge?

Adrian Gonzalez - He trends to be a 1st half player, but he doesn’t have enough trends that support me selling him for fifty pence on the pound. Get value, or hold onto him.

Ben Sheets - “Maybe I didn’t say this aloud to all of youse, but the guy can easily” search that phrase on Google and you’ll see why I’m saying to sell. BTW, in that post you find, I’m remarkably brilliant. Prescient to a tee. Mustachioed to a fault. Only the David Murphy and Justino German blurbs seem slightly off and let’s be real, neither of those things really hurt you much. *pats self on back*  Self replies, “Don’t touch me.”

Ok, every season there’s some flat-out surprises, but one I haven’t heard too much about this year is Johan Santana’s fairly subpar performance. This was a guy that everyone and their drunk, Irish mother-in-law told you to draft because Johan Santana was headed for a ‘68 Bob Gibsonian season. He’s headed to the Mets; Johan’s going to get a .65 ERA! Yesterday, Santana gave up three runs on twelve hits with one K through seven innings, which was a quality start according to Major League Baseball and Kyle Kendrick. No one else considers that quality, maybe quantity. I don’t think you should necessarily trade Johan, but he’s not exactly carrying fantasy teams with his pitching. Wasn’t that the point of drafting him in the first round? He’s sitting at 5-2/3.36/1.18/58 through ten games. You know what those numbers do to me? They yawnstipate me. Not quite yawn-inducing, but pretty close. The thing is… Wait for it… Here it comes… Everyone thinks he’s the number one pitcher. Every. One. Imagine your brain is a dirty alley with a bum urinating in the corner and there’s graffiti on the walls. Written in giant, spraypainted bubble letters, it says “Johan is the best pitcher.” (And it’s tagged by Señor Razz.) So if you have Johan Santana, Marcum and Billingsley on your staff, you’re stacked like Dolly Parton lying on a bed of pancakes. I say move Johan for a first round hitter. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday:

Corey Hart - I was adding Corey Hart into Friday afternoon’s Buy and Sell post as a Buy, but he beat me to the punch. I doubt any of his owners are looking to sell him now. Sometimes time sensitive material spoils. C’est la vie.

Chris Young - To the 15-DL, hopefully he’s fine when he returns. I hate to see things like that… Oh, who am I kidding? I watched the replay seventeen times. It was wonderful! (BTW, when I was watching the Padres game the night it happened, they would not show the replay. They were making like it was the part of Faces of Death II when the guy eats the live monkey brain then vomits on a corpse.)

Victor Martinez - Left the game with an index finger injury. Hey, Victor, I’ve got a middle finger for ya.

Miguel Olivo - Looks like he’s not missing those Miguel Cabrera’s hugs as much as I hoped when I picked him up on my Razzball team. He has 6 home runs and I’m moving my crazy Dioner Navarro love to Olivo. I know, I’m flaky when it comes to catchers, but they’re a dime a dozen and sometimes you gotta rotate your junk. Um, so to speak.

Joe Borowski - Headline: He’s set to return as the closer. Sub-headline: Indians’ opponents just need to keep it close.

Roy Oswalt - Obviously, when Kyle Kendrick out pitches you, there’s problems. Oswalt strikes me as a guy who wouldn’t want anesthesia during a visit to the dentist cause he likes to feel the drill. He could be playing with a serious injury to his hip that is affecting his push off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Stros push him to a DL stint pretty soon.

Aaron Harang - Are you kidding me? He should’ve thrown a shutout against the Padres. Away I say thou artless dizzy-eyed, maggot-pie. Fetch me some drool, it would be an improvement on ye crapeth soul! (Oops, I thought it said harangue.)

Khalil Greene - Hit two home runs yesterday, ya gotta have some Bahá’í Faith. (I’ve never heard of the Bahá’í Faith, but I think it might have something to do with all of the accents and apostrophes. I think if Christianity or Judiasm or Islam or the Others had that many accents and apostrophes there wouldn’t be half as many participants. I think if Bahá’í Faith were to hire a savvy marketing team, the first thing they’d do is drop the extra punctuation. Or maybe throw a “Forever” at the end of it so people could abbreviate it BFF. Now I could totally see people embracing BFF, there would probably be a castmate on next season’s Real World who was a devout BFFer, and she would cheat on her boyfriend of six years after one episode of the show. Not to say a BFFer would be prone to that sorta thing, but Real World castmates are. But I digress.)

Mike Lowell - Hit a home run yesterday. He’s still got it.

Jacques Jones - He’s getting the call and should start against righties. Best thing I can say is he made for a fun ancillary character in Fantasyland.

Clayton Kershaw - He was pulled from his Double-A start and it’s rumored he’ll make the Dodgers start in place of Penny on Saturday. Add him immediately! Unless of course you play in Yahoo leagues, where he’ll be found sitting between Harvey the Rabbit and Sammy Sosa’s pre-steroids, home run power.

And now for the actual opening day of the baseball season. The first full slate of games is almost in the books (minus the rainouts.) What I saw:

Verlander was dealing. He easily could’ve gotten the win, if not for…

Alex Gordon. After ranking him extremely high in my top 100, I’ll be watching closely all year.

When Miguel Cabrera hit his homer, he sprinted down the first base line hoping to get a double, which is what he would have had in South Florida. He’s accustomed to the Dolphin Stadium. He’s in for a huge season. And that’s not a waistline crack.

If Gary Sheffield stays healthy, he’s in for a terrific season batting in that lineup. His hands are still quick and he takes walks.

Tigers Announcers, Rod Allen and Mario Impemba, suck.

Nationals Announcers, Don Sutton and Bob Carpenter, are worse. They inexplicably described Pedro Feliz as one of the most underrated players in the league.

Surprisingly, Don’s kid, Darin Sutton, is one of the best announcers.

Nick Markakis has a stolen base. Here comes 30/20. Outside of The Greek God of Roto, the Orioles will be painful to watch this year and I would stay away from all Orioles starters and relievers. Sherrill won’t even be worth it.

Victor Martinez was pulled from the game with a hamstring injury. Am I worried? No, because I didn’t draft V-Mart in any league. Should you be worried if you did draft him? Yup. Someone you might want to think about…

Chris Snyder was batting fifth. He’s looking like a great pickup if he lasts in that spot.

Torre put Posada Russell Martin in the sixth hole. Guess it’s a force of habit for him to bat a catcher sixth. This could be an issue for Martin’s value.

Mark Reynolds might strikeout 200 times this year.

No reason to think Jim Thome can’t hit 35 home runs if he stays healthy.

My better logic says it’s only one day, my gut is telling me Franklin Gutierrez is in for a great year. I already said this, “…Franklin Gutiérrez is 25 and about to get the right field job on one of the best offensive AL teams. Gutiérrez could go 70/20/80/.270/20 in the ninth hole.” Between Gutierrez and Lastings Milledge, I like Gutierrez better.

Johan Santana… Oh, man.

Eric Gagne… Oh, crap.

Kerry Wood… You knew that was coming. Carlos Marmol will be closing by May and end the season with more saves than Wood.

Carlos Zambrano, I’m not too concerned he was pulled because of the forearm cramp. Big Z could find a way to throw 120 pitches with a broken hand.

On one team, I had Pujols and Wainwright. Not thrilled I lost the home run, but I am thrilled there was a home run to lose. You should be too. Though I’m having a hard time seeing the positive in losing the Wainwright start.

Ian Snell will find a way to lose more games than he wins, but he’ll keep the games close. Always gives up a home run at some point.

I’m hoping Cox moves Matt Diaz up and Mark Kotsay down in the order against righties.

Michael Young hit a home run. That projects to 162 on the season. I’d say he falls short by about 150.

Yunel Escobar looked good. Quick wrists, knocking the ball to the opposite field.

Michael Bourn stole 2 bases. Granted, Ronnie Paulino could steal against Bard, but I told you to avoid drafting steals early and grab Bourn late. He might steal 50 this season.

I hate Tom Gordon.