The original post has been removed as we felt it was too similar in both content and language to a story in Zev Chafets’ Cooperstown Confidential. For those of you who enjoyed the article, we recommend buying the book that provided the inspiration for the post.
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Battles To Watch: NL East
February 25, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 45 Commentsby: Tom Jacks
Why hello there. This article will look at the position battles in each division. Today’s topic, for the rare reader that ignores the title, is the NL East. By the way, I’m all in on non-Marlins pitchers in the NL East. Do any of those lineups look devastating? Not really. And you’ll probably get a win each time they face the Marlins. Anyway, here’s some of the position battles to keep an eye on in the NL East:
Please, blog, may I have some more?
2013 Fantasy Baseball Yahoo Ranklings
February 25, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 226 Commentsby: Grey
The other day I went over my 2013 ESPN ranklings. There, I was all fire, brimstone and gangsta rap. Saying eff this, and eff that. I was pissed off like I was Tim Dog right after landing at LAX. I was spitting bullets, y’all needed to wear a vest. Now, I’m looking at Yahoo’s 2013 fantasy baseball rankings and Tim Dog didn’t get enough penicillin on wax and now he’s RIP. BTW, If you were a rapper in the 80’s or early 90’s or a professional wrestler, watch over your shoulder, son, the reaper is comin’ for you. “Multivitamins are better than any alcohol or aphrodisiac…” That’s Tone Loc working on a new song. More people use Yahoo than any other fantasy baseball game provider thing-a-ma-boobie, so more schmohawks are reading their rankings than any other rankings, yet I never take their rankings serious. Quick analogy that may or may not make sense: There’s years of looking up to your father, whether you agree all the time or not. Then, one day, he takes a poop on your couch. He should take him to the hospital; he’s in need of some sort of psychology examination. If the tests come back conclusive that he pooped the couch simply out of laziness, then that’s ESPN. Okay, now, Yahoo is your 8-year-old cousin pooping your couch. You’re annoyed, but you’re not sending the kid for psychology examinations. In other words, I always feel like ESPN should know better, but Yahoo, well, they have The Noise ranking Curtis Granderson 14th overall. Even Jose Canseco knows Granderson may have hit 60 homers in 30,000 BC due to a lack of gravity, but he still would need a ton of luck to hit .240. My apologies to Saltines, but Grandy at 14th overall is crackers (even before the injury).
Please, blog, may I have some more?
2013 Minor League Preview: Boston Red Sox
February 24, 2013 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 22 Commentsby: Scott Evans
Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2012 (10) | 2011 (17) | 2010 (5) | 2009 (13) | 2008 (2)
2012 Affiliate Records
MLB: [69-93] AL East
AAA: [79-65] International League – Pawtucket
AA: [68-73] Eastern League – Portland
A+: [68-69] Carolina League – Salem
A: [66-73] South Atlantic League – Greenville
A(ss): [36-40] New York-Penn League — Lowell
Arizona Fall League Players — Surprise Saguaros
Chris Martin (RHP); Pete Ruiz (RHP); Michael Almanzar (3B); Bryce Brentz (OF)
Graduated Prospects
Will Middlebrooks (3B); Ryan Lavarnway (C); Pedro Ciriaco (INF); Felix Doubront (LHP); Junichi Tazawa (RHP)
The Run Down
With impact talent at nearly every level of the farm, this is a deep system, and a good one. Xander Bogaerts, a top-10 overall prospect, headlines the group and will arrive within the next year-and-a-half as a big time fantasy asset. Behind him, Boston features a great mix of high-ceiling guys and high-floor guys, making this system not only high-impact, but rather safe as well. The Red Sox might be another year or so away from contending again in the crazy-competitive AL East, but the club has done a quality job of trimming some fat, and setting itself up for long-term success in the process.
Underrated Players in OPS Leagues
February 23, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft, OPS Leagues | 39 Commentsby: Tom Jacks
As suggested by you (yes, you!), I’m long overdue in covering a batch of “good” OPS values, as Better Than Ezra would say. To be Frank Francisco with you, I’m going to hit you with a chair, if by chair I mean knowledge. I’m not going to restate some players I’ve recently fawned over, like David Ortiz, Josh Willingham, Corey Hart, Ike Davis, Kevin Youkilis, Todd Frazier, and SAGNOFs. I’m also going to stay away from players in the first couple rounds (don’t hate the playa, hate their draft position!) because you don’t need me to tell you that Joey Votto and Giancarlo Stanton are awesome, do you? If so, then please seek medical assistance. Anyway, as I mentioned last week, some of the Razzball writers are participating in a mock draft and you can follow the chaos at #RazzballMock (though Sky conveniently posted a recap). Without further delay, here are some of the players I’m looking forward to drafting in OPS leagues after the first couple rounds:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Truth be told, I almost made Logan Morrison my discount double check post for first basemen but decided ‘nah, I’ll cheap out and go with an already draftable commodity in Kendrys Morales cuz I’m lazy like that’. Then Grey said ‘only one OF? Seriously, how lazy can you be? Give me three posts about outfielders. And put the lotion in the F@#$ing basket!’. And so I obliged on both counts but still got the hose again for some reason. But we’re not here to talk about playing lambs with Albright, we’re here to dissect LoMo’s current draft day ADP of 219 and whether it’s a discount or a steal for 2013 fantasy baseball…
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Maybin He Will, Maybin He Won’t
February 22, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 5 Commentsby: Mike
Outfielders who hit 8-12 home runs and steal 15-25 bases seem easy to find and not very exciting to keep on a fantasy roster. But what if we had reason to believe there was something more on the horizon? I see a lot of bounce back potential in Cameron Maybin.
Please, blog, may I have some more? ESPN’s 2013 Fantasy Baseball Ranklings
February 22, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 327 Commentsby: Grey
Writing these posts where I look at the differences between my 2013 fantasy baseball rankings and ESPN’s fantasy baseball rankings gives me severe agita, but I want to be calm. I don’t want an ulcer. So, for this post, I put on the Dixie Chicks’s cover of Landslide… Children get older, I’m getting older too… Unfortunately, I hunt and peck on my keyboard and it took me that entire song to type up the first sentence of this paragraph and iTunes shuffled to N.W.A. Right about now, N.W.A. court is in full effect.
“Judge Grey presiding in the case of Razzball vs. ESPN.”
“Prosecuting attorneys are MC Grey, Ice Grey and Eazy-mother*******-Grey!”
“Order, order, order… Ice Grey, take the mother******** stand. Do you swear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help your stupid ass?”
“You goddamn right!”
“Well, won’t you tell everybody what the eff you gotta say?”
Please, blog, may I have some more?
This is a post for the fantasy baseball drafters who use Excel, Google Docs, or some other war room software that automatically totals a drafted team’s stats while in the middle of a draft. Or perhaps for those of you who do mock drafts or simulated drafts.
The below grid represents my projected 75% mark in each stat category across 10/12/14/15/16 team ESPN and Yahoo default roster format leagues.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
2013 Rays Fantasy Baseball Preview
February 21, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 36 Commentsby: Sky
We at Razzball realize that exporting our views across the country has damaging consequences on the blogosphere. To help make amends, we are reaching out to leading team blogs and featuring their locally blogged answers to pressing 2013 fantasy baseball questions regarding their team. We feel this approach will be fresher, more sustainable, and require less energy consumption (for us anyway). The 2013 Rays Fantasy Baseball Preview comes courtesy of Jason Collette from The Process Report.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Marco Estrada, 2013 Fantasy Sleeper
February 21, 2013 | 2013 Fantasy Baseball Draft | 234 Commentsby: Grey
You might’ve heard this guy’s name before as one of the guys I want in every league per my pitchers pairings post (say that fast 117 times!). So, how did it all start? Well, I was looking at Marco Estrada‘s peripherals and I fell in love. I couldn’t figure out what I was missing because it all looked so good. Like good good. Like Barefoot Contessa in a negligee with Jeffrey locked out of the house good. Like going to Supercuts and actually getting a super cut good. Like not having to spell out your name after you order a latte at Starbucks good. I will now blow your mind. For starters with 130+ innings, Estrada had the 7th best K-rate in the major leagues with a 9.30. That usually comes with a ton of walks or a top ten starter price tag. Estrada had the 14th best walk rate (1.89) in the major leagues. For K/BB, he had the third best rate in the majors behind only Cliff Lee and Kris Medlen. Not that these things can be done by petting a rabbit’s foot, but he was actually unlucky last year with a 3.64 ERA and a 3.48 xFIP. He had an above-average first pitch strike percentage, above-average with swings generated on pitches outside the strike zone and above-average percentage of swings and misses. In his career as a starter in 176 innings, he has a 8.85 K-rate and 1.99 walk rate. His peripherals match those of an ace. Estrada’s Down Side, “Are you choosing to ignore me or just not seeing it?” I don’t see any down side whatsoever. So what can we expect of Marco Estrada for 2013 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Please, blog, may I have some more? 2013 Minor League Preview: Tampa Bay Rays
February 20, 2013 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 15 Commentsby: Scott Evans
Organizational Talent Rankings via Baseball America
2012 (11) | 2011 (3) | 2010 (1) | 2009 (4) | 2008 (1)
2012 Affiliate Records
MLB: [90-72] AL East
AAA: [66-78] International League – Durham
AA: [74-63] Southern League – Montgomery
A+: [55-79] Florida State League – Charlotte
A: [80-60] Midwest League – Bowling Green
A(ss): [52-24] New York-Penn League — Hudson Valley
Arizona Fall League Players — Phoenix Desert Dogs
Lenny Linsky (RHP); Tim Beckham (2B); Hak-Ju Lee (SS); Richie Shaffer (3B); Kevin Kiermaier (OF)
Graduated Prospects
Matt Moore (RHP); Jake McGee (LHP)
The Run Down
The Rays’ player development systems have always been top-notch, and for the past several years, they’ve maintained one of the better farm systems in the game. As a matter of timing more than anything else — some bad luck, too (see Beckham) — the system was a little lighter than usual in the high-impact department near the end of last season. They were growing older, and more expensive at the big league level. It appeared that they were deviating from Andrew Friedman’s operational model — a patient, bottom-up approach that had discovered and nurtured talent better than just about any other organization — that had made them a year-to-year contender in baseball’s toughest division. And then the James Shields deal happened and the natural order was restored to the baseball universe. All of a sudden, Wil Myers became a Ray, and the once-lacking high-impact department was replenished with one of the more high-impacty dudes in the minors. Beyond Myers, Tampa added MLB-ready pitching depth in Jake Odorizzi. They also nabbed Mike Montgomery on the cheap — sure, he pitched like a pile of hot garbage in 2012, but one year does not ruin a prospect. When considering this top ten back in October, I was kinda worried about having to cover a slew high-upside 18-year-olds who hadn’t yet played outside of instructional league. Thank you, Andrew Friedman, for making this post more interesting.
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