Who could have predicted that [player]Justin Morneau[/player] would have a career revival after moving to Coors Field? Nearly everybody. Yes, he’s clearly benefitting from his favorable home park, but he’s also hitting well on the road. He appears to be swinging at nearly everything and, fortunately, is hitting it so far. However, this approach isn’t sustainable, even in Coors. I think he’s a great sell-high candidate if you can find somebody who believes that he’s going to maintain anywhere near this level of performance due to his new home ballpark. Even with some regression, I think the park and aggressive approach will allow him to have a noticeable improvement from his past couple seasons, with a .280/.350/.480 line going forward. This is roughly his career slash line, so it’s a reasonable expectation for him. Anyway, here are some other players on my mind and what it means for OPS and OBP leagues:
Search Results for: swisher
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Everything comes back to your league’s settings. If steals have a decent amount of weight and you can’t punt them, then you might have to deploy a guy like [player]Dee Gordon[/player]. In theory, it’s nice to have a team filled with guys who have power and speed, but those guys are rarely undervalued. You don’t need me to tell you that Gordon won’t continue producing a .373/.421/.510 line. If you can sell high, then by all means do so. Although the reality is that he may have been a waiver wire guy and it’s tough to get anything of value from them in a trade this early in the season. He’ll still get steals when he gets on base, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see his OBP drop 100 points and his slugging drop 200 points going forward. That can still be useful, depending on how deep your league is and how heavily steals are weighted. Anyway, here are some other guys who I expect to produce different results than they have so far this year and what it means in OBP and OPS leagues:
DraftKings – Even a Roto Junkie Can Find a New Fix
April 10, 2014 | DraftKings | 37 Commentsby: J-FOH
When Sky came to me and asked if I was interested in DraftKings I said "sure, sounds like fun". When I received the e-mail asking me what day I would like to do it, I said "Thursday, less games, less room for error". When he told me my article was due this Thursday I panicked, I thought I was getting an invite to play daily fantasy on his dime. Oh how wrong I was.....Now I feel like Matt Williams playing blindfolded dartboard lineup card. Now, could we call this the blind leading the blind? Not exactly, but it sure is going to be an adventure. Actually I have been playing DraftKings lately and I have to say this shizz is the real deal Holyfield....or at least as real as all those real kids he has out there. I believe it's 20 in Las Vegas and 15 in Atlantic City. Go figure. It's a lot. That's the last time I trust Sky, you would've thought I'd learned my lesson when he sold me his Mexico timeshare, Ciudad Juarez, and told me to buy on Atlanta Braves starters this year, Medlen and Beachy, and thought Fister going to the NL was a good fantasy move. Thanks Sky! Before I move on I want you all to know about the sweet spot tourney where they have $400,000 in prizes to hand out. It's a two dollar buy in and is the best two dollar fun you can have. Pass on the extra tall can tonight and go get in this thing. It's a friggin blast.
There really is no place like home if you play for the Rockies. [player]Charlie Blackmon[/player] aka Chuck Nazty knows this better than anyone, and helped Colorado drop 12 runs on Arizona last night at Coors. Now slashing .563/.588/.938 on the early season, Blackmon admits his nickname hasn't caught on quite like he hoped yet, but that's because it's a terrible nickname. I ain't mad at cha, and if you keep having games this this we'll call you whatever you want! Chuck Nazty was perfect yesterday, going 6-for-6, with 3 doubles, a 2-run home run, 4 runs and 5 RBI as the Rox managed 13 hits in their home opener. Now you know [player]Carlos Gonzalez[/player] wasn't about to get overshadowed on opening day, he's the real Chuck Nazty, if anyone is. CarGo added 4 RBI and 2 hits, including a 2-run jack and free tacos for the entire state of Colorado! Every-body-gets-a-taco! Something tells me after Colorado's new legislation, they're going to be needing all the tacos they can get. Chuck Nazty, legalization, and free tacos? Get in the car, honey, we're moving! By the way, I call my laptop "Honey." Anyway, it's probably not a stretch to say that Rockies fans are pretty high on Blackmon after today. Ha, that's the title! Well, don't light up your celebratory doobies just yet, Centennial Staters. Despite the huge day, Blackmon remains in a platoon in a crowded outfield featuring [player]Corey Dickerson[/player], who is a also a fairly exciting prospect, but perhaps Blackmon's stellar play will force Walt Weiss to play him consistently. For now, C. Nazty could provide decent streaming value, especially when he's a mile high. He managed a .309 average in 82 games in 2013 and after a strong spring he is a hot little potato right now and could be worth the speculative add while he's hitting.
Here's what else I saw in fantasy baseball Friday night:
Scott White from CBS hosted this AL-Only draft that started at 10 AM PST, but started around 1 PM PST for me because I refused to draft anyone for the price they were going. Instead of drafting, I watched my favorite cooking show, Celebrity Chef Mr. Hamiham. He's the only one I know that makes a sandwich like my Eastern European nanny, Viktoria. Everyone that knows anything about sandwich preparation knows there's no sandwich before adding the white cabbage. Rudy was in Tampa (slogan: We're no San Diego, but just as classy), so I went it alone with this draft. All the mistakes (none!) and acclaim (some!) can fall fully on my shoulders. I drafted this on February 18th, so don't say so-and-so may not make the rotation/lineup/team or is now injured, why did you draft him? I drafted him because at the time it seemed like a smart move. Okay, okay, at no point does it seem like a smart move to draft Kurt Suzuki. Point taken. It's a 12-team AL-Only league and I drafted using that thing I linked to under the link-ma-whosie -- seamless linking! Anyway, here's my 2014 fantasy baseball AL-Only team:
There’s SAGNOF – now there’s BGLIF or BABIPGLIF.
B(ABIP)GLIF = BABIP’s Got Little Face. As you delve into players for your drafts and you see a surprising glorious batting average from last year, ensure you validate it. Use Razzball Fantasy Baseball BABIP vs. Average Comparison. I’ll point out some sleepers below using this method.
Razzball’s 2014 KFFL Fantasy Baseball Analysis Draft
March 11, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy, Our Leagues | 58 Commentsby: Rudy Gamble
I was fortunate enough to be invited to this year in KFFL's Fantasy Baseball Analysis Draft (which leads to a BAD acronym). It has historically been a 12-team mixed snake draft league but has now been expanded to 15 teams.
Some drafts require a lot of prep time - this one had the prep time of a TV dinner. It came right on the heels of LABR which follows the same format. Then my pals at KFFL (Nick Minnix and Tim Heaney) were nice enough to 'randomly' assign me the same pick (#8) I had in LABR. Sweet.
My strategy going into the draft was similar to LABR - draft 9+ SPs, be AVG-conscious, get two top 15 closers, try to nab one of the speedy/solid AVG MIs, and anticipate and/or dodge position runs. There were a couple of post-LABR draft learnings I incorporated:
2014 AL Central Spring Training Preview
February 28, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Team Previews | 26 Commentsby: Jeremy
As spring training takes off, we, the wonderful people of Razzball, thought it would be a good idea to look into some intra-team rivalries. What positions are a lock? What positions are being fought over? What positions will they hire me to fill-in for (second base Blue Jays, I’m looking at you)? Find out as the second part of this series will focus on AL Central… (You can check out the NL East Spring Training Preview here.)
PEDS — The Performance Enhancing Draft Strategy
February 20, 2014 | Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 312 Commentsby: Grey
Rudy's been dropping a bunch of fantasy baseball strategy posts lately. Here's one on how to split up your hitting and pitching. And here's one looking at the consequences of showing up to your draft ten minutes late. As for my strategy posts, they're timeless -- so I recycle 'em. For most of you, been here, read this shizz already, but there's Razzball newbies (Razzbabies?) that need some coddling occasionally. If you know PEDS, skip ahead into the comments and discuss innovative uses for my mustache. I'll start, "If you get really close to me, you can use my mustache as an umbrella." For the Razzbabies, come here and let Uncle Grey burp you. Maybe I can get you to spit up everything you learned at ESPN. Fantasy baseball strategies are as old as the earth, if the earth were ten or so years old. There's a LIMA Plan (Low Investment Mound Aces) by Ron Shandler. There's been a ZIMA Plan by Matthew Berry; it involves a lot of stumbling around, groping and the hiccups. There's been a Punt One Category draft strategy. There's been a Punt Two Categories draft strategy, which was conceived by a leaguemate of Punt One Category who just couldn't stand being upstaged. And there's the Forget When Your Draft Is So Your Team Is Autodrafted strategy. I love when my leaguemates use that one. Then there's my fantasy baseball snake draft strategy, Performance Enhancing Draft Strategy or PEDS. (You might even want to use this strategy for our Razzball leagues. Join now. Thank you.)
PEDS has five basic steps. If you follow these steps, you will place near the top in all of your leagues. No plan is foolproof because, unfortunately, they still have to play the games, but PEDS puts you in the best position possible to win coming out of your draft. Actually, this plan is foolproof and you should ignore the previous sentence that said no plan is foolproof. No sentence is foolproof, that's more accurate. Okay, onto the steps:
Top 80 Outfielders for 2014 Fantasy Baseball
January 27, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 224 Commentsby: Grey
Today we go over the top 80 outfielders for 2014 fantasy baseball, which comes after we went over the top 60 outfielders for 2014 fantasy baseball, which came after the top 40 outfielders for 2014 fantasy baseball which followed the top 20 outfielders for 2014 fantasy baseball. Link dump! Tomorrow we hit the 80-100 best outfielders then on to the top 100 starters. It's the best day of your life because I'm bestowing on you wonderful like your father never did. Don't ask me to go see you play Little League though, that's not happening. As always, my tiers and projections are noted and all of the 2014 fantasy baseball rankings are there. Where? There. Dur. Anyway, here's the top 80 outfielders for 2014 fantasy baseball:
Top 20 1st Basemen for 2014 Fantasy Baseball
January 16, 2014 | 2014 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Rankings | 263 Commentsby: Grey
This top 20 1st basemen for 2014 fantasy baseball goes to about forty-six. Last year, I said the first base position is going through a transition. Pujols isn't what he used to be; Howard, Te(i)x and Konerko are washed up; guys like Chris Davis, Hosmer and Trumbo were on the way up. Right, right and yup. The position is still deep in that transition. We'll come out of the other side this year with a good idea of where we stand. If Pujols continues to fall, if the washed up ones are completely done and if the up-and-comers are still on the move. Hey, that sounds like a commencement speech from a school for porn. Okay, let's get into it because I can't count to twenty and this list goes on forever. As always, for each player there’s my projections and where I see tiers starting and ending. There’s the position eligibility chart for 2014 fantasy baseball, and all the 2014 fantasy baseball rankings are under that linkie-ma-whosie. Anyway, here’s the top 20 1st basemen for 2014 fantasy baseball: