Jimmy Rollins is a great baseball player. He has everything we as fans want to see from guys on the diamond. First and foremost, he is extremely talented. But everyone in MLB is talented. What separates Rollins is how he excels in all facets of the game and the drive and determination he brings every day. Rollins may go 0-4 but he can win the game with a highlight-reel defensive play. And his intangibles reached legendary status back in 2007 when he said that the Phillies were the team to beat in the National League East and then went out and delivered on the field, winning the MVP in the process.

Rollins is an electric player in real life. He is just not an elite player in fantasy baseball, however much his owners wish him to be one.

In his MVP season in 2007, Rollins established career highs in 11 of the “Standard” categories on the FanGraphs player page. If you go to the “Advanced” section, he notched eight more personal bests. And this was from a player who had six full seasons in the majors previously. Rollins was 28 in 2007, an age where it was more likely to be a career year rather than a new level of performance.

In 2008, fantasy owners unanimously considered Rollins to be a first-round pick. However, Rollins went on the disabled list for the first time in his career and fell from 162 games played in 2007 to 137 in 2008. The Razzball Point Share System rated Rollins as the 70th-best fantasy player that season.

Many fantasy owners remained unfazed. Once again, Rollins was considered a first-round pick in 2009 carrying an ADP of 9. There were no injury problems for Rollins last year, as he played in 155 games. However, he had a dismal first half of the year, due in large part to a .240 BABIP before the All-Star break. Rollins did much better in the second half (despite a .262 BABIP) but overall he came in at 86th in the Razzball ratings.

Now, despite back-to-back seasons of 7th-8th round value, owners still see Rollins as an elite fantasy player. The latest ADP rankings at MockDraftCentral have him at 21. He has been drafted as early as 13th and no later than 35th in the last 361 qualifying drafts.

One of the many cool features at FanGraphs is the Fans projections. As of this writing, 100 fans have made projections for Rollins and they give him a .273-19-65-102-35 line. This is the most optimistic projection out there, but basically right in line with what the Bill James and CHONE systems have for him. Marcel has a slightly more pessimistic view, largely due to 61 fewer ABs than CHONE and 82 fewer than what the Fans project.

A rough approximation of the average starting fantasy SS in a 12-team league in 2009 gives the following line:

.290-16-76-83-15

So, the fans have Rollins comfortably above average in SB and R, above average in HR and below average in RBIs and AVG among his position peers.

Compare this to Matt Holliday, the player with an ADP of 20, or the player valued right above Rollins. In 2009 starting outfielders had a rough approximation of the following fantasy line: .279-20-76-81-14. Currently, 111 Fans have given Holliday a .313-26-126-107-15 line.

Let’s compare apples to apples and use another shortstop. Derek Jeter has an ADP of 48 and 151 Fans have given him the following line:

.313-14-75-115-22

So, if you wait two-plus rounds and take Jeter, you get 40 more points of AVG, 10 more RBIs and 13 more runs while giving up 5 HR and 13 SB. Maybe the fans are overrating Jeter, so let’s look at another SS. Jason Bartlett has an ADP of 105, so you can wait seven rounds after you draft Rollins and anticipate these numbers, which come from 109 Fans:

.294-9-81-75-26

So, Fans project Bartlett to be available over 80 picks after Rollins and beat him in two fantasy categories while being competitive in SB. Clearly, Rollins is the better player than Bartlett but once you figure in their draft status, the edge narrows considerably, if not disappears altogether.

The past two years, Rollins has not justified his lofty draft status with production on the field. There have been extenuating circumstances (injuries, luck) but the fact is he has been a disappointment. Now age 31, how likely is it that Rollins will exceed Fans’ expectations and return to 2007 levels? Fantasy owners have developed a Pavlovian response to Rollins, giving him an automatic high ADP just at the sound of his name. But before you make him your second-round pick, investigate other options at the position.

Last July, the Cleveland Indians swapped long-time catcher/first baseman Victor Martinez to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for three young talents. Nick Hagadone, a lefty with a wicked fastball/slider combo coming back from Tommy John surgery, was the premium prospect in the deal. Righty reliever Bryan Price, a 2008 supplemental first-rounder out of Rice, was a sweetener. But the guy expected to pay immediate dividends was Justin Masterson.

A 6-6, 250 pound specimen, Masterson was selected out of San Diego State in the second round of the 2006 draft. In its ’06 draft coverage, Baseball America noted Masterson’s peculiar path to pro ball. The Jamaican born-right-hander sprouted eight inches in high school and spent his first two college seasons at NAIA Bethel, in Indiana. BA liked his big frame and heavy low-90’s sinker, but believed that lagging secondary stuff (a slider and a changeup) might necessitate a move to the bullpen.

After punishing hitters out of the ‘pen at short-season Lowell during the summer of 2006 (31.2 IP, 33/2 K/BB, 4 R), Masterson made his full-season debut as a starter at High-A Lancaster in 2007.

Though the home of the JetHawks is notorious for gale-force winds and offensive explosions, Masterson didn’t flinch. In 95.2 innings in the California League, he posted rates of 5.27 K/9 and 2.07 BB/9, with a 3.45 FIP. He used that bowling ball sinker to get grounders at a 53.6 percent clip. Masterson earned a call-up to Double-A Portland during the summer, thoroughly dominating the competition: a 3.10 FIP in 58 innings, with 9.16 K/9, 2.79 BB/9 and a 68.3 percent groundball rate.

Following that huge campaign, Masterson moved up the prospect charts. Baseball America named him the fourth-best talent in a fertile Boston system, praising his “special sinker” that resigned righty batters to weakly chopping the ball into the dirt. However, BA thought that Masterson’s low-three-quarters arm slot led to an inconsistent slider, and that his changeup was rudimentary. A future in the bullpen again was predicted.

In 2008, Masterson split the year between the upper levels of the minors and the major leagues. He put the beat down on batters in 47.2 combined Double-A and Triple-A innings (spent mostly at Double-A), with a 2.91 FIP, 8.5 K/9, 3.21 BB/9 and 65.1% groundball rate.

With Boston, he tossed 88.1 frames, making 27 relief appearances and nine starts. He was a beast of out the bullpen, but had some problems controlling the zone when asked to navigate opposing lineups multiple times.

Masterson was 40 percent better than the league average against same-handed batters (60 sOPS+ vs. RHB). But lefties, getting a long look at the ball because of Masterson’s low arm slot, performed three percent better than average (103 sOPS+).

Overall, Masterson whiffed 6.93 batters per nine innings, with 4.08 BB/9 and a 4.26 xFIP. He continued to burn worms (54.2 GB%), but his 3.16 ERA was boosted by a very low batting average on balls in play (.243) and a high rate of stranding runners on base (83.3 percent). While Masterson’s run values were inflated somewhat because of that good fortune, his 90 MPH sinker (+0.79 runs per 100 pitches) and 81 MPH slider (+2.64) were strong offerings.

Between Boston and Cleveland this past year, Masterson again divided his time between starting and relieving (26 ‘pen appearances, 16 starts). He was excellent in short stints, with 9.76 K/9, 2.95 BB/9 and a 3.23 xFIP in 39.2 relief innings. Starting, he compiled marks of 7.63 K/9, 4.72 BB/9 and a 4.41 xFIP in 89.2 innings. Masterson’s overall line? 129.1 IP, 8.28 K/9, 4.18 BB/9, and a 53.6 percent groundball rate, with a 4.05 xFIP.

Masterson pitched similarly in relief and as a starter, chucking a 92 MPH sinker in excess of 70 percent of the time, while using a harder slider (84 MPH) nearly a quarter of the time. His changeup remained an afterthought, thrown just three percent. The sinker was about average (-0.05 runs per 100 pitches), with the slider a plus pitch (+1.12). That sinker/slider mix again led to a sizeable platoon split: righties had a feeble 65 sOPS+, but lefties teed off for a 127 sOPS+.

Twenty-five in March, Masterson enters 2010 with a couple of questions left unanswered: can he hone his control as a starter, and can he avoid being eaten alive by left-handed batters? The two questions are obviously interrelated, as you can see through Masterson’s career platoon splits:

vs. RHB: 114.2 IP, 8.48 K/9, 2.98 BB/9, 3.48 xFIP
vs. LHB: 103 IP, 6.9 K/9, 5.42 BB/9, 4.86 xFIP

In terms of handling lefties, Masterson has a couple factors working against him. The same arm slot that makes him death on righty batters gives opposite-handed hitters ample opportunity to pick up the ball. Also, the same sinker/slider combo that eviscerates those right-handers isn’t near as effective against left-handers. Two-seam fastballs show a very large platoon split, as do sliders.

To Cleveland’s credit, the club appears to be giving Masterson every opportunity to prove that he can cut it as a starter in the majors. The soon-to-be 25 year-old is projected by CHONE to post a 4.27 FIP in 159 IP next year, with 7.47 K/9 and 4.02 BB/9. That performance would be worth around 2.1-2.2 Wins Above Replacement. Even if you think that Masterson will be a shut-down reliever, used often and in high-leverage situations (say, a 3.20 FIP in 80 innings, with a 1.5 Leverage Index), Masterson’s WAR would be around 1.7-1.8.

Right now, Masterson looks like a modestly above-average starter. It probably wouldn’t him hurt to try and add something to his arsenal that dips and fades away from lefties, though.

Though our tools may not always be at their sharpest, we can still use them in concert to find truth in the fog. Yes, the 2010 projections are not up yet at BaseballMonster, but we have a sweet set here and can use their standard-deviation weighted-category-based rankings to help compare players with different skill sets. Yes, the ADP values on MockDraftCentral are flawed and skewed by their proprietary pre-ranks, but until we have more sources, they’ll have to do (Yahoo ADPs go live February 18).

The flaws of our tools were revealed when we looked at the first couple of center field tiers on Thursday, but the middle tier awaits and we will not be deterred from our goal of finding the strongest values at each position (and yes, we’ll do a post to gather all of these values into one place eventually).

Melvin Bossman Jr Upton is being taken the earliest (59.88), but after reading Dan Budreika’s breakdown of the difficulty of projecting his season (especially his power, in my opinion), I have to think that’s a little early for him. Adam Jones (89.04) comes next, but with most projections having him around 18 and 10 with an okay batting average, that seems a little high for a guy that won’t be a major plus in any category. Andrew McCutchen (91.08) may yet grow into his power, but as Paul Bourdett pointed out here, our perception of the current level of his power might have been skewed by a burst late last year. The fact remains that his minor league ISO was in the .130s, not the .180s like last year. Without plus power, he looks like a Shane Victorino (74.25) who I also believe is going too high (unless he finally steals 40+).

I hate to be so obvious about my man-crushes, but Carlos Gonzalez (124.70) has all the tools to fly past all the center fielders in his tier. We’ve talked extensively about him on the site, but I’ll just add a couple more points. CarGo is in a crowded outfield, yes, but the team hasn’t shown the willingness to make Seth Smith an every-day player, so it really looks like Smith and Dexter Fowler are the ones battling for playing time. CarGo played almost every day down the stretch down last year and I expect that to continue. Second, it makes me drool when a toolsy former top prospect makes good on his tools by improving his walk rate, strikeout rate, reach rates and contact rates across the board, while also returning his ISO to his minor league days of promise. The stars are aligned for CarGo to Go CarGo.

The speed-only tier creates a trio of players that are seemingly projected (by CHONE) to be virtually the same players next year:

Player A: .268, 4 home runs, 37 steals
Player B: .281, 3 home runs, 29 steals
Player C: .270, 4 home runs, 31 steals

What if I added that Player B actually stole 42 bases last year with a 71% success rate? Well, then you’d probably want him, wouldn’t you? Congratulations, you just bought Nyjer Morgan at bargain-basement prices (130.21 ADP). He would almsot certainly make a better value than Michael Bourn (72.45 ADP), and should sport a better batting average (and more guaranteed playing time) than Rajai Davis (171.44 ADP) in that crowded house that is the Oakland outfield.

We may have to go to a part three here to discuss the fantasy fault line (thanks to reader Johnny Tuttle for that wording, which may become a feature here shortly) between Shane Victorino and Denard Span.

San Francisco Giants signed RHP Todd Wellemeyer to a minor league contract.

Wellemeyer gets a non-roster invitation to spring training, where he’ll try to crack San Francisco’s pitching staff as a long reliever. Chris Haft’s MLB.com article quotes Giants VP of baseball operations Bobby Evans as saying, “we’re looking at him right now more as a long man.” Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez and Zito fill the 1-4 spots in the rotation, and Madison Bumgarner, Joe Martinez and Kevin Pucetas are expected to compete for the fifth spot.

A former Cub, Marlin, Royal and Cardinal, Wellemeyer was a wild man in major league stints from 2003-2007. He appeared to turn a corner in 2008 with St. Louis, with 6.29 K/9, 2.91 BB/9 and a 4.49 xFIP in 191.2 innings pitched. A low BABIP (.273) and a high rate of stranding runners on base (76.9%) suggested that Wellemeyer wouldn’t replicate his 3.71 ERA, but he entered 2009 with a steady big league job for the first time in his career.

Unfortunately, Wellemeyer was walloped. He was placed on the DL in August with right elbow inflammation, but the injury appeared to diminish his stuff for most of the season. In 122.1 IP, Wellemeyer whiffed 5.74 batters per nine innings, with his walk rate rising to 4.19 per nine frames. His xFIP was 5.21.

The 31 year-old’s average fastball velocity dipped from 92.3 MPH in 2008 to 91.5 MPH in ’09. That heater wasn’t especially effective in ’08 (-0.56 runs per 100 pitches thrown), but it was even worse this past season (-0.96 runs/100). Despite a one MPH dip in velocity, Wellemeyer’s slider remained sharp (+1.63 in ’08, +1.5 in ’09). His changeup was battered, though: -4.52 runs/100 pitches in 2009, compared to +1.25 the previous year. Wellemeyer’s contact rate increased from a league average 80.3% in ’08 to 82.8% in ’09, with his swinging strike rate declining from 9.2% in 2008 to 7.6% in 2009 (7.8 percent MLB average for starters).

Wellemeyer’s fantasy value is negligible at this point. He has one year of average pitching on his resume, surrounded by years of getting drubbed and a troubling history of elbow ailments. According to the Fantasy Pitch F/X DL Tool, Wellemeyer missed a month and a half with an elbow sprain in 2007, and missed some time in 2008 with elbow inflammation as well.

New York Mets signed 1B Mike Jacobs to a minor league contract.

Jacobs, 29, will try to work his way into New York’s first base mix, which includes Fernando “two grannies in one inning” Tatis and Daniel “please don’t play me in left field” Murphy.

A former Mets farmhand shipped to Florida in the November 2005 Carlos Delgado deal, Jacobs is basically a fantasy landmine. Sure, he has power, and if you’re not careful, he’s the sort of player that can lull you into thinking he’s a decent option.

Following an abysmal season spent in Kansas City, the lefty batter has a career .335 wOBA. And, he has a 32 homer, 93 RBI campaign to his name, too. That sounds OK, right? Not for the position that he plays. The average first baseman posted a .350 wOBA in 2009, a level which Jacobs has never come particularly close to during his big league tenure.

He doesn’t control the strike zone, and as Jacobs’ splits page shows, lefties make him jelly-legged (career .281 wOBA in 449 plate appearances). Even if we regress that mark against southpaws toward the mean, Jacobs’ projected wOBA against left-handers is about .293, compared to .334 versus righties. In other words, he’s terrible against same-handed pitching, and a slightly above-average MLB hitter against right-handers. That doesn’t cut it at first base.

This was supposed to be a look at the ADP values in the tiers I created during my Check the Position series, but two pairs of players in the second center field tier caught my eye. These players lie right on fantasy fault lines: they are within a couple picks of each other, yet it seems that their value is disparate. I think you’ll be able to tell who I fancy (as the Brits say).

First up are two borderline second-rounders (though a bit less borderline if your league breaks out the outfield into three positions). Jacoby Ellsbury (20.36 ADP) goes earliest, and many fantasy managers may scoff at the number if they are accustomed to playing with plain “OF” positions, and they could be right. He is projected to retain his game-changing speed and put up a steals number north of 50. To put that in perspective, only three players crossed that threshold last year, and only one other player is projected to do so in most projection systems next year (Michael Bourn). There’s a good chance that Ellsbury finally nets triple-digit runs too, provided he remains atop the order and the Boston offense doesn’t take a step back with their renewed emphasis on defense. So Ellsbury will have some good qualities.

But what about Grady Sizemore (26.52 ADP), who is being picked almost a half-round later? If you were in the right draft spot, you could actually avoid Ellsbury and take Sizemore after the turn in the third round. I did it recently, and felt great about it. It’s not like Sizemore won’t steal any bases – although the amount is in question. He put up a career-low 6.0 speed score last year (5.0 is average) and the projections range from 20 steals to the Fans’ more optimistic 29 steals. He’s still young (27), and here’s a bet that he’ll touch the higher end of the steals projections. The power is no question – he should out-homer Ellsbury by at least a dozen home runs, and as many as 20. For whatever reason, his batting average won’t be as nice, either.

So how do you compare two different players like this? How much are Ellsbury’s extra singles and stolen bases worth? How much should you pay for Sizemore’s extra power? An excellent site, BaseballMonster.com, attempts to answer this question by measuring a player’s impact in each of the 5×5 categories in terms of standard deviations above the mean in said category. Using Sizemore’s projections for 2009 (2010 is not up yet, and the .276, 32 HR, 38 SBs only need to be scaled back a little in the speed category to make sense), his across-the-board positive contributions gave him a ranking as the ninth-best hitter. How did Ellsbury finish last year? 14th. (I report, you decide.)

Next up is Curtis Granderson (53.64 ADP), who already seems like an ADP value at his draft position. In fact, in that mock where I scored Sizemore in the third, I took Granderson after the turn in the fifth and called it a double-victory. Granderson is going from a park that had a .974 park factor for home runs last year to one that sported a 1.261 factor this year. He’s going to have a nice bounce-back season according to his BABIP (.276 last year, .323 career). Yes, his speed factor was lower than his career average, but the speed factor counts stolen bases, and it’s hard to steal bases when you aren’t on base (and it’s hard to get on base when you’re getting unlucky with the bouncing ball). All systems go for Granderson, despite his unfavorable splits against lefties, which may not be as bad as they first appear.

And yet, Josh Hamilton (52.85 ADP), who has further to bounce back, is getting picked before Granderson. This is really a head-scratcher, in the end. Perhaps fantasy managers are being swayed by that gaudy 130 RBI total a couple of years back, because his career-high in home runs (32) is only two more than Granderson’s, and he doesn’t really steal bases (at all). Again, we are left to ponder the value of Hamilton’s batting average, because the RBI are so team-specific, and Granderson may out-produce Hamilton in that category depending on his position in the batting lineup in the Bronx. I think the home run totals will be close, and Granderson will get the final laugh.

At first blush, Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Billy Buckner looks like a toxic fantasy option. After all, he’s an exiled Kansas City Royal who posted a-shield your eyes!-6.40 ERA in 2009. Why in the world should you care about William Jennings Bucker?

What if I were to argue that Buckner really didn’t pitch that poorly last season? That, in terms of the facets of pitching over which he has the most control, Bucker was actually pretty good? Crazy, right? Perhaps not.

Kansas City’s second round pick in the 2004 draft, Bucker has tossed 324 innings at the Triple-A level (51 starts, 15 relief appearances). Overall, the University of South Carolina product has punched out 6.9 batters per nine frames, with 3.2 BB/9 and a 3.82 Fielding Independent ERA.

Courtesy of Minor League Splits, here are Buckner’s Major League Equivalent lines from 2007-2009, based on his Triple-A work:

2007: 105 IP, 6.26 K/9, 2.83 BB/9, 48.2 GB%, 4.58 FIP
2008: 124 IP, 4.44 K/9, 3.93 BB/9, 46.2 GB%, 5.01 FIP
2009: 106 IP, 7.24 K/9, 4.85 BB/9, 49.5 GB%, 4.17 FIP

Those aren’t the numbers of some amazing, unrecognized pitcher, but they’re useful nonetheless. Buckner’s combined MLE from 2007 to 2009: a 4.65 FIP, with 5.96 K/9 and 3.88 BB/9.

Buckner bounced between Triple-A Tucson and Arizona last year, compiling a big league ERA that would make Daniel Cabrera giggle. But beneath the Boeing-level ERA, Buckner showed some promising skills.

In 77.1 innings pitched (13 starts, 3 ‘pen appearances), the 26 year-old struck out 7.45 batters per nine innings, issuing 3.38 BB/9. He also kept the ball down, generating grounders 48.8 percent of the time. Buckner’s xFIP, based on whiffs, walks and a normalized home run per fly ball rate, was 3.95- nearly two and a half runs lower than his actual ERA.

What happened? For one, it seemed as though the D-Backs righty had seven Bill Buckners behind him, with Mookie Wilson perpetually at the plate (I know, I know-it was an error. But play along). Buckner’s BABIP was .347, the ninth-highest rate among pitchers working at least 70 frames.

In addition, his HR/FB rate was obscenely high: 16.7 percent of fly balls hit against Bucker left the yard, compared to the 11-12 percent major league average. Buckner’s rate of stranding runners on base, 63.2, was also out of whack. Perhaps he does struggle pitching from the stretch. But it seems unlikely that Buckner will have a strand rate seven to nine percent below the big league average again next year.

Buckner did a nice job of getting batters to go fishing, getting swings on pitches out of the strike zone 29.9 percent of the time (25% MLB average). His contact rate was 76.5 percent, below the 80-81 percent major league average.

Granted, he will have to combat Chase Field’s inhospitable environs: per the 2010 Bill James Handbook, Chase boosted run scoring by 15 percent compared to a neutral ball park over the past three seasons. But heading into 2010, Buckner figures to be Arizona’s fifth starter. CHONE projects a 4.45 FIP in 167 innings, with 6.84 punch outs per nine and 3.45 BB/9.

Billy Buckner won’t be on anybody’s draft list. In all likelihood, some of your fellow owners will think you’re just having some 80’s flashback if you mention the guy’s name. But Bucker could be a shrewd NL-only option if injuries send you scrambling to the waiver wire.

Now is the beautiful time of year that leagues are beginning to form. Commissioners are emailing participants to confirm interest, and discuss possible rule changes for the upcoming season. This is the process that is taking place in a league I participate in, and I am creating quite a stir.

A group of us in the league are considered to be the “active” owners who constantly check rosters, scour the waiver wire, and always show up at our online draft. The rest of the league is considered to be the “casual” owners who just want to have some fun. We “active” owners were discussing some possible changes in the rules, and I submitted a proposal to switch the league from batting average to OBP. All of the active owners thought OBP was superior to AVG, but two of them turned it down on the grounds that it would handicap the casual players even more than they already are.

Going into a full league vote sometime later in the week, the voting is set at 2-2. So, now it is down to the rest of the league to push OBP through and make me happy in the process.

Chances are, someone reading this is wondering why a league would want to complicate things and switch to OBP, or are thinking about convincing their league to do the same. Here are some simple arguments as to why a league should adopt OBP:

1. When a player reaches base, I want credit for it. It really is a simple concept. I cannot tell you how many 0-2 games it seems I had from Manny last year, where I received no credit for him reaching base in his other trips to the plate.

2. The player is helping his team by reaching first base, so why shouldn’t he help mine? Again, a very simple and straightforward idea, but some still cannot wrap their head around it.

The only argument I have heard against changing a league to OBP is that the casual players would have problems because the players rankings being used by the draft site do not change, leaving some players vastly overvalued. My argument against that idea is simple: Deal with it. Show up to the draft and do a small bit of research and there will be no issues.

Now, I want to hear from you, the reader. Have any of you recently convinced a league to switch to OBP? If so, how did it go? I believe an OBP league is utterly superior to an AVG league, but getting most to switch over will be a long struggle that will ultimately ruin some leagues due to conflict.

I just got back from a trip and took advantage of my airport time to do some fantasy baseball studying. In the dark ages, this might have meant purchasing a fantasy magazine but fortunately there are much better options available today. And much to my delight, the mailman brought my copy of John Sickels’ The Baseball Prospect Book 2010 right before I left.

Now the internet has made following prospects much easier than when Sickels started doing his book back in the mid 1990s. Our own Marc Hulet does excellent work listing the top 10 prospects for each organization. But I still find value in this book and it is the one prospect source I go back to time and time again, both before and during the season as well as in hindsight to see both how prospects were rated and how the scouting reports from the minors compare to the actual results in the majors.

Sickels does a nice job of combining both statistical analysis along with scouting reports to determine his grades for prospects. And one advantage that he has over many other analysts is that he goes to a bunch of games – both in the minors and top college programs. A lot of guys can quote you a top prospect’s numbers in the high minors but Sickels can tell you the improvements he made since he saw him in college.

For example, Sickels writes about 2009 Angels supplemental first-round pick Garrett Richards:

“I saw him pitch one Big 12 game where he was throwing 94-96 MPH fastballs, a plus slider, and a big-breaking curveball … and he still got clobbered because he couldn’t command his pitches.”

Now Richards pitched well in his rookie ball debut last year and combined with his high draft status, many analysts would be extremely bullish on him. But Sickels uses his college scouting (and numbers) to offer just a bit more caution that most in regards to Richards. And there are countless examples of this throughout the book.

In addition to his own scouting, Sickels has built up a strong network of scouts that he can trade information with regarding players he is unable to see in person. But before you dismiss him as someone who just regurgitates whatever information scouts give him, Sickels is not afraid to go against this information if it conflicts with what he sees in the numbers or what his gut tells him.

On Jonathan Galvez, a Padres prospect from the Dominican Republic who got a big bonus a few years back, Sickels notes: “some scouts were disappointed in him, criticizing his defensive play, particularly his arm strength, and raising questions about his work ethic.” But despite that Sickels concluded: “I still think he’s a very intriguing prospect.”

And yes, someone who has been doing this as long and as successfully as Sickels has is allowed (and is preferred) to use his gut or his instinct when evaluating players, so long as he is upfront about it in his analysis. As Malcolm Gladwell has pointed out, experts have a way of recognizing patterns in subconscious ways and it is a mistake to ignore those completely.

Sickels was using numbers to grade prospects long before most others were doing it. He uses OPS, Secondary Average (both of which he compares to league averages) and BABIP as his main offensive numbers. On the pitching side he uses K/BB, K/IP and H/IP. This year he also incorporated some FIP numbers into his analysis

The book contains prospect reports on 1,170 minor league players and is arranged alphabetically. But there is also a section that lists every prospect by team, so if you are only interested in finding out the details about guys in certain systems, you can do that, too.

It is great for both fantasy purposes and following the game as a whole. Sickels both writes and self publishes the book, which you can order here.

Which prospect sources do you use the most and find most reliable?

The 2010 season figures to be a year of transition and development for the Toronto Blue Jays. It will be year one A.H. (After Halladay), and the Jays have little chance of contending with the baseball super powers in the Bronx, Boston and Tampa.

Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA pegs the current Toronto roster for a last-place finish in the A.L. East, with a 72-90 record and a -91 run differential. An infusion of prospects (Brett Wallace, Kyle Drabek and Travis D’Arnaud chief among them) suggests better days may be ahead, but it will be an uphill climb to contention in a division where anything less than excellence won’t cut it.

Sans Halladay, the Blue Jays feature a youthful, lefty-laden rotation. While Marc Rzepczynski doesn’t have the draft pedigree of Ricky Romero or Brett Cecil, Toronto’s lesser-known southpaw could be a sleeper heading into the 2010 season.

A U.C. Riverside product, Rzepczynski was taken in the fifth round of the 2007 draft. The 6-1, 205 pounder missed a portion of his senior season with the Highlanders with elbow soreness, as well as a broken knuckle on his pitching hand. Baseball America liked Rzepczynski’s four-pitch mix, though, noting a tailing fastball sitting at 88-91 MPH, a low-80’s curve and slider, and an occasional changeup. While cautioning that command had always been “a major problem” for Rzepczynski, BA said he had middle-of-the-rotation potential.

The play-by-play announcer’s worst nightmare made his pro debut in the short-season New York-Penn League, where he posted rates of 9.7 K/9, 3.4 BB/9 and a 2.81 FIP in 45.2 innings pitched. Rzepczynski waged a ground assault on less experienced batters, using his sinker to the tune of a 65.6 percent groundball rate.

Prior to 2008, Rzepczynski checked in at #21 on Baseball America’s list of Blue Jays prospects. BA praised his 87-89 MPH sinker, boring in on same-handed hitters and occasionally cracking the low-90’s. Rzepczynski also featured a hard slider and a changeup. His “long, slinging arm action” from a three-quarters arm slot added life to his pitches, though the english on those offerings came at the expense of fine touch around the corners of the plate.

In ’08, Rzepczynski spent the whole year at Lansing of the Low-A Midwest League. Marc missed April with a fractured pitching hand, but he returned to screw with A-Ball hitters as a member of the Lugnuts. He authored a 2.60 FIP in 121 IP, punching out 9.2 hitters per nine innings and issuing 3.1 BB/9. While that microscopic FIP was influenced by a very low home run rate (0.15 HR/9), it’s hard to find many faults when a hurler is whiffing over a batter per inning while inducing grounders at a 66.5% clip.

Rzepczynski jumped up to ninth on Toronto’s prospect list leading up to 2009. BA noted that he pounded the bottom of the zone with an 88-90 MPH fastball, supplementing the sinker with a sharp low-80’s slider, an average changeup and a “show-me” curveball. They did voice some concern about the disconnect between Rzepczynski K rates and his stuff: “though he got plenty of swings and misses in low Class A, Rzepczynski lacks a true out pitch.”

This past year, Rzepczynski zipped from Double-A to the majors. He began 2009 in the Eastern League, compiling a 2.64 FIP in 76.2 innings with 10.3 K/9 and 4.2 BB/9. Rzepczynski’s stuff passed the two-level jump with flying colors, and he burned worms with a 61 GB%. After just two starts at Triple-A (11.1 IP, 16/4 K/BB), Rzepczynski reached the majors in early July.

In 11 starts and 61.1 innings with Toronto, the 24 year-old had a promising 3.70 xFIP (Expected Fielding Independent ERA, based on strikeouts, walks and a normalized home run per fly ball rate). He struck out 8.8 hitters per nine frames, with 4.4 BB/9 and a 51.2 percent groundball rate. Not wanting Rzepczynski to zoom past the previous year’s innings pitched total (he threw 28.1 more IP in 2009 than in ’08), the Jays shut him down in early September.

Rzepczynski tossed his 88 MPH sinker 55 percent of the time with Toronto, going to his 80 MPH slider a whopping 39 percent and sprinkling in some 82 MPH changeups (six percent). It’s difficult to glean much from such a small sample size, but Rzepczynski scuffled with the sinker (-1.05 runs per 100 pitches) while baffling batters with the slider (+2.9 runs/100).

Control was an issue during his first big league stint, as Rzepczynski located just 42 percent of his pitches within the strike zone (49% MLB average). His first-pitch strike percentage was just 52.1 percent (58% MLB average). Despite the high strikeout rate, Rzepczynski’s contact percentage was about league average, at 80.4 percent.

In 2010, CHONE has Rzepczynski posting a 4.05 FIP, with 8.7 K’s per nine innings and 4.4 BB/9. It’s going to be interesting to see how his punchout rates translate long-term to the majors. Despite not having the archetypal power pitcher’s arsenal, Rzepczynski has deftly avoided lumber at each level of competition. His control needs work, but this lefty’s combination of whiffs and worm burners could make him The Dude to target late on draft day.

A while back, we checked the position at second base and outlined some tiers that should help you choose between options in your draft. Unfortunately, this position doesn’t produce ADP values as cleanly as some other positions (and we like our values clean).

Take the first two tiers, for example. It would be nice to pick the lowest-drafted second baseman in the first two tiers, Brian Roberts (40.69 ADP), and just declare him the value of the two tiers. The problem is that Roberts has too many question marks to get the (grade A) stamp of approval as a value. For instance, though his ISO was a second-best last year (.168), and it seems to have grown organically (three straight increases), that ISO has famously peaked before (.201 in his 18-home-run 2005 season) and then returned back towards the baseline (.137). He’s 32 and his stolen bases have declined for two straight seasons. Then again, 2008 produced his career-best full-season speed score (7.3), and that wasn’t so long ago. The point is, counting on his for anything more than 12 or so home runs and 30 or so stolen bases probably isn’t a good idea, and those numbers seem a little light for the third round. On the other hand, Dustin Pedroia (37.48 ADP) goes three picks earlier and isn’t going to hit that stolen base number and may only out-homer Roberts by a handful. Maybe Roberts is the actual value here.

There is a lot of questionable power in the next tier. Aaron Hill (46.87 ADP), Robinson Cano (45.83 ADP) and Jose Lopez (123.97 ADP) all had power spikes last year, and their draft positions show the confidence the general public has that the different players will return with good power in 2010. Once again, it’s tempting to take Lopez with the lowest ADP and call him the value – and there are some reasons to believe the power will stick. His ISO, fly ball, and HR/FB rates have all steadily risen over the last three years. The problem is that, with his walk rate (3.7% career), his value is tied up in that power, and his career ISO (.141) is still low enough that it is hard to count on. Why not take Dan Uggla (85.10) a couple rounds earlier so that you can depend on his power (.225 career ISO)? Here it seems that Uggla is the real value in the tier.

The final tier is a rag-tag group, as Asdrubal Cabrera (158.18) and Howie Kendrick (146.64) leading the way, though neither is a lock to hit 15 home runs or stolen bases next year. They’ll have to hit a lot of singles to make up for their shortcomings in those two important fantasy categories. Again here, Clint Barmes (307.61) and Adam Kennedy (327.96) bring up the rear but have too many questions to tout as the values of the tier. Barmes doesn’t walk (4.3%), strikes out a fair amount (22% last year), and though he showed power last year (.195 ISO), his career power is less exciting (.157). He’s also done a lot of jumping around in the power department, and last year may have just defined his upside anyway. Kennedy had a nice year, but despite his 20 stolen bases last year, his speed score was actually below-average. He doesn’t really have a single skill you can count on.

If you’re going to take a plunge, why not take one on Rickie Weeks (212.37 ADP)? Yes, it will cost a healthier pick than Barmes, but we’re still talking about a 19th-round pick in mixed league drafts. His ISO has jumped around some too (.125 – .245), but it’s been trending upwards in a general way. There’s still the upside that he might finally put together one of his better strikeout rates (say, 2008’s 24.2%) with one of his better walk rates (11.8% in 2008) and BABIPs (.313 last year) and get his batting average up past the .250s. We know he has power and speed, and an okay batting average would make him a valuable second baseman, especially in head-to-head leagues. That he might be the value of the final tier should serve as a positional scarcity warning for the position, too.