Before we get to today’s results, I thought I’d ask you if you’d please leave your suggestions for future ADP Crowdsourcings in the comments below. Thank you.

Matt Garza (xADP, You)
My vote: 8, 10
Average: 9.7, 11.7
Median: 10, 12
Std Dev: 2.9, 4.3

While we may not have perfectly agreed on where Garza is going to be drafted, or even when we would be willing to take him, we did agree on one thing: Garza is going to be overvalued and taken about two rounds before we would be willing to pull the trigger. I think the perception of his move out of the AL East and into the National League will help propel his ADP, but I could very well be wrong. I always find it interesting to look at these results, because – at least in this case – it can make you realize that most of us aren’t expecting to have Garza on our rosters in 2011, which is a strange thought to have echoed throughout the sample.

Jeremy Hellickson (xADP, You)
My vote: 15, 13
Average: 13.3, 12.3
Median: 13, 12
Std Dev: 4.2, 4.1

Trying to pinpoint a prospect’s numbers are tough enough, let along trying to accurately predict where they will be drafted. However, you guys had a pretty good idea when it came to Hellickson, even if I thought he’d be taken a little later. To be fair, my thinking may be biased based on what I’ve seen in “expert” mock drafts, and I’m going to put my faith in you guys. While I would be willing to take Hellickson in the 13th round, my projections don’t indicate that he’ll be worth that pick. But, when you can get a young stud like Hellickson who has the chance to be great, it’s worth the risk. I have a feeling this may be the sentiment for a good number of owners, as it seems some weigh pure upside far more than others.

Please leave your suggestions for future ADP Crowdsourcings in the comments below. Thank you.

Matt asks…

now, i know sounds like complete insanity, but here’s the situation:

i’m in a pretty deep 12 team, 7×7 league. one of our other players would like to unload greinke (10th rounder) and keep stephen drew (18th round) because of position scarcity. doing this would free up his 1-9 rounds for drafting pitchers, of which there are precious few quality arms available. i jokingly offered him castro over drew for greinke, and he’s accepted. now, i’m a castro fan, but i don’t think he’s going to be a fantasy stud — especially in a deep 7×7 league. should i hang onto castro, or take the offer? my gut is that castro’s stats can replaced, and a guy like greinke in the NL central able to be kept in the 10th is something you don’t pass up.

thanks in advance for any advice you could offer!

My guts says go for it, but let’s examine further.

The Cubs called up Starlin Castro last May and he immediately made a name for himself. He hit a three-run homer in his first big league plate appearance, and went 2-for-5 with a triple and six total RBI in that game. His first baker’s dozen games in the show resulted in a .375/.434/.500 batting line with ten steaks, and he settled in at .296/.336/.398 with 30 doubles, four triples, two homers, 31 RBI and nine steals the rest of the way, mostly from the second spot in the order. His raw fantasy output (.300 AVG, 53 R, 3 HR, 41 RBI, 10 SB, 506 PA) essentially equaled Jason Bartlett (.254 AVG, 71 R, 4 HR, 47 RBI, 11 SB, 532 PA) with an extra 50 or points of BABIP. Of course one of those guys is a veteran semi-journeyman and the other was named one of the 25 best prospects in the game before last season, so the expectations going forward are different.

Bill James projects a .310 AVG, 68 R, 4 HR, 60 RBI, 15 SB performance in 2011 while the fans have Castro at .296 AVG, 83 R, 6 HR, 71 RBI, 19 SB. That’s basically the last three years of Derek Jeter’s career mashed together and divided by three, just with not nearly as many runs scored. Castro’s going to have to grow into some power, because he hit a total of nine minor league homers in nearly 1,100 plate appearances, though all those doubles in 2010 is a good sign. He’ll offer a very nice AVG and plenty of steals until that happens.

Zack Greinke, on the other hand, is a known quantity at this point. He’s unlikely to repeat his 2009 mastery just because that’s a unsustainable level of performance, but he’s a safe bet for a sub-4.00 ERA and a boatload of strikeouts. He’s obviously moving into the easier league (imagine him with 8-10 total starts against the Astros and Pirates) and a slightly more pitcher-friendly park (StatCorner has Kauffman Stadium’s wOBA factors at 104 for LHB and 100 for RHB compared to 100/97 for Miller Park), so the already solid ERA and WHIP will get a boost just from the trade. With a very good offense and the makings of a solid bullpen behind him, Greinke will find the wins to be a little easier to come by next season. I don’t want to put too much emphasis on intangibles, but if you buy into the whole “he’s motivated now that he’s on a contender” narrative, that’s just another feather in Greinke’s cap.

The projection systems love Greinke and why wouldn’t they. Barring injury between now and then, he should be one of the first five or six pitchers off the board come draft day, well above a tenth round keeper slot. There are very few reasons to be pessimistic about his 2011 production.

Without knowing the ins-and-outs of Matt’s roster, most specifically what the rest of his pitching staff looks like, I say go for it and take the trade and Greinke. It’s definitely not as clear cut as I thought it would be when I first read the question, but you’re trading potentially elite production at a scarce position for close to guaranteed elite production in the rotation. If Castro was more established and didn’t come with all the risks associated with being a 21-year-old big leaguer, I’d probably say keep him, but he’s not. You’re getting the best player in the deal, and that’s never a bad thing.

Click here to submit your fan projections for Castro and Greinke. Send in your mailbag questions using this link, and I’ll pick one or two a week to answer.

A bunch of recent minor signings and news items probably don’t deserve full posts but might be relevant in deeper leagues. Let’s clear them out!

Jose Arredondo is healthy
Arredondo is finally good to go after a two-year battle with his elbow. You might wonder who this dude is, but remember his excellent 2008 with the Angels (3.10 FIP), when he was good enough to close for most teams. And then remember how bad Francisco Cordero is (4.53 xFIP last year), and you’ll know that Arredondo may just vulture a save or two this year. Sure, Aroldis Chapman is starting in the pen, too, and is in line in front of Arredondo, but he’s also got the ability to start. File this name away, at the very worst he may be useful in deeper leagues that use holds.

Shane Victorino was called out by Charlie Manuel
While Manuel may not be right to call out his player publicly, the fact that he mentioned that Victorino was swinging for the fences too often was interesting. Victorino had the worst BABIP of his career last year, and the highest fly-ball rate. These things are related, since the BABIP on fly balls is poor. Give Victorino a few home runs less and push his batting average a few ticks higher if he’s listening to his manager. Either way, he’s a decent bounce-back pick, and always shows a little power and a good amount of speed. Under-rated if you ask me.

Chien-Ming Wang to be ready for spring training
He hasn’t been useful for anything other than Wang jokes since about 2007 (or 2008 if you want to be generous), but Wang says his shoulder feels good and that he’d like to compete for a role in the rotation in spring training. Carlos Silva had some similar statistics and came to the weaker league and performed well – this Wang may not be done Chunging yet. Don’t forget about him in your deeper leagues, even if his lack of strikeouts makes his upside a little less palatable.

Despite all the mainstream praise of his defense, Torii Hunter finally shifted to a corner outfield spot last season, and did so in deference to a rookie. Peter Bourjos, a former tenth round pick, usurped Hunter in center, playing the position on an everyday basis after coming up in early-August. Our own Marc Hulet ranked Bourjos as the Angels’ fourth best prospect before the 2010 season while Baseball America had him second. Both parties agreed that he had the speed to steal a hefty number of bases on an annual basis, and that his power is more towards the gaps than over-the-fence (.159 ISO in the minors). The part about his excellent centerfield defense isn’t relevant to our interests, since we’re going to look at his 2011 fantasy value.

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In this week’s edition of ADP Crowdsourcing, we are taking a look at two players who will be affected by Matt Garza being traded to the Cubs. Today we finish our week of voting with Jeremy Hellickson, and are using rounds as our unit once again.

Even before Garza was traded, I think most (including myself) were drafting Hellickson on the assumption that he’d have a spot in the rotation when the season began, because Hellickson was simply too good to keep in the minor leagues any longer. After the Garza trade, we can now be sure that Hellickson should enter 2011 in the Rays’ starting rotation, but we cannot be sure how many innings he will pitch.

Some may want to compare Hellickson’s debut with those of David Price and Wade Davis, but Helly isn’t a comparable pitcher. Hellickson already has two breaking balls that are of MLB caliber, and he does a good job keeping his pitches low in the zone. Tampa Bay’s defense isn’t going to hurt his cause, either, as they should continue to do an excellent job converting balls in play to outs.

It’s understandable that owners will have their reservations, as a rookie facing the stacked lineups of Boston and New York isn’t the best case scenario, but good pitchers do well in almost any capacity. The Rays are still going to compete this year, and while their bullpen could lose Hellickson a few wins, he should still be able to reach a double-digit win total this year. As long as he doesn’t succomb to James Shields‘ Homerunitis, he’ll be fine.

We are still voting on where you think Hellickson will be drafted by the average owner, but we’re going to take it a step further. We are also going to vote on where you would draft him, as well. Also, please note we are using round, not pick this time because of Garza’s likely ADP. Below is a link to the voting form, and please read the wording carefully. For the voting, we’re assuming a 12-team standard league, using 5×5 scoring.

To submit your vote, click here.

The Blue Jays were poised to lose their three best relief pitchers this offseason with Jason Frasor, Scott Downs, and Kevin Gregg all set to become free agents. Frasor accepted arbitration and will return in 2011, but Downs landed a three-year deal with the Angels and Gregg found two years in Baltimore. That left a considerable hole in Toronto’s bullpen, which they’ve addressed by signing Octavio Dotel and more recently Jon Rauch. Both have the “proven closer” tag (Dotel moreso than Rauch), so which one will see the save opportunities next season?

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As they are wont to do, the Yankees recently identified a hole on their ballclub and shored it up by rebuilding the engine when a simple tune-up would have sufficed. Rafael Soriano as the beneficiary of their latest splurge, becoming the game’s fifth highest paid relief pitcher on an average annual value basis, and he won’t even get the responsibility of working the ninth inning. That will still belong to the unparalleled Mariano Rivera, and it takes a bite out of Soriano’s fantasy stock. It goes without saying that he’s a must have in leagues that count holds, but what if yours doesn’t?

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In this week’s edition of ADP Crowdsourcing, we take a look at two players who will be affected by Matt Garza trade to the Cubs. Today we start with Garza himself, and are using rounds as our unit once again.

If you just watched Garza throw in a bullpen session, you may have reason to believe that he is a legitimate MLB and fantasy ace. However, you wouldn’t have much reason to believe that if you just looked at his numbers from the past three seasons in Tampa Bay. Garza is one of those starters who has good velocity on his fastball, and despite a fantastic slider, is unable to strike out as many batters as he probably should. Garza’s age-25 season in 2009 gave everyone plenty of hope, and his strikeout rate crept over the 8.0 per nine innings mark. But he returned to normal in 2010, striking out only 6.6 batter every nine innings.

Garza has become an extreme fly-ball pitcher over the past few years, and despite Tropicana Fields’ park factors, his home run rate is usually below average. Wrigley Field is not as forgiving, especially against left-handed hitters, so Garza could end up getting himself in a little bit of trouble this upcoming season. However, facing a pitcher or pinch-hitter instead of a DH and leaving the AL East should help mitigate his potential home run problems.

We are still voting on where you think Garza will be drafted by the average owner, but we’re going to take it a step further. We are also going to vote on where you would draft him, as well. Also, please note we are using round, not pick this time because of Garza’s likely ADP. Below is a link to the voting form, and please read the wording carefully. For the voting, we’re assuming a 12-team standard league, using 5×5 scoring.

To submit your vote, click here.

Earlier in the week we showed that you can still get a comparative advantage over your fellow drafters by drafting an elite catcher that will rack up 10-12% more plate appearances than other catchers. But that’s only half the picture – what the catchers do with their plate appearances is the rest of the picture. If you can’t get too much of a comparative advantage in terms of the other statistics, the plate appearances won’t matter much.

In order to do that, we’ll take a look at some of the projections for catchers that should go early and catchers that go later. We’ll use draft picks from the Stupidly Early Mock Draft over at RotoHardball.com to approximate ADP (but there’s more help coming from RG when it comes to rankings and mocks, don’t worry).

First, let’s just take the Bill James projections for the top 12 catchers, grouped not in tiers, but just in groups of four. These jerry-rigged tiers will allow us to compare the top, middle, and bottom catchers without too much discussion about getting them into the correct tiers. A straight average of the groups should put this into focus.

2.10 Joe Mauer .338 BA, 15 HR, 3 SB, 93 R, 87 RBI
4.1 Brian McCann .280 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 68 R, 94 RBI
4.2 Victor Martinez .298 BA, 19 HR, 1 SB, 69 R, 88 RBI
4.3 Buster Posey .308 BA, 21 HR, 1 SB, 74 R, 83 RBI

Top-“Tier” Average: .306 BA, 20 HR, 2 SB, 76 R, 88 RBI

7.5 Geovany Soto .276 BA, 20 HR, 0 SB, 56 R, 72 RBI
7.8 Carlos Santana .280 BA, 22 HR, 7 SB, 83 R, 91 RBI
9.4 Matt Wieters .288 BA, 16 HR, 0 SB, 55 R, 74 RBI
12.11 Mike Napoli .246 BA, 24 HR, 4 SB, 62 R, 66 RBI

Mid-“Tier” Average: .273 BA, 21 HR, 3 SB, 64 R, 76 RBI

14.6 Jorge Posada .260 BA, 16 HR, 2 SB, 49 R, 60 RBI
14.7 Miguel Montero .273 BA, 14 HR, 0 SB, 51 R, 58 RBI
15.9 Ryan Hanigan .281 BA, 5 HR, 0 SB, 39 R, 37 RBI
16.12 Kurt Suzuki .266 BA, 13 HR, 4 SB, 65 R, 73 RBI

Bottom-“Tier” Average: .270 BA, 12 HR, 1 SB, 51 R, 57 RBI

It looks like you get what you pay for, but the middle tier might get you the best value. The bottom tier looks pretty bad, but if you replace Hanigan with John Buck, whose projections are a little rosier (.248 BA, 17 HR, 0 SB, 47 R, 60 RBI), then your averages for the bottom tier look a little nicer – .262 BA, 15 HR, 53 R, 63 RBI.

While the top three in plate appearances will show a comparative advantage over the rest of the field, plate appearances can be hard to predict. Going by projected performance, it looks like the best plan may be to wait, but not wait too long.