As we near season’s end, it is time to start looking toward 2012 and to determine which players may see a performance spike, and therefore be a target in your fantasy drafts. As I have mentioned many times in the past, SwStk% is one of my favorite advanced metrics to analyze for pitchers. It correlates highly with a pitcher’s strikeout rate, and the relationship is intuitive to both stats freaks and stats haters alike. Here are three pitchers whose SwStk% suggest better strikeout rates could be in their futures.

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I torture myself every year by looking back at what could have been.

I have a league that has been going on for the better part of two decades – it used to be housed on the old “Sandbox” but migrated to Yahoo many years ago and it has had anywhere from ten to twelve owners year to year. It’s your proverbial bragging rights league, although as we’ve gotten older, more money has been wagered but I’m convinced we’d play for a thimble just to say we beat the next guy. This season, it was set up as a pretty simple standard, ten team non-keeper points league with a snake draft.

With the draft well behind in the rear view mirror and the next one six long months away, I decided to take a look at the results just to see if there was anything to take away from it.

In doing so, I marveled at the bargains that people pulled during the draft, and it rather got me salivating thinking about what hidden gems there will be in 2012. What follows are the highlights from this past March, and a cool reminder that I ought not over-imbibe on draft day until at least the 20th round.

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You say you’re season is winding down and you need to pick up a few extra W’s to close the gap on an oppontent? Here are two readily available pitchers with favorable matchups in action tonight

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Brent Morel (Yahoo:  7 percent owned, ESPN: 12 percent owned)

Brett Lawrie’s season is done after breaking a finger on Wednesday, which isn’t a terrible loss for the Blue Jays, who are simply playing out the string, and close the season with six games away from Rogers Centre. Lawrie’s injury may, however, leave a few AL-only and mixed owners in the lurch. Morel may not be the most exciting replacement option, but he’s widely available and playing well of late. Read the rest of this entry »

RotoGraphs asked me to post my first-ever column for the site with six days left in the season. That’s right, six days.

This can only mean one thing, of course – they firmly believe that I will bring such brilliant and insightful advice that I can swing a full season of fantasy baseball with 500 words, less than a week before the season ends.

Well, maybe that isn’t what they had in mind, but I am going to give it a shot anyway. So here are six guys who are a) available in at least 90% of leagues (according to Yahoo) and b) will give you a chance to pick up those last couple points to break into the money or take the title.

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John Mayberry started the season in AAA for the Phillies and eventually got the call to the majors. He has been a pleasant surprise by hitting 15 home runs in only 275 PA. He had shown power in the past, but a large K% was limiting his HR and AVG production. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s suggested Would You Rather comes via email from someone named SuicideKing and I couldn’t be happier about posting it here.  Talk about throwing something right in your wheelhouse!  If you’ve been reading all season, you’ll know I’ve never been shy about my dislike for drafting Joe Mauer as high as he usually goes and that I’ve been a huge Alex Avila fan all year.  But this is business here, so let’s do an objective comparison and then I’ll turn it over to the rest of you for further discussion.

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Nearly three months into the season, I looked at three American League starting pitcher disappointments and wondered if we should expect them to experience better days ahead. The Major League ERA at the time was just 3.88, the first time it was below 4.00 since 1992. It has risen since, but barely, as it still sits at just 3.93. That means the busts are hurting your fantasy team even more than usual. So let’s take a look at how these three pitchers have fared since and what we could expect in 2012.

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Last season, the first five pitchers off the board were Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum, Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee and Jon Lester. But what will 2012 look like? Let’s take a guess.

1. Roy Halladay. Nothing has changed here. Halladay is consistently brilliant and he will be the first pitcher drafted because of his long track record of dominance and his placement in the NL.

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This previous off season, Cameron Maybin was traded from the Marlins to the Padres for  Edward Mujica and Ryan Webb. Before that trade, he was traded from the Tigers to the Marlins as part of the the Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera trade. He is now having an outstanding season with the Padres by generating 4.3 WAR (only 2.2 WAR previously in his entire career). He has been a nice source of steals (38) and Runs (79) this season. If his cards fall right next season, he should see similar or better numbers. Read the rest of this entry »