It’s the final week of our look-ahead to the 2012 fantasy baseball season by highlighting potential impact rookies at each position. Because it’s never too early to begin thinking about next year, even if you’re trying to win your league right now. And for those of you in keeper leagues, particularly deeper ones, these primers will be especially helpful, because you’ll find out which young players may be worth snatching up now — before other owners get a clue — so you can hang onto them next season, when their value kicks in. Think of it like an investment requiring only a little up-front cost that could pay off big in the near future.

Much like my Mining the Minors columns on this site, which focus on current-season impact more than long-term upside, these 2012 rookie primers are meant for players who will fulfill or are expected to fulfill their rookiedom next year. Also much like my MTM work, the point here is to find the right mix of opportunity and talent, so that you’re picking up a player who can contribute, either in a starting role or as a reserve, from Day 1 or soon thereafter. Chances are, I’ll hit on many of these same players in depth at some point in future Mining the Minors columns, but for now, it’s good to get ahead of the curve with a snapshot of the talent at each position.

To give you a brief idea of just how this sort of thing can be worthwhile, I’m in two deep keeper leagues, one AL-only and one NL-only, and around this time last year, I picked up Mark Trumbo, Jordan Walden and Brandon Beachy. Worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Click on the position to see previous primers: Catchers, First Base, Second Base, Third Base, Shortstop, Outfielders

Here are the starting pitchers.

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Cory Luebke

I’m surprised not only that Luebke is owned in fewer than 50 percent of leagues, but also that his rate of ownership is dropping. I expressed some concerns previous about how fatigue would affect Luebke, who certainly shut me up by cruising through his next three outings, allowing just six runs and striking out 26 over 18.2 innings. All three games were away from the ample spaces of PetCo Park, so his success isn’t a park-induced mirage. Apparently owners were expecting more from the lefty?

Luebke gets the Padres’ last Sunday start of the season, at home no less, against the Dodgers. It’s a less than ideal match up, as the Dodgers have started to click offensively this month, boasting the NL’s fifth highest OPS, third highest number of runs scored, and fourth fewest strikeouts. To complicate matters further, Luebke’s mound opponent on Sunday is serious Cy Young contender Clayton Kershaw, who will be looking to pad his resume with one more strong start. Even if Luebke pitches well for his fourth consecutive start, he’ll need help from the Padres’ sputtering offense to snag a win. Tim Lincecum was able to shut the Dodgers’ offense down pretty well on Tuesday and was still saddled with the loss as his teammates couldn’t solve Kershaw.

It’s just not a great matchup for Luebke, but I still expect him to pitch well. If you need help in ERA, WHIP, or Ks, he’s likely to be as good an option as is still on the wire, but if you’re hunting for wins, it’s probably better to gamble elsewhere.

From a good pitcher with a bad match up to lesser pitchers who have a much easier road ahead of them.

Alex White

White’s transition to the National League has been, in a word, rocky. He’s struggling with the long ball, having given up at least one home run in every start since coming over to Colorado in the Ubaldo Jimenez trade. It’s hard to be overly critical of a young pitcher who is struggling to figure out how to pitch in Coors Field, and I firmly believe that White will figure it out sooner or later, but the issue is what to do with him at this moment.

As noted above, the best thing White has going for him this week is his match up. The Astros have the second lowest OPS this month at .622, better only than the Twins’ rather wretched .597. Not only does White get the benefit of facing the team with just one more home run this month than Ian Kinsler has hit on his own, he also gets the benefit of escaping Coors Field. While he hasn’t exactly been great on the road, he’s given up seven fewer home runs on the road in one less start.

Teammates Drew Pomeranz, Esmil Rogers, and Kevin Millwood round out the starters in the four game series. Pomeranz has been better than White, but with no major league track record to speak of, he’s a bigger question mark as well. Rogers has the best K-rate of those that will face the Houston, but he’s given up fewer than four runs just once in his last seven outings. Millwood has been alternating between good and bad starts, though the good starts aren’t great and the bad starts aren’t disastrous. He’s the human middle path.

If you’re determined to take advantage of the Astros’ light-hitting ways, I’d roll the dice with Pomeranz, followed by Millwood, White, and Rogers. If you’re dying for strikeouts, Rogers is still the safest bet, but you’d better feel comfortable with your lead in most of the rate categories.

I’m not sure which would make for a better intro here:  From Rookie of the Year, John Candy flipping out and saying how this is for all the marbles, the whole magilla, the whole enchilada, etc. or from The Waterboy, Dan Fouts adamantly repeating, “last game of the year, can’t hold anything back.  Either way, I’m sure you get the gist of it.  There are eight games left in the regular season and if you can grab someone now who is hotter than someone you have in your lineup, it might be time to make a change.  You want to play the hot hand here and finish strong.  These guys may help if you’re in an AL-only or deep mixed league… Read the rest of this entry »

Our own Erik Hahmann pointed out some great stolen-base options earlier this week, but there are enough teams desperate for stolen bases out there that we can try a different tact here. Did you know that the easiest team to steal on is the Boston Red Sox? And the hardest is in Arizona? And that the Red Sox have allowed more than twice as many stolen bases as the Diamondbacks?

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With the season swiftly coming to a close, I thought I would take a look back at some of my deep league waiver wire recommendations from early in the season. This exercise is not to gloat, but to examine the players and if their performance this year changes their future outlook and role for next season. Upon reviewing my recs, most did not do much, but two guys really stood out: Ryan Roberts and Chris Heisey.

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– Brandon Morrow is a cruel temptress, am I right? He’s like a siren, drawing you closer and closer with his gorgeous numbers only to let you crash into the rocks below. His strikeout rate is pristine, his walk rate is under control, and his HR/9 is manageable. Even his WHIP is better than average. But the ERA. Oh, the ERA. Morrow may be the pitching equivalent of someone like Jay Bruce; someone who gets taken too early every year because of his potential only to disappoint. But like Bruce, eventually he’ll probably put together a stellar season of production and make someone very happy.

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Welcome to the pressure test.

If you still care about waiver wire pickups, chances are good that you’re in a title game. There’s a temptation to move away from your regulars for the hot hand, especially those of you in head-to-head leagues, and that’s a call you have to make for yourself. My personal bias is to dance with the team that brought you, but I can’t blame Andrew McCutchen owners for getting a little jittery.

Here’s the caveat: Over the course of a week, anything can happen. Guys post crazy high BABIPs over a week; pitchers you’ve depended on all year don’t have their good stuff, it’s all in play. That’s why, while I recommend staying with players you know rather than rolling the dice, there’s no such thing as a sure thing when the sample size is this small.

Nolan Reimold (Yahoo: 5 percent owned, ESPN: percent owned)

In the month of September, only two players have at least 3 HR and 5 SB. They are: Matt Kemp and Nolan Reimold — if you happen to be in the 1 percent of leagues where Kemp is available, go ahead and grab him right now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. For the other 95 percent of you, Reimold is a somewhat risky play, but the upside is real. His average is surprisingly low, just .256 for the month, but the back end of his slash line — .404/.558 — is worth the risk if your league counts those categories.

Of the hot hands out there, Reimold is among those I like best. You can hope that his .241 BABIP this month will rise, and he’s already notched three more hits and a home run this week, so the floor hasn’t dropped from beneath him yet — though he isn’t going to see too many more pitchers of the quality of Kyle Weiland and John Lackey in the coming games.

If you’re in a traditional 5X5, his average is somewhat worrisome. If you’re in an OBP or OPS league, Reimold seems like a good gamble, especially if you’re unwilling to wait on the health of someone like Carlos Gonzalez.

Rafael Furcal (Yahoo: 38 percent owned, ESPN: percent owned)

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I felt like Javier Vazquez had so thoroughly burned bridges with some owners with his terrible first half that people who needed his skills were still avoiding him; the very same thing could be said of Furcal. His year with the Dodgers was the stuff of nightmares, totally unplayable in a fantasy sense, as he alternated between injury and ineffectiveness, compiling a pitiful .197/.272/.248 with a home run and 5 SB in just 37 games over the season’s first four months.

Since moving to St. Louis at the trade deadline, Furcal has reversed fortune, hitting .262/.326/.424 with 6 HR and 4 SB in the 43 games he’s played in nearly seven weeks. His September numbers are even better, as all four of his steals and half of his home runs have come in the last 17 games and his overall line for the month is a much more impressive .299/.382/.507.

He’s still not putting up the kind of numbers he did in 2008, but he has been a boon for the Cardinals and could be a stopgap for Troy Tulowitzki owners. Tulo is likely to come back later this week, but stashing Furcal just in case something goes awry in the next day or two is a prudent stratagem.

With the season winding down the type of fantasy advice people look for changes. You’re not looking to trade for an under the radar player or pick a diamond in the rough from the waiver wire. If you’re team is still in contention it’s likely you’re looking for specific stats to stream in hopes of padding your lead or catching up to your opponent.

Today we’re focusing on steals and looking at three readily available players that can help you Usain Bolt the competition.

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I have several projects to complete this off season to help fantasy owners for the 2012 season. Please let me know if there are any other ideas you would like me to examine over the off season. If I can’t get to the subject, others may be able look into the issue.

Fantasy “WAR”

Every player has factors that they can and can not control that factor into their stats. Pitchers can control the number of strikeouts and walks they allow, but they have little control over run support and defense. I want to get a player ranking system that shows the player’s true talent: contact, speed, and power. Then add in the factures they have no control over like the batters around them (more RBI and Run opportunites) and position in a lineup (more SB and Runs from the lead off spot).

The process will take a few weeks, but it should help an owner understand where the player gets their fantasy value and which surrounding changes affect the player.

Positional Rankings

Once the Fantasy “WAR”, or whatever it ends up being called, has been finalized, I will come up with a systematic way of ranking the players using talent, health, batting position and surrounding team talent. It will not be like what ZIPs does on Fangraphs where they guesstimate the final season stats. Instead, the values will constantly project the player’s talent using several factors.

Injury Information

Finding out how a player performs after an injury is important information. I am in the middle of examining pitchers coming back from TJS, so this information will be made public soon. Also, I will look into back injuries. They seem to really take a player off their game and seem to linger for a while. Let me know if there is any other specific injuries that you would like to see looked at.

Draft Rankings

I will be keeping my pre season overall rankings in a Google Doc with information and links on each player. It will be only the players I have examined in articles or otherwise. As I examine more and more players, the list will grow. I prefer to have a good understanding of a player than a vague notion from every player.

Reader Requests

Let me know what you want to see. It is a long off season, so I will be hurting for topics. Do you have keeper league questions? Ranking a few players? Draft strategy? Now is the time to let me know how I can help you answer any questions you have bouncing around. If I can’t find an answer, one of the other writers may certainly be able to find it.

– Is there any way Starlin Castro turns himself into a .300-15-20 guy next year? Because that would sure be sweet. I don’t think owners have noticed that Starlin has hit for more power this year and stolen over twenty bags, but I’m sure it’ll be advertised enough this offseason that he won’t be a value pick come draft day.

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