Eno was the first to put out his bold 10 predictions for 2012. I will now give it a stab.
1) Brennan Boesch will be a Top 30 fantasy player. I liked Boesch even before Prince Fielder was signed. He has the potential to have 20+ home runs and 100+ runs since the Tigers say they will bat him in the No. 2 hole. Also, pitchers are going to challenge him quite a bit since they would rather face him then either Miguel Cabrera or Fielder.
At the beginning of the offseason, the White Sox had three men on their roster who had at one time been the team’s closer for an extended period of time. Chris Sale was nearly unhittable at the end of the 2010 season, but he’s moving into the Sox’s rotation. Sergio Santos, in just his third season as a pitcher after converting from shortstop in the minors, saved 30 games in 2011 and got a ticket to Toronto for his troubles. That leaves Matt Thornton, whose turn as a closer early last season can charitably be described as unsuccessful, as the man most likely to get the ball with the team up three or fewer runs in the ninth. Read the rest of this entry »
This was unexpected, to say the least. The Astros have named Brett Myers as their closer before spring training games have even started, which finally helps us figure out who will pitch the ninth in Houston this year. Nearly all of Myers’s value last season as an innings eater, which is why this announcement is such a surprise. He was the only Astro to top 200 innings last year, which was also the case in 2010. Even so, the Astros are moving Myers to closer, a position he held in Philadelphia in 2007.
| K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | FIP | xFIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 7.23 | 3.0 | 1.29 | 4.41 | 3.89 |
| Reliever | 10.23 | 3.1 | 0.85 | 3.26 | 3.03 |
As seen above, Myers does receive a significant upgrade in his stats when you split his numbers between relief and starting appearances, which is true for most pitchers.
We — collectively — are going to steal Mike Podhorzer’s idea and make some crazy predictions for the coming season. Every year, something happens to surprise baseball viewership. Jose Bautista and Lance Berkman come to mind over the past few years.
So let’s try to open our minds and let crazy in for some fun. Then we’ll look back at the end of the season and see which RotoGraphs staff member can access the other side most effectively — then we’ll scoot down the bench a little away from him.
1) No player will hit 40 home runs this year. Obviously Mike Stanton and Jose Bautista loom large, but there were only three guys that managed the feat last year, and the point is that power is down. Handy graph time!
With a complete set of dollar values finally in hand after finishing the LABR draft this past Saturday, I can now take a definitive look at who I find to be overvalued and undervalued versus their Mock Draft Central ADPs. In earlier posts of this nature, it was just guesswork. Now I can compare where I have a player ranked within a position to where he is being drafted among the others at that position. Today I will look at the most overvalued hitters at each position, but will only consider those in the top 10 in the infield, and the top 20 in the outfield.
When building your supporting cast, finding a few breakthrough candidates is paramount to your success. Hopefully your studs perform as they should and your late round sleepers find a way to outshine their draft positions, but on the chance that something goes awry, having some middle round breakthroughs could be the difference between winning your league and being an also-ran. Drafting Orioles center fielder Adam Jones would be a great place to start.
Headed into 2011, Martin Prado was ranked around 9th or 10th on most third base fantasy rankings, and in many, he was ahead of such gentlemen as Pablo Sandoval and Michael Young. Whoops.
At the time, there was a fair amount of debate about what exactly made Prado so special. He was essentially a two-category player (in traditional 5×5 leagues) being a plus at batting average and runs, and not much of a total drag at home runs and RBI. Prado was simply a guy that was hard to really get excited about and yet he generated a pretty good deal of fanfare among fantasy prognosticators.
And then of course, Prado went on to have a very disappointing season, producing a .260/.302/.385 line with 13 home runs and just 66 runs scored highlighted by a staph infection in his leg that put him on the shelf for most of June.
This year, Prado, 28, has an ADP of about 150 in Yahoo leagues and 190 at mock draft central. The question is whether this precipitous drop in value is an opportunity or not. Read the rest of this entry »
With Yu Darvish sufficiently crowdsourced, it’s time to look at this offseason’s other big international import: Yoenis Cespedes. Last week we asked you about his acquisition cost, specifically when you would be comfortable grabbing him in three formats…
We received a total of 325 responses, and the results are as follows…
Two weeks ago, Eno Sarris ran a series of posts asking you, dear readers, to analyze some fantasy questions and offered you a subscription to the FanGraphs+ 2012.
Today, at the behest of Niv Shah – the Abner Doubleday of ottoneu (except, you know, without the doubts that he is actually the man behind the game) – I present to you an opportunity to win a free $9.99 ottoneu team for 2012. All you have to do is tell us who you think was the worst value in the original ottoneu auction that happened this past weekend.
Blame Mike Shanahan.
Thanks to the former Broncos coach, fantasy football players have had to come to grips with the reality that just because you draft a team’s presumptive starter, it doesn’t mean you’ll get the team’s production. Fantasy baseball players have had to work around platoon situations, but the idea of a handcuff is relatively new to this branch of the fantasy tree. For position players, traditional platoons are still a more likely issue that owners have to navigate, but especially for relievers, it’s time to learn how to use a handcuff and which players are the most likely to need one. Read the rest of this entry »