This week, we’ll be giving away one FG+ membership per day by playing the FG+ Over/Under Game. The wrinkle on this game is that it’s subjective: we’ll provide a player and a number, and you use the comments section to make your best argument for the over or the under. The RotoGraphs staff will pick a winner every day, and that person will get a free subscription to FG+, which includes 11 full-length fantasy strategy articles, 1100 player caps on the player pages, and ongoing access to the FG+ blog, which features the writing the FanGraphs team provides to ESPN Insider on a weekly basis all year.

For our second over/under game, let’s take a look at Jonathan Papelbon.

The over/under number for Papelbon is $12. As in, would you spend more than $12 on Papelbon in ottoneu? What sort of settings would make Papelbon worth that scratch?

The 31-year-old famously switched home parks over the offseason, but he’s still on a good team and still the owner of a great strikeout rate and a miniscule walk rate. His velocity came back and his closer face was in mid-season form all year long. If you had paid for FanGraphs+, you’d have Chad Young’s excellent breakdown of different strategies for each ottoneu setting, and you’d know even more about the relative value of relievers in a game that has five reliever slots, linear weights scoring, and a $400 overall budget.

But since you don’t — and yes, I’m suggesting that current FG + subscribers take a back seat and allow those without your knowledge to compete for this — you’ll have to do the best you can to suss out Papelbon’s value this season in ottoneu. His average price last year was near $8 — but that was leagues of all settings and that was before his resurgent year. If you think you’d more likely pay $12 (or more) for him in one of the three ottoneu settings than any of the others, include that in your answer. To make sure everyone is eligible — feel free to describe the settings that would make Papelbon worth every bit of a hefty price tag.

Have at it!

Marco Scutaro

Marco has been handed the 2B job of the Rockies after being traded by Boston for Clayton Mortenson. Scutaro has put up decent numbers averaging about 10 HRs and a 0.285 AVG with Boston over the last 2 seasons. While the 36-year-old is not a spring chicken, he projects to hit around 0.275 with 9 HRs.

While he is not an offensive power by any means, he is better than what the Rockies recycled through the 2B spot in 2011. They tried 7 different players at 2B last season. The seven players had a 0.256/0.304/0.351 triple slash line compared to the N.L. average for 2B of 0.258/0.319/0.380. Scutaro looks to be a significant improvement at 2B for the Rockies.

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Cuban mega star and Dominican Winter League flameout Yoenis Cespedes signed with the Oakland Athletics for four years and $36 million today. The landing spot for The Showcase might seem like a poor fit at first, but it’s not all bad news today. There are even things to like about where he ended up.

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Last week we asked you folks to help give us an idea of Yu Darvish’s expected production in ottoneu points leagues during the 2012 season, and 135 of you were kind enough to response. It’s not the 560 responses we got for the 5×5 stats, but it’s more than enough for me. I blame it on the difference in popularity between the two scoring formats.

As a reminder, the points scoring is ottoneu is based on linear weights. You can review the point values and derivations here. The table after the jump shows the average crowdsourcing result for stat (rounded off) and the corresponding point value.

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There’s no question that Russell Martin’s power resurgence last season came as a bit of surprise.  Obviously a move from pitcher-friendly Chavez Ravine to hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium (along with that surrounding Yankee lineup) was promising, but to watch a guy whose ISO went from .176 down to .085 over a four year span, there had to be some serious doubts in his ability to produce again.  Overuse and injuries were likely to blame for the decline, in part, but as we move forward and examine some of Martin’s other numbers at the plate, there certainly has to be a reasonable amount of doubt in anything close to a repeat performance.  Or is there…? Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a stigma about AJ Burnett. With the news of his potential trade to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the general opinion of Burnett is incredibly low. That’s not completely unwarranted, as the 35-year-old has posted an ERA over 5.00 the past two seasons. As a result of his recent struggles, Burnett wasn’t even drafted in our Reader Mock Draft. Still, Burnett has been an effective pitcher in the past, and even though he’s been a huge disappointment the past two seasons, there’s still some reason to believe he’ll surprise some people next season.

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It is hard to believe that the perpetually disappointing Homer Bailey is still just 25. It feels like he has been around forever, continually failing to live up to all the hype he once garnered as a top prospect. I had once thought he was overrated and was not too excited about his prospects, but I have become cautiously optimistic, once again thinking this may finally be the year. Will it be?

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This week, we’ll be giving away one FG+ membership per day by playing the FG+ Over/Under Game. The wrinkle on this game is that it’s subjective: we’ll provide a player and a number, and you use the comments section to make your best argument for the over or the under. The RotoGraphs staff will pick a winner every day, and that person will get a free subscription to FG+, which includes 11 full-length fantasy strategy articles, 1100 player caps on the player pages, and ongoing access to the FG+ blog, which features the writing the FanGraphs team provides to ESPN Insider on a weekly basis all year.

For our first over/under game, let’s take a look at Madison Bumgarner.

The over/under number for Bumgarner is 20%. As in, will he strike out more or less than 20% of the batters he faces in 2012?

The 6′ 5″ lanky lefty suddenly upped his swinging strike rate in 2012 despite using the same slate of offerings at about the same velocities. If you had access to FG+ this year, you would be able to read about how best to use his Pitch F/x information to answer this question — thanks to Josh Weinstock. And — thanks to Michael Barr — you’d also have an equation for expected K% that would be derived from his 2011 peripherals.

But since you don’t — and yes, I’m suggesting that current subscribers take a back seat and allow those without your knowledge to compete for this — you’ll have to do the best you can. Please use anything other than the xK% equation for your argument, and make it as long or as short as you like otherwise.

Have at it!

So we’ve done a pretty thorough bludgeoning of the recent reader mock draft, looking at almost every round except for the fliers, and covering several of the positions along the way as well. Second base has me particularly concerned headed into 2012, so let’s break down how the readers handled the challenge of staffing their squads at that position.

The following chart is pretty self explanatory – where the player was selected in the reader mock, what their average draft position is over at Mock Draft Central, and the difference between the two to the right:

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There were only a handful of relievers who pitched as well or better than Greg Holland did over the course of last season. He was one of just seven two win pitchers, and could have finished near the top of the league had he not thrown 21.2 innings at triple-A.

Holland is more-or-less a classic two pitch reliever, but he relies more on his slider than most of his peers. According to his Brooks Baseball player card, he threw his slider on 42% of his pitches last year compared to the 50% rate that he threw his fastball, which is a rather high slider to fastball ratio. In generating an astonishing 30% whiff rate even with such a high frequency, his PITCHf/x slider value of 12.2 ranked second in the league behind only Mike Adams.

Not surprisingly, Holland went to his slider much more frequently than his fastball in one and two strike counts. Getting ahead with his high velocity fastball then moving to the top notch slider provided great dividends for Holland and any fantasy owners last year. His contact percentage was third to only Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel, the top two strikeout arms in the league.

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