Welcome back to a new season of deep league waiver wire gold. Come dive into the vast ocean of free agency with me and let’s see if we can spot some hidden treasure. I believe last year I used 10% as the ownership maximum in CBS leagues, but that sometimes hamstrung me into recommending really crappy players. So this year I am giving myself a bit more leeway and expanding that ceiling to 15%. We open our first edition with a pair of starting pitchers.

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Today’s Roto Riteup features an inordinate amount of hispanic names.

• Chipper Jones is no longer on the DL, as the Atlanta Braves have activated the third baseman. The switch-hitter came back just in time for the home opener of his farewell tour. Juan Francisco and Martin Prado have been filling in while he’s been away, but both of their roles will change now. Prado will now be playing left field everyday, and Francisco will become a powerful pinch-hitter until Chipper inevitably hits the DL once again.

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Through the first weekend of the season, a whole bunch of questions have been totally and permanently answered. The Braves and Red Sox are both terrible, the Twins are going to score 243 runs this season, and the NL Cy Young is going to be a tight horse race between Chad Billingsley and Jeff Samardzija.

As laughable as some of those things sound, looking over the most common transfers they’re the type of judgments it seems that some owners are willing to make. I can’t argue much with the most dropped player this week, Alfredo Aceves, not because I think his performance this weekend was indicative of what he’ll do the rest of the season, but because I think Bobby Valentine has lost confidence in him. I’m of two minds about both Jason Hammel and Kyle Lohse, nowhere near sold on either enough to drop someone like Max Scherzer or Daniel Hudson to pick one of them up, but both were added in over 2000 Yahoo! leagues yesterday alone. Read the rest of this entry »

Adam LaRoche: 16% Yahoo!, 11.8% ESPN

There are those types of players in fantasy that everyone has owned at one point or another. I’m not talking about the Albert Pujolses of the world. The player I’m talking about is good, but not great. He won’t win you a league but he’ll contribute in enough places to be a valuable asset. One such player is Adam LaRoche. In his ninth season, the 32-year-old has carved out a nice career. While he’s been overshadowed by the bigger, better, slugging first basemen in the National League (Howard,Votto, Pujols, Fielder, etc) he’s managed to put up solid numbers year in and year out. From 2005-2010 he averaged 24 home runs and 87 runs batted in, including a 100 RBI season two years ago. With Pujols and Fielder in the American League and Howard on the disabled list, first base has been weakened significantly, especially in the NL, upping LaRoche’s value.

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We read the tea leaves as best we can throughout Spring Training. Playing time, roles, platoons, etc., have a significant effect on the value of players on our fantasy teams. Despite the most reliable of crystal balls, once the season starts, you finally get to the truth about how players will be used. While the numbers are obviously far too small for us to do much dissecting at this point, the actual roles of players can be telling.

As much as I doubted that Mark Trumbo would see much action at third base, the two games he’s started have both been at the hot corner and it very much seem(ed) like the team was committed to playing him there routinely. In many leagues, he will qualify at third in just three more starts there and with that eligibility, Trumbo will be far more valuable. The burning question is whether his brutal defense will allow him to ever qualify. He’s already made three errors, he was left out of Monday’s starting lineup in favor of Alberto Callaspo, and it’s not likely that he’s going to displace Vernon Wells in the outfield anytime soon. While his defense was an ongoing topic of concern throughout the Spring, it’s certainly going to be under the proverbial microscope going forward. If Mike Scioscia loses any confidence he once had in Trumbo, it might not be long before Trumbo is a part-time player and irrelevant in fantasy circles. If he can somehow stick at third, however – he’s certainly worth owning, assuming you don’t play in an OBP league.

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FanGraphs: The Game has been available for public consumption for almost two weeks now, so it’s about time some strategies were explored. Chime in with your own strategic ideas in the comments.

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In an effort to limit the number of times people use the phrase “sample size” in the comments section, a quick post on which minor league backstops to keep on your radar seems more appropriate than discussing Alex Avila’s .417-4-2-5 batting line through three games.  While most rosters are set, save for a few tweaks here and there, there are a number of catchers in the minors that are looking pretty darn good.  Dynasty league owners probably have them locked onto rosters already, but in other leagues, they should be known by you in case something goes wrong on the big league level.

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In his first start as an Oakland Athletic, Tom Milone pitched eight shutout innings and allowed just six baserunners, which should prompt him to become a pretty big waiver wire pickup today. It was not all good for Milone however, as he struck out no batters and walked three along the way.

Many were beating the Milone drum this offseason, I certainly saw him as a sleeper candidate but I was not quite as bullish as some. His numbers at triple-A last season do give reason to believe he will strike out enough batters to be useful in that category, but that has not quite been the case in his six Major League starts to date — he maintains a 3.97 K/9 over those six starts.

Even though his strike out rates have been less than stellar, his impeccable control has allowed him to be rather successful, posting a 2.91 ERA and a 3.62 FIP in the bigs. It is still possible that his strikeout rate never climbs to a respectable rate, as his fastball sits at an average of 87.4 MPH for his career and averaged just 85.4 MPH last night. Even if he maintains a mark around 4.00 K/9 throughout the year, Milone could be in for a Mark Buehrle type year.

That type of production is certainly not top tier in any sense, but it does have a place on roto rosters. In deeper leagues and AL only, Milone becomes even more valuable.

One potential issue is that Milone does not record many ground balls. This could be just a small sample situation, but he netted just a 30.6% in his five starts last season and recorded just nine ground balls yesterday compared to 15 fly balls or line drives. It is an issue worth monitoring, as his low home run allowed rate would likely increase over a bigger sample if his ground ball rate remains so low. To help with that issue is that his home park is extremely pitcher friendly and his team’s outfield defense should be pretty solid.

I do not absolutely love Milone and I am not rushing to pick him up off the waiver wire in every league, but he is a player I think could add some value to rate stats. If you need pitching immediately, he is not a bad target. I would wait a bit longer and see if he can pump his strikeout rate up just a tad and see if he can maintain that low home run rate before I picked him up.

Today’s Roto Riteup is one where I can guarantee with 100% certainty that my pick’s team for The Game won’t get four-hit by Barry Zito.

• Andy Pettitte threw 32 pitches for the Yankees’ single A affiliate in Tampa Bay yesterday. According to the report, he threw 26 for strikes. He lasted 3 innings and allowed one run and two hits in his outing. Unfortunately there is no mention of his velocity in this instance. The last report I could find had him topping out at 88 mph. Given that he averaged 89 for the past few years, to see him top out below his previous average is concerning. If nothing else, maybe Pettitte can be a stream option as the season moves on. We’ll be sure to keep you up to date.

• If by chance you play in an OBP league, Daric Barton is now the starting first-baseman in Oakland. He could be worth a shot in Ottoneu FanGraphs Points formats too, but that is the extent of his fantasy relevancy. If you’re in a 12 team mixed 5×5, feel free to move right along here. Barton’s OBP skills translate directly from his 14.2 career walk percentage. The A’s lineup is uninspiring for the most part, so don’t expect many runs or RBI’s. As always with Barton, any extra base hits he generates are a rare bonus. Read the rest of this entry »

Here at Fangraphs, we have been writing quite a few articles on the fastball speeds (here and here and here and here). The main reason for the articles is that fastball speeds stabilize fairly quickly. They can be used to understand how a pitcher may perform in the future because fastball speed is directly related to both strikeout rates and runs allowed. With this knowledge, I am going to look at how a few pitchers, that saw their velocity drop in 2011, are doing in 2012.

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