It’s time again to look ahead to the 2013 fantasy baseball season by highlighting the top potential impact rookies at each position. Why? Because it’s never too early to begin thinking about next year, even if you’re still trying to win your league right now.

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 2013 rookie primers are meant for players who will exhaust (or are expected to exhaust) 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 Opening Day or soon thereafter. For now, it’s good to get ahead of the curve with a snapshot of the young talent at each position.

In case you need a brief example of how this sort of strategy can be worthwhile: In two deep leagues, one AL-only and one NL-only, that allow for up to 10 keepers, I picked up Jarrod Parker, Addison Reed and Will Middlebrooks, as well as Paul Goldschmidt, Todd Frazier and Zack Cozart around this time last year, keeping them all for dirt cheap. Worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Here are the previous position primers: Catchers, Corner Infielders

This episode? Middle infielders (aka, second basemen and shortstops).

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There is always such a fuss made up over small sample sizes that often times a player is overlooked from year to year as fantasy owners in keeper leagues become hesitant to protect a player with merely a half a year’s experience in the majors. However, despite the increased depth at the catcher position, due to a heavy influx of young talent over the last few seasons, protecting Salvador Perez at this time might just be a shrewd move you can’t afford to pass up. Read the rest of this entry »

The off-season arbitration process in ottoneu is likely the single most polarizing aspect of the format. In fact, in the FanGraphs Q&A section, there is a thread titled “Do you hate the arbitration rule in ottoneu?” with split answers. The initial post simply says, “I hate it.” A later reply says, “I love it.”

Personally, I am a fan. I believe some form of arbitration can help restore balance. But the system we have in place now is probably not the only system that would work and so for the past few months, the ottoneu founders have been developing rules for a new arbitration process, one that lets the market decide which players need to have their values raised, without pulling anyone off a roster.

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With apologies to the Pirates and Cubs fans, I am writing this Roto Riteup before that game is over. To be fair, the first pitch was at 11:38 and I’m an old man who needs his sleep.

• My preseason hopes for Domonic Brown haven’t come to fruition, but he is hitting better as of late. After his 2-for-4 game yesterday — that included another home run — Brown is up to a .340 on-base percentage and a 103 wRC+. Ideally over the course of a full season Brown could hit double digit home runs, plenty of doubles and triples as well as stealing enough bases for it to matter. As for this season, Brown should be free to grab in almost every league.
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L’Shana Tova and wishing everyone a sweet new year, at least as far as your fantasy team’s relievers are concerned…

•  After going all of last season without blowing a save, Jose Valverde blew his fifth save of the year last night, raising his ERA to 3.77. That ERA isn’t so terrible but behind it is a horrid 5.10 xFIP. Valverde has never been a control pitcher but his ability to miss bats at least made him respectable, if you are able to dismiss his celebrations of course. However, after posting strikeout rates of 8.59 K/9 or above for his entire career, Valverde’s strike out rate has dropped to 6.39 K/9 this season. Jim Leyland is a loyal guy and nothing has been said about a potential closing change, but in the midst of a playoff race you have to wonder if Leyland will want to go down with a sinking ship. We will be sure to monitor this situation, and teams in need of saves might want to take a look at Joaquin Benoit.
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If you’re still here, congratulations! For a second, it made sense to write about Addison Reed possibly losing his job to Matt Thornton, but Colin at the Bullpen Report wrote just about what I would have, which is that, “Holy BABIP, what’s going on with Reed?!” Matt Thornton is a pickup, but Reed’s not a dropper, not at this point. Mike Axisa also had more on this today.

So instead let’s reprise last week’s article and look at players that can help in power categories this week (speed tomorrow). Leagues of all sizes and depths should find an interesting player or two here.

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Looking for some cheap steals and saves down the stretch? Here are two players for that late-season/playoff push…

Eduardo Nunez | 2B, SS, 3B | Yankees | Owned: 1% Yahoo!

I touted the 25-year-old Nunez as a steals sleeper way back in February, but he quickly played his way off New York’s big league roster not with his bat, but with his defense. He struggled with the routine play and was demoted to Triple-A in mid-May despite a solid (for a utility infielder) .294/.356/.373 batting line, then resurfaced when rosters expanded in September.

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As we head into the final weeks of the season, it’s nearly time to get a jump on next year’s research. One of the first exercises worth performing is comparing a pitcher’s actual ERA with his SIERA. While in some cases there are legitimate explanations for over or underperformance of SIERA marks, for the most part, you should treat SIERA as your baseline for your next season ERA projection, rather than actual ERA. Here are the five pitchers who have outperformed their SIERA marks the most this season.

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As much as I love fantasy baseball, I don’t much care for the stretch run.Too much stress on my mental frame. On a not totally unrelated note, I don’t care much for stretching or running either. Too much stress on my physical frame.

• Norichika Aoki is quickly becoming one of my favorite mid-season pick ups. Over the past month Aoki is hitting .294 with two home runs and eight steals. He’s scored 19 runs and driven in 13 over that time frame as well. Yesterday he cranked two doubles and then nabbed two more steals, bringing his season total of stolen bases up to 26. Honestly, it is hard to find a flaw in his game. He has 41 BB’s on the year against just 47 strikeouts. He has a shot at a 10 home run, 30 steal, .290 season — that is something I’ll happily take from one of my second basemen outfielders any year. Aoki is somehow owned in less than 30% of Yahoo! leagues. As of last week, his ownership rate in ESPN leagues was a mere 35%, but that has skyrocketed to 69%. If for some reason he is still available then go and grab him for your team’s final push. The Brewers are on fire as of late and Aoki has been on fire since July.
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• The struggling Addison Reed was finally yanked from a save opportunity on Saturday after giving up a pair of walks and a single. Robin Ventura apparently had enough and called on Matt Thornton to get out of the bases loaded jam — Thornton complied by inducing a double play and then another ground out to preserve the win for the White Sox. Reed has now given up earned runs in seven of his last nine outings, although his biggest problem his the 0.538 BABIP over that span (7 innings since August 24th). His 30-day xFIP is a slightly more bearable 4.13 (which only barely trails his top right-handed setup man in Brett Myers (4.11)), although Thornton’s xFIP over the same period is 3.35. It’s unlikely we’ve seen a changing of the guard, but this serves notice that the White Sox are not messing around — they don’t have margin for error and the leash on any of their relievers is getting shorter as the end of September draws closer. Reed owners scraping for saves should acknowledge that (and maybe snag Thornton if they have an extra bullpen slot).

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