We are entering year two of the post-Albert era in St. Louis and after an 88-win season that resulted in a wild card berth and a trip to the NLCS that fell just one win short of a World Series appearance, the Cardinals are returning with a largely unchanged infield configuration. For better or for worse, the St. Louis brass opted to leave things as is and let other teams play the free agent market this season. The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy is in play here and for fantasy purposes, it’s not bad, but the upside is just as limited now as it was just a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals’ rotation is in great shape in spite of losing their second best starter to free-agency. Kyle Lohse may be gone, but the team boasts a bevy of qualified candidates for the rotation. While everything looks strong on paper, at least three of their pitchers are dealing with significant questions as the season approaches. Adam Wainwright is entering the last year of his contract, Jaime Garcia is coming off a shoulder injury and Shelby Miller has already been shut down with shoulder soreness. Two of those situations will drastically change the value of multiple players during the season.

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Yesterday, I unveiled the top 10 list of good names with regards to both No Doubt percentage and Just Enough percentage from the home run classification buckets on ESPN Home Run Tracker. Today, I will present the negative nellies. These hitters are at greater risk for HR/FB rate decline this season, so it might not be a bad idea to use as a tie-breaker if debating between a hitter on the list and someone else.

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Maybe it’s just the optimism that spring brings, but I’m starting to believe the Cubs could have some surprises in them this year. Between two young infield stars, an improving starting rotation, and a surprisingly adequate outfield, Chicago should take nice steps away from last year’s dumpster fire as Theo Epstein & Jed Hoyer continue their rebuilding project. Is that enough to get them into the playoff race? Probably not, but nor should one expect another 101-loss disaster.

Let’s dive deeper into that outfield, where despite numerous efforts to move him, Alfonso Soriano remains the incumbent in left field. (This is me praying the Yankees don’t trade for him to help replace Curtis Granderson before this post goes live.) Soriano has long been saddled by the massive contract that looked foolish from the day he signed it prior to 2007, but that has been somewhat of an unfair burden on him. Soriano has been good-to-very-good in four of the six years he’s been a Cub, and while lousy campaigns in 2009 & 2011 don’t help, he’s averaged 3.3 WAR/year with the team. If not worth the contract, he’s at least been a valuable contributor. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the prince and the pauper of infields on the north side in Chicago. You have a bonafide early-round young star shortstop, and a super sleeper first baseman, and then… the Cubs might not produce a third baseman or a second baseman worth rostering in any league.

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Yankees fans and fantasy owners cringed when the diagnosis was released — J.A. Happ‘s errant fastball broke Curtis Granderson’s right forearm during his first at-bat of Spring Training on Sunday. The good news is e suffered the injury very early in camp, so the ten-week recovery puts him on track to return in early-May rather than sometime later in the summer.

The Yankees can’t really afford to lose Granderson’s bat after letting Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, Eric Chavez, and others walk as free agents this winter, but fantasy owners are losing out on a 40-homer (pace) outfielder as well. Granderson hit at least seven homers in three of the last four Aprils, and while that doesn’t mean he would have automatically done it again in 2013, it is a reminder of what he’s capable of providing early in the season.

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Few teams have an outfield as “set in stone” as the St. Louis Cardinals. The team nearly missed making it to the World Series, losing a drawn-out seven-game series to the eventual World Series Champion San Francisco Giants, and they did it while getting a combined 12.8 WAR from the three guys expected to man the outfield in 2013. So while the team’s outfield features three “safe” fantasy bets for the 2013 season, there’s a wild card hidden away here that may pay fantasy dividends at the end of the season.

Left Field

Consistency, thy name is Matt Holliday. Aside from the loss of his stolen base totals from the mid-00s, Holliday has hardly dropped off one bit in terms of fantasy production. Playing in all but five games in 2012, Holliday delivered his usual combination of runs (95), RBI (102), homers (27), and batting average (.295). Do you play in an OBP league? Holliday does that too, posting a .379 on-base percentage last season. And though he may have struck out just a hair more than in previous seasons, all signs look good from a peripherals standpoint.

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Sunday afternoon, the 12 members of the ottoneu FanGraphs Experts League gathered for our annual auction, bidding $1,210 on 174 players over 3 hours and 19 minutes. Thats about 69 seconds and $7 per player. And yet it didn’t take more than about five minutes for arguably the two best values of the day to come off the board.

The first two players tossed out both went for less than what I anticipated them costing – and yet I failed to pull the trigger.

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Yesterday, I published the results of an exhaustive study I conducted to determine the predictive value of the data available on ESPN Home Run Tracker. As we suspected all along, the various home run classification buckets do indeed provide some valuable information. Today, I will unveil the names of the hitters who get a positive boost from knowing this new information.

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The Astros’ bullpen is a mishmash of waiver claims, Rule V selections and players looking to resurrect their career. None of the following names will appear high on your cheat sheets this draft season — if they appear at all — but some of these arms could provide fair value for those unwilling to pay for saves or holds in 2013.

The closer:

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