If you wanted to write an article that characterized the Mets rotation as somewhere between poor and bad, it wouldn’t be too hard to do. You could cite the loss of their Cy Young winner and the only guy on the team who ranked top 50 in pitcher WAR last year, R.A. Dickey. And you could talk about the fact that they used 13 starting pitchers last year. But that would be a mischaracterization. Sure, the loss of Dickey hurts, but this is a staff with a lot of potential. Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Nationals received a much larger contribution from uber-prospect Bryce Harper than expected last season. That was highly beneficial, not only because Harper’s performance was exceptional, but also because both Jayson Werth and Michael Morse missed significant chunks of the year with injuries. As a result, Harper has seen his draft stock rise dramatically, while Werth is being selected as mostly an afterthought. Add Denard Span to an already strong lineup, and there’s a good chance all three Nationals outfielders will have value in most fantasy leagues.

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This week, I will be identifying the players at each position in which my rankings differ most from the consensus that was unveiled last week. The funny thing about comparing my rankings to the other three RotoGraphers is how many times I am surprised at who I value much more or less than them. Most of the time, I could guess who I am more or less bullish on even before I see everyone else’s rankings as it simply comes down to a difference in projections. However, that’s not always the case. Sometimes I am bewildered as to why my rankings differ so drastically because my projections seems right in line with general expectations. So I will attempt to figure out and explain why I am higher or lower on each player.

Since I don’t know what the other RotoGraphers’ projections are, I will be referencing the projections systems frequently and using those as a proxy. To make this more useful, the bullish section will only include players who I project to earn positive value in a 12-team mixed league, while the bearish one will only include players the consensus expects to earn positive value.

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Welcome back to the 2013 version of the Roto Riteup, coming at you daily for a second straight season.

On today’s agenda:
1. Mashing Mariners and Safeco Field
2. Matt Carpenter and Second Base
3. Zack Wheeler goes to Triple-A
4. Stephen Drew’s injury concerns

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Minnesota’s bullpen is almost a twisted version of a stars and scrubs crew. OK, I guess it’s not even stars and scrubs, since you need bonafide stars for that, but they do at least have two very solid under-the-radar options for use late in games. Unfortunately for their fans, the currently mediocre starting pitching/offense figure to preclude them for having many leads late in games. Even when they do, the rest of their relief crop doesn’t appear helpful, either, being primarily filled with lots of slightly-above replacement level talent, but little else. Fantasy owners should only be interested in a couple names before moving on to other chum in the water.

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A preliminary apology is in order for the muddled depth chart. No, not necessarily from me, but just in general. I offer my sincerest apologies if you derive nothing out of this depth chart discussion, but this is just how I see it.

The Twins infield — much like the rest of the team — is a bit of a messy situation. Read the rest of this entry »

By now you’ve had the chance to take a look at the catcher rankings done by our esteemed RotoGraphs panel, digest the information, set up your draft day depth charts and maybe toss out a snarky comment or two. It’s time now to start grouping these guys into tiers so that you can see who might be a comparable pick-up should you miss out on your originally intended target. Save for the guy who is apparently pushing for the creation of a 1.5-catcher league, I think we can all agree that the position, on the whole is fairly deep this season; or at least much deeper than in years past which just makes for good drafting. I’d say the position is heating up and for that, I turn to the Scoville scale and our friend the pepper for our tier headings… Read the rest of this entry »

In case you haven’t noticed, the past few weeks have brought the unveilings of many of the baseball industry’s most respected and reputable Top Prospects lists. As is, these make for good discussion and great debate, but there’s also a difference between evaluating prospects for real life Major League Baseball and evaluating them from a fantasy baseball perspective. With four Top 100s available for perusal, it’s time to focus on the latter.

This week, we’ll highlight some prospects who are top-of-the-class elite — in fact, each is included in all four of the Top 100s — but actually might be overrated in fantasy compared to reality, given where they stand in these rankings.

For a look at the other angle — Top 100-caliber prospects who are underrated in fantasy compared to reality — you can find it here.

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Buzz, your girlfriend, WOOF! – Kevin McCallister

When you look at the potential 2013 Minnesota Twins rotation, you’re likely to have the same reaction that Kevin did when he saw the framed picture of Buzz’s less-than-attractive girlfriend. The Twins rotation finished dead last in WAR and strikeout percentage last year and were bottom five in the league in just about every other category. Woof, indeed.

Scott Diamond, the staff “ace,” is scheduled to make his first spring start a little over a week from now and is questionable for the start of the season. And even when he does return, the Twins will be getting back a guy who had the fourth worst strikeout rate among qualified pitchers last season.

The Twins must really like low strikeout pitchers because their staff is littered with them. This offseason they brought in one of the three pitchers who had a lower strikeout rate than Diamond last year, Kevin Correia. And all but one of their potential starters has a career strikeout rate that is under 16%. Read the rest of this entry »

Last year, the Twins tied for 17th last year in wOBA from their outfield. Over the winter, they said goodbye to 1,211 plate appearances of Denard Span & Ben Revere — traded to the Nationals & Phillies, respectively — and imported no one to replace them. So as you can imagine, there’s a lot of work to be done here. Read the rest of this entry »