Remember that old fantasy baseball format that required you to choose a starting pitching staff rather than individual players? If that is still being played today, then give me the Mariners rotation. Intriguing arms abound in the Northwest with a nice mix of elite level veterans and exciting young hurlers.
Talk about a bullpen with a lot of money tied up in it. While many teams supplement high-paid closers or setup men with some cheaper, pre-arb talent, the Dodgers eschew the “don’t spend too much on relievers” strategy (obviously not reading my fantasy draft strategy columns) and boast a $30+ million bullpen. To put that in context, it’s more than the entire Houston Astros squad will make in 2014. Holy macaroni. Guess Magic and Co.’s bottomless spending isn’t limited to buying half of Bobby Valentine’s Red Sox roster.
The closer
Kenley Jansen
After a disappointing 81 win season, the Diamondbacks project to compete for the NL Wild Card in 2014. According to FanGraphs’ depth charts , the team is projected for the fifth most WAR in the National League, with the Rockies and Braves just ahead of them. And that tally could be a bit short, since Diamondbacks starters are only projected to throw 905 innings. For reference, that’s the kind of total posted by terrible rotations. Last season, only the Blue Jays, Rockies, and Twins got fewer innings from their starting pitchers, while the Astros edged by with 906 starter innings.
One of the deeper units across baseball is the Dodgers’ outfield group, which boasts four big league caliber starting players and a top ten outfield prospect (per MLB.com’s 2014 rankings) who is nearly ready to ascend upon Chavez Ravine as well.
The Dodgers outfield on the whole hit .271/.339/.408 last year, and that’s with just half a season of Puig and Kemp each, as well as considerable amounts of playing time given to also-rans like Scott Van Slyke (.353 wOBA but limited track record), Skip Schumaker (.301 wOBA), and Jerry Hairston Jr (.244 wOBA). Read the rest of this entry »
One pitcher subset I like to exploit is relief pitchers (RP) with starting pitcher (SP) qualifications. In leagues with each SP and RP slots and daily lineup changes, these pitchers can be extremely useful. Starters can only throw every five days and then can’t accumulate any stats the rest of the time. On their off days, a SP qualified RP can be moved into the SP spot to help with rate stats and in a few rare cases, accumulate Saves. These pitchers got abused in Ottoneu to the point the rules got changed. Not all leagues ban them yet. Today, I am going to look at some of the better pitchers who may fill this requirement.
The back end of the Arizona bullpen was a mess last year. They tied with the Astros for the most blown saves in the league. J.J. Putz was spotty early in the season as the closer, and Heath Bell struggled in the role as well early in the summer. Brad Ziegler finally brought some stability to the role as he saved 13 games and blew only two after taking over the role in early July. But the D’Backs front office obviously didn’t feel comfortable with Ziegler maintaining the closer job, so they acquired Addison Reed in the offseason.
The bullpen should be much better this year, in part because of the added depth Reed gives them. But they should also be better because of some positive regression for Putz and David Hernandez.
The Cardinals’ first-round pick in the 2011 Draft, Kolten Wong, is expected to begin the 2014 season as the team’s starting second baseman. Coming into last year, Wong was a near-consensus Top 100 prospect, and he was very impressive at Triple-A Memphis in 2013. At age 22, Wong posted a .303/.369/.466 slash line in 463 plate appearances before earning a call up to the majors.
Wong struggled mightily in his first taste of major-league action, scuffling to a paltry .153/.194/.169 line. However, we’re only dealing with a sample size of 62 plate appearances, and those were spread over 32 games. At one point, Wong went 24 days between starts in St. Louis, and when he did start, he often did not finish the game. It’s difficult to expect any player, not to mention a 22-year-old rookie, to produce much of anything with such inconsistent usage.
Last year, the Rockies had three primary outfielders — Carlos Gonzalez in left, Dexter Fowler in center, and Michael Cuddyer in right — who started at least 99 games, with Charlie Blackmon and Corey Dickerson the primary backups during Gonzalez’ absences and Cuddyer’s occasional trips to first base.
Now? Now, Fowler’s in Houston. Brandon Barnes and Drew Stubbs are in Colorado. Gonzalez is a center fielder. Cuddyer was originally slated to move full-time to first base after Todd Helton retired, but then Justin Morneau arrived, and now Cuddyer may or may not be his platoon partner. And between Blackmon, Dickerson, and Charlie Culberson, they still have three guys with extremely similar names who I just absolutely can’t ever tell apart.
So let’s start with what we know: Read the rest of this entry »
Episode 89
The latest episode of The Sleeper and the Bust is now live! Jason Collette joins Eno Sarris to preview the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Skype was being a bit wonky today so apologies in advance for any audio issues during the podcast.
As usual, don’t hesitate to tweet us any fantasy questions you have that we may answer on our next episode.
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the feed.
Thanks to Ian Miller aka Teen Archer, for the new intro music
Approximately 61 min of joyous analysis.
FSTA draft results mentioned several times in the show
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Continuing with our look at the depth charts of the NL West, it’s time to turn our focus to the Los Angeles Dodgers infield. Both first base and shortstop remain locked down by superstars while a lack of a decent free agent market, more or less, forced the Dodgers to stick with what they had. But the team opted to let veteran Mark Ellis leave via free agency and in walks a fresh face over at the keystone. There are likely to be a few question marks, but so far, all seems good in Dodger blue. Read the rest of this entry »