Wilin Rosario was one of my flag players for 2013, so to speak. I owned him in a lot of places and thought he could reach 30 home runs.

While that didn’t happen, I and other Rosario owners certainly walked away happy after the 2013 returns. That’s because, even with just 21 home runs, Rosario ranked behind only Mike Napoli and Yadier Molina.

With Napoli set to lose eligibility, Rosario seems a safe bet to hold a top-five preseason ranking for 2014.
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Matt Wieters has not lived up to the enormous expectations placed upon him as a prospect and as a young player.

In his age-27 season, Wieters posted his second worst season in terms of wRC+ (86) and his worst since 2010 in terms of wins above replacement (2.4).

Still, even though Wieters hasn’t become the instant legend that led to sites like Matt Wieters Facts, he’s been very solid behind the plate for Baltimore. He’s excellent defensively and even in a down year was an above-average player overall. He may not sit on the ‘generational talent’ pedastal many had prepared for him, but he’s still very good.

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It can be tough to look at a tasty home run total and not what-if yourself into picking the player who owns it up.

In the case of J.P. Arencibia, it’s time to give it up. He finished the year owned in 18 percent of ESPN leagues and 38 percent of Yahoo leagues. Hopefully that accounts for 20-teamers, AL-only and two-catcher leagues, because the idea of him as a starting fantasy catcher should have long since been buried. In deeper leagues, sure, because he was still a top-20 guy, but he won’t be again.

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Francisco Liriano made $1 million for the Pittsburgh Pirates this year in base salary. He can earn up to $3.75 million more based on incentives he almost surely hit, but the fact remains that the Pirates paid less than the price of a win for a three-win pitcher.

In purely economic terms, he was one of the most valuable contracts in baseball, especially if rookie deals are excluded.

He also provided a massive value for fantasy owners who were risk-seeking enough to enlist his services late in drafts or early in the year on the waiver wire.
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I’m going to open with a caveat: I chose my 10 Bold Predictions towards the very end of prediction season (i.e. last in the group). The issue with that is that I was trying to make bold predictions and avoid duplicating the predictions of others.

Now, that’s not an excuse, because I actually thought all of these things would be true, believe it or not. Let’s reflect, gloat and laugh in self-deprecating embarrassment, shall we?

Jedd Gyorko is the real deal
Stat Line: 125 GP, 525 PA, 6.3 BB%, 23.4 K%, .249/.301/.444, 110 wRC+, 23 HR, 63 RBI
Gyorko was a bit of a mixed bag this season. His mid-season injury limited his counting stats and his batting average wasn’t much help, but his 23 homers ranked second among second basemen. All things considered, Gyorko ranked 16th among third basemen and 15th among second basemen, making him useful if not a set-and-forget type.

There’s also the matter of his split season: Gyorko was .284/.341/.461 with eight home runs in 60 games before his injury, .111/.147/.194 with two homers in his first 19 games back, and .258/.308/.522 with 13 homers in his final 46 games. If we’re willing to forgive his post-injury re-acclimation, the rookie had a heck of a season.
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As the season wraps up, there isn’t much to do but look back. With that in mind, I pulled all of the pitcher data and converted it into total DraftStreet points for the year.

Ideally, we’d have average price or purchase history to compare it to, but we don’t. The best we can do is look at the leaders and if anyone sticks out to you as a surprise, we can discuss in the comments.

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As the season wraps up, there isn’t much to do but look back. With that in mind, I pulled all of the player data and converted it into total DraftStreet points for the year.

Ideally, we’d have average price or purchase history to compare it to, but we don’t. The best we can do is look at the leaders and if anyone sticks out to you as a surprise, we can discuss in the comments.

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Alright folks, it’s the final four days of daily fantasy! At this point, the primary concern you should have is whether or not guys are in the lineup. Teams give young players opportunity, shut injured players down, and generally troll fantasy players with their lineup cards.

To get an idea of which teams have been most guilty of that, the table below shows the number of players each team has used in September. It also shows the number of qualified hitters (3.1 plate appearances per team game) as a second gauge to measure how often bench players are playing. The last column shows the team’s September wOBA which, despite being a small sample, can help along with the other columns in picking a team to pitch against.

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With just a week to go in the season, teams mostly fall into two firm camps: those with something to play for, and those without.

Teams with something to play for can be counted on to play mostly their top players, while those without could trot out an Astros-esque lineup without raising any eyebrows.

It makes the last week of the season difficult for those still lucky enough to have something to play for. Ideally, you want players on a “still playing” team, because their playing time is safer, against teams “not playing,” who may throw out terrible pitchers.

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I’ve got nothing for preamble again. Dog days, and all. But I’m at your mercy – give me a topic to research and it’ll be in here tomorrow!

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