In addition to auctions, readers are also looking for more single league stories here on RotoGraphs. With that in mind I participated in a 12-team AL-only mock auction on CBS Sports. I had the third pick and ended up with the following team:

Miguel Cabrera
Justin Verlander
Jon Lester
Jason Bartlett
Nelson Cruz
Matt Wieters
Mike Gonzalez
Howie Kendrick
Adrian Beltre
Nick Swisher
A.J. Pierzynski
Brian Matusz
Chris Tillman
Justin Masterson
Scott Sizemore
J.J. Putz
Matt Joyce
Marc Rzepczynski
Desmond Jennings
Ken Griffey Jr.
Tony Sipp
Billy Hall

For my first pick, I was debating between Cabrera and Mark Teixeira. Normally in a mixed league I would take Teixeira, because I am concerned about a relapse with Cabrera’s drinking problems. But in the only league format I opted for what I consider the higher upside of Cabrera versus the safer pick in Teixeira. I am not sure if it makes sense to go for upside over certainty, but when I was on the clock that was what made me pick Cabrera.

Verlander is a tough one for me. He is a guy that is ending up on a lot of mock draft teams for me and I am not 100 percent sure why. Trying to look at it objectively, I think others are undervaluing him due to his poor 2008 season. But Verlander has delivered Wins and ERA in three of the last four years and if he comes close to repeating his K numbers from 2009, he is definitely a good value. I chose him over Brian Roberts at this pick.

During the draft, I wish I would have focused on outfielders earlier. With CBS requiring five OF, pickings get slim rather quickly. Cruz is another guy who I end up with a lot here in mock draft season but there is a significant dropoff afterwards. It felt very strange picking Swisher in the 10th round, but the HR potential was just too much to pass up, especially considering what was left. Between Joyce and Jennings I figure I have one OF and I just have to hope Hall gets enough playing time all over the diamond to be worthwhile.

Relief pitching seemed like another weakness during the draft, but Gonzalez is a top-12 AL closer and Putz is a #2 RP in the only format. Plus, I really like Sipp as a darkhorse closer candidate in Cleveland should Wood get injured or have another off season. Saves will definitely not be a strength of the team, but I should pick up at least a few points in the category.

The starting pitching is very strong. In hindsight I would have grabbed an OF in round three, knowing how many relatively strong pitchers were left late in the draft. Still, I like having Verlander-Lester at the top of my rotation, which gets the team off to a solid start in four categories. Also, I am a touch concerned about having both Matusz and Tillman but I would prefer that combo over Scott Feldman and Tommy Hunter, both of whom went earlier.

It’s hard to have to have two catchers in any format, but a 12-team AL-only is particularly brutal. I really like the Wieters-Pierzynski duo and when one team is going Brayan Pena and Jason Varitek and another features Alex Avila and Adam Moore, I like it even better. This team also has good starters at each infield position. Beltre has long been a favorite of mine and hopefully he will find hitting in Fenway easier than at Safeco.

Overall, I think this team will be very strong in the non-save pitching categories. Offensively, it should be very good in HR and RBIs and competitive in AVG and R. By far, the weakest category should be SB. Cruz should be good but the only other threat is Jennings and his playing time is uncertain, at best.

One of the most common reader requests here at RotoGraphs is to have more information on auctions. Unfortunately, it has been a few years since I have participated in a fantasy baseball auction. But with the availability now of auction mocks on several sites, I thought it was time to get back to that format. Last night I participated in a 12-team mock auction over at ESPN. I played this pretty straight, just trying to accumulate value. I ended up with this team:

Gavin Floyd – $9
Matt Holliday $28
Ichiro Suzuki $22
Justin Verlander $18
Robinson Cano $19
Ryan Zimmerman $20
Carlos Lee $17
Johan Santana $15
Josh Johnson $15
Bobby Abreu $14
Jay Bruce $12
Adam Dunn $16
Francisco Cordero $12
Jonathan Papelbon $12
Miguel Montero $9
Rafael Soriano $8
Juan Rivera $2
Ryan Theriot $1
Everth Cabrera $2
Paul Konerko $1
John Maine $1
Felipe Paulino $1

I left money on the table, which shows how rusty I was at this auction thing. It was a typical Stage 1 auction, where owners spent too much early and values were to be had in the middle and the end of the proceedings. Several players went for over $50, which seems hard to justify in a 12-team mixed league.

For my guide, I was using the auction values by veteran fantasy player Lenny Melnick, published over at FantasyPros911.com on the premium side. My team accumulated $79 of excess value over Melnick’s projections, with only Montero, Rivera, Maine and Paulino not providing me profit over his prices. I made a mistake on Montero, not realizing that Kurt Suzuki was still available but I think the price I got him for was acceptable. I was looking for power late, which made Rivera worthwhile. And I like both Maine and Paulino if they can stay healthy this year.

Mainly, I used this draft to get reacquainted with auctions. From now on, I will definitely write more about auction prices and strategy. If there is anything in particular that you would like to see covered in the future, please note it in the comments.

Friend of RotoGraphs Jimbo posed this question in the comments of an earlier article:

How do you weigh a pick like Ichiro that early when there’s still power left to draft…and it’s a scarce resource?

I thought that would make an excellent question for the debut of our newest feature, the RotoGraphs Panel. Here’s how our writers responded:

Marc Hulet: I personally have Ichiro ranked as the 10th overall outfielder (based on 5X5) in mixed leagues and 4th overall in AL-only format. At 36, you have to start worrying about his age and the slip in steals in ’09 (from 43 to 26). With that said, he has nine straight 200 hit seasons, hit .352 last year and has scored 100+ runs in eight of the past nine seasons. I have him nestled at No. 10 between Jayson Werth at nine and Adam Lind at 11.

Power is a scarce resource, but so is reliability; the only pieces missing from his game are power and RBIs and I would rather go hunting on the waiver wire for home runs than steals and/or batting average. I will admit that Ichiro is getting credit in 2010 based on his reputation but I’ll personally keep believing in him until A) He slips for two straight seasons or B) He hits 40 years of age, whichever comes first. I expect his average to drop to between .310-.320 but I am hoping for a return to 100 runs scored and 30+ steals. Call me optimistic.

Zach Sanders: Ichiro has been a top-50 fantasy player since his move to the Major Leagues. I remember him going in the second round in years past, due to his awesome steal and hit totals. Now that he is older and the steals aren’t as bountiful, he still has great value. Drafting Ichiro (around his ADP) over a power hitter is perfectly acceptable for two reasons.

First, he does contribute to the steals category, even if it is only 20 a year. Second, his AVG is so high that it can change the way you draft. Since he comes to the plate so often, his average is even more influential, and can make up for other guys on your team. Since he makes up for guys with low averages, you can draft power players that slip through the cracks for this very reason, and still be fine.

Dan Budreika: Ichiro’s been wowing us for years. He put together a nice year offensively last year after a lackluster 2008. But he is not getting younger and he will be 36-years-old this season. He did battle some injuries last season but what disturbs me is his un-Ichiro like 26 steals. He was also caught 9 times. I just don’t see Ichiro approaching the 40 marker in the stolen base department again and those have generally been one of his biggest fantasy strengths. He doesn’t offer much power and you can really only expect 10 homers. Power ages better than speed and Ichiro is no young buck anymore. Take the safer route with a big bopper over the aging Ichiro early in your draft.

Eno Sarris: Ichiro Suzuki is a tough nut to crack. He hit .311 on 0-2 counts last year! Nutty. On the other hand, minus the batting average, he looks like Denard Span (ADP 125.46) – a guy with barely-double-digit power that is likely to steal about 30 bases. That’s a guy that should be picked in the late rounds to boost a team flagging on speed, not in the mid-rounds as a foundational player. Managers shouldn’t normally build their rosters around him… except in certain instances. Let’s say you are hoping to get Adam Dunn (ADP 55.95) after Ichiro (ADP 40.46) – then he fits like a glove. Consider that taking those players in the fourth and fifth rounds would give you two players that, using last year’s numbers, averaged out to a .313 batting average with 25 home runs and 13 stolen bases. That fits. Ichiro gives you domination in one category that allows you to pick people like Russell Branyan (ADP 293.50) and Chris Davis (159.89) later in the draft, too. That’s added value, in flexibility, that shouldn’t be poo-pooed. It’s not easy to answer this question, and that’s why Ichiro gets drafted as high as 29 and as low as 57. But there are plenty of high-power low-batting average sluggers that become much more attractive as soon as you bring Ichiro! into the fold.

David Golebiewski: Ichiro is one of the more difficult players to project in all of fantasy baseball. We know that he’s not going to draw many walks or hit for much power (his .113 ISO last season was his highest mark since 2005). But he has consistently posted well above-average BABIP figures (.357 career) by virtue of his Olympic-level speed and ability to beat out infield hits. Over the last three years, Ichiro has the second-highest infield hit rate in the majors. His career batting average on ground balls is .306. For reference, the AL average hovers around the .240-.245 range.

In 2009, Ichiro managed a .384 BABIP, and hit an obscene .353 on grounders. Even for a guy who has time and again posted lofty BABIP figures, it’s likely that those numbers will regress in 2010. A simple Marcel projection forecasts a .319/.365/.418 line and a .352 BABIP. If Ichiro’s BABIP trends back toward his career average, then he’s a .320 batter, as opposed to last year’s .350+ machine.

The big question regarding his fantasy value is, will a 36 year-old Ichiro be great base stealer, or merely a good one? He missed the beginning of the 2009 season with a bleeding ulcer, but his 26 steals were a career-low, and his SB percentage (74.3) was his lowest since 2002. Ichiro’s Speed Score (5.2) was a career low, and well below his 6.6 overall mark in the majors. If I had to conjure a guess, I would lean toward the conservative side and project somewhere in the range of 25-35 steals next year.

MockDraftCentral currently has Ichiro at number 39 overall, which strikes me as reasonable. Just how one values Ichiro’s steals compared to another player’s power depends largely on the league format, but I’m a big advocate of going for the best available talent in the early rounds. Owners can get themselves in trouble by feeling that they must take a player who does X in round Y. I still think Ichiro is worthy of a relatively early-round pick.

Brian Joura: I have not owned Ichiro since 2005. I like taking him in mock drafts but not in real leagues. And the reason is that he is very unpredictable. Everyone says you take him and you have a stud in AVG. Some years that is very true and other years he is simply not that dominating. Yes, he has four years where he’s posted marks over .350, including last year. But he also has five years where he was at .322 or lower.

If he reaches that .350 mark, than the early pick on him works out great. But if he finishes at .310 like he did in 2008 then you are sort of left holding the bag. It would be like drafting Adam Dunn and only getting 30 HR. It’s a good total but not what you were expecting. Eno mentioned that he has gone as low as 57 and I would certainly take him there but I will not pull the trigger on him at pick 29.

In the next part in my series on punting, I am trying to ditch ERA. This has proven to be more of a challenge than the two previous ones in the series. After a few unsuccessful tries that my friend and colleague Paul Greco would term “drafting naked” (no outside sources) I decided to consult the Razzball Point Shares System.

Specifically, I was looking for pitchers who were worse in ERA than they were in WHIP. I was hoping to finish last in ERA yet still gain a couple of points in WHIP. So, I wrote down the names of about two dozen pitchers who fit this criterion and went off to draft. This was a 12-team mixed Yahoo Style Draft over at Mock Draft Central. I had the first pick and drafted this team:

Albert Pujols
Ryan Zimmerman
Ichiro Suzuki
Curtis Granderson
Adam Dunn
Nelson Cruz
Josh Beckett
Matt Wieters
Jason Bartlett
James Shields
John Lackey
Huston Street
Scott Baker
Gavin Floyd
Jorge de la Rosa
Chad Qualls
Brian Anderson
Leo Nunez
Julio Borbon
Nick Johnson
Mark DeRosa
Luis Castillo
Nick Swisher

This team finished first with a total of 87 points. The breakdowns were as follows:

AVG 12
HR 10
RBI 5.5
SB 9
R 11
W 10.5
S 6
K 8
WHIP 4
ERA 11

I’ve never tried to punt a category and almost ended up winning it before! Let’s see how that happened.

The best ERA among my starters last year belonged to John Lackey, who had a 3.83, which was 33rd best among SP. Of my seven SP, two had ERAs in the 3s and the remaining five had ERAs in the 4s. Two of my relievers had ERAs in the 3s and one was in the 4s. Nothing in this shouts out a team that should finish second in ERA. Andy Behrens estimated that you need a 3.27 ERA to win the category.

Obviously, we don’t know what these pitchers will do in 2010 yet and ERA has a lot of volatility. But we can check the Fans projections and get a glimpse of why this team was projected to finish 2nd in ERA. Eight of these pitchers the fans projected to have lower ERAs in 2010 than 2009. The only exceptions were Street, projected to go from 3.06 to 3.21 and Qualls, who did not have a fan projection. Using the Fans projections, I have five SP with ERAs in the 3s (lowest belonging to Anderson at 3.69) and two in the 4s. Furthermore, the highest ERA belonged to de la Rosa, who had a 4.26 projection.

So, you don’t need a star in ERA to be successful in the category.

Now I am back to the drawing board to field a money-finishing team that successfully punts ERA. I’ll be looking to trade in my pitcher picks in rounds 7 and 10 for better RBI and SB production.

A little while ago I did a mock draft where I punted AVG. Pleased with those results, I tried again to do something I have never done in a real draft. This time I punted homers. Unlike last time, this was not a private draft. This was just a regular draft over at Mock Draft Central where I took over an AI team at the last minute.

I can see you shaking your heads now. There is no way to punt HR because you will end up finishing at or near the bottom in RBIs, too. That is certainly a possibility. But even if the team has no chance of winning, let’s see how it would look. It is always good to test out an hypothesis, just to confirm that the conventional wisdom is indeed correct.

This was a 12-team, mixed Yahoo! Style Draft in which I had the 11th pick. Here is my team:

Tim Lincecum (ADP 12)
Carl Crawford (15)
Ichiro Suzuki (39)
Dustin Pedroia (38)
Jon Lester (59)
Lance Berkman (60)
Chone Figgins (79)
Ricky Nolasco (106)
Torii Hunter (99)
Chad Billingsley (120)
Carlos Marmol (137)
James Shields (128)
Yunel Escobar (152)
Jorge Cantu (168)
James Loney (180)
Chad Qualls (208)
Todd Helton (196)
Mike Gonzalez (192)
AJ Pierzynski (235)
Nick Johnson (266)
Wade Davis (288)

You can quibble with the selections of Berkman and Hunter and if they really fit into a punt HR strategy. I thought Berkman was just too good of a value to pass up at pick #62. I wanted Bobby Abreu but he got picked two slots ahead of me (when I ended up taking Figgins) and I ended up taking Hunter. The James projections give Berkman 31 HR and Hunter 24. The next highest projection is Jorge Cantu’s 18.

So, how did this team rate? This team was picked to finish first, with a total of 86 points. The second place team had 76.5 points. The individual category projections were as follows:

AVG – 12
HR – 1
RBI – 1
SB – 11
R – 9.5
W – 11
S – 6.5
K – 12
WHIP – 11
ERA – 11

Because it was a Yahoo! Style Draft, they graded both the starting lineup of 16 and the 5-man bench. My bench came in 10th place with a score of 56.

Theoretically, a team can punt HR, finish last in RBIs too and still win, as this draft shows. I certainly would not try this in a real draft. But it is interesting to see how a team that ignores power can be a productive one, at least on paper.

I participated in a 12-team mixed mock draft last night hosted by Baseball Digest Daily. I had the 10th pick and my strategy going in was to punt AVG and draft starting pitchers earlier than I normally would. My roster ended up like this:

Tim Lincecum (ADP 12)
Ian Kinsler (15)
Jason Bay (26)
Justin Verlander (44)
Nelson Cruz (64)
Carlos Pena (75)
Matt Wieters (96)
Gordon Beckham (94)
Ubaldo Jimenez (104)
Jay Bruce (118)
Carlos Marmol (139)
Elvis Andrus (158)
Carlos Gonzalez (122)
Scott Baker (155)
Brett Anderson (170)
Julio Borbon (187)
Chad Qualls (220)
Adam LaRoche (231)
Casey McGehee (221)
Mike Gonzalez (188)
Russ Branyan (computer problems and it went to auto pick – 217)
Homer Bailey (279)
Carlos Santana (320)

Punting AVG is something I never do in real drafts and I was pleasantly surprised by the offense I was able to amass. In hindsight I think perhaps I drafted Wieters and Marmol too high but I am pretty happy with the upside that this team possesses. Of course by punting AVG you also run the risk of finishing near the bottom in R, which would probably go a long way to determining the success of the strategy.

For those in the crowd who do punt AVG, please weigh in with your wisdom on what needs to be done to make this strategy successful.

Jimmy Rollins is a great baseball player. He has everything we as fans want to see from guys on the diamond. First and foremost, he is extremely talented. But everyone in MLB is talented. What separates Rollins is how he excels in all facets of the game and the drive and determination he brings every day. Rollins may go 0-4 but he can win the game with a highlight-reel defensive play. And his intangibles reached legendary status back in 2007 when he said that the Phillies were the team to beat in the National League East and then went out and delivered on the field, winning the MVP in the process.

Rollins is an electric player in real life. He is just not an elite player in fantasy baseball, however much his owners wish him to be one.

In his MVP season in 2007, Rollins established career highs in 11 of the “Standard” categories on the FanGraphs player page. If you go to the “Advanced” section, he notched eight more personal bests. And this was from a player who had six full seasons in the majors previously. Rollins was 28 in 2007, an age where it was more likely to be a career year rather than a new level of performance.

In 2008, fantasy owners unanimously considered Rollins to be a first-round pick. However, Rollins went on the disabled list for the first time in his career and fell from 162 games played in 2007 to 137 in 2008. The Razzball Point Share System rated Rollins as the 70th-best fantasy player that season.

Many fantasy owners remained unfazed. Once again, Rollins was considered a first-round pick in 2009 carrying an ADP of 9. There were no injury problems for Rollins last year, as he played in 155 games. However, he had a dismal first half of the year, due in large part to a .240 BABIP before the All-Star break. Rollins did much better in the second half (despite a .262 BABIP) but overall he came in at 86th in the Razzball ratings.

Now, despite back-to-back seasons of 7th-8th round value, owners still see Rollins as an elite fantasy player. The latest ADP rankings at MockDraftCentral have him at 21. He has been drafted as early as 13th and no later than 35th in the last 361 qualifying drafts.

One of the many cool features at FanGraphs is the Fans projections. As of this writing, 100 fans have made projections for Rollins and they give him a .273-19-65-102-35 line. This is the most optimistic projection out there, but basically right in line with what the Bill James and CHONE systems have for him. Marcel has a slightly more pessimistic view, largely due to 61 fewer ABs than CHONE and 82 fewer than what the Fans project.

A rough approximation of the average starting fantasy SS in a 12-team league in 2009 gives the following line:

.290-16-76-83-15

So, the fans have Rollins comfortably above average in SB and R, above average in HR and below average in RBIs and AVG among his position peers.

Compare this to Matt Holliday, the player with an ADP of 20, or the player valued right above Rollins. In 2009 starting outfielders had a rough approximation of the following fantasy line: .279-20-76-81-14. Currently, 111 Fans have given Holliday a .313-26-126-107-15 line.

Let’s compare apples to apples and use another shortstop. Derek Jeter has an ADP of 48 and 151 Fans have given him the following line:

.313-14-75-115-22

So, if you wait two-plus rounds and take Jeter, you get 40 more points of AVG, 10 more RBIs and 13 more runs while giving up 5 HR and 13 SB. Maybe the fans are overrating Jeter, so let’s look at another SS. Jason Bartlett has an ADP of 105, so you can wait seven rounds after you draft Rollins and anticipate these numbers, which come from 109 Fans:

.294-9-81-75-26

So, Fans project Bartlett to be available over 80 picks after Rollins and beat him in two fantasy categories while being competitive in SB. Clearly, Rollins is the better player than Bartlett but once you figure in their draft status, the edge narrows considerably, if not disappears altogether.

The past two years, Rollins has not justified his lofty draft status with production on the field. There have been extenuating circumstances (injuries, luck) but the fact is he has been a disappointment. Now age 31, how likely is it that Rollins will exceed Fans’ expectations and return to 2007 levels? Fantasy owners have developed a Pavlovian response to Rollins, giving him an automatic high ADP just at the sound of his name. But before you make him your second-round pick, investigate other options at the position.

I just got back from a trip and took advantage of my airport time to do some fantasy baseball studying. In the dark ages, this might have meant purchasing a fantasy magazine but fortunately there are much better options available today. And much to my delight, the mailman brought my copy of John Sickels’ The Baseball Prospect Book 2010 right before I left.

Now the internet has made following prospects much easier than when Sickels started doing his book back in the mid 1990s. Our own Marc Hulet does excellent work listing the top 10 prospects for each organization. But I still find value in this book and it is the one prospect source I go back to time and time again, both before and during the season as well as in hindsight to see both how prospects were rated and how the scouting reports from the minors compare to the actual results in the majors.

Sickels does a nice job of combining both statistical analysis along with scouting reports to determine his grades for prospects. And one advantage that he has over many other analysts is that he goes to a bunch of games – both in the minors and top college programs. A lot of guys can quote you a top prospect’s numbers in the high minors but Sickels can tell you the improvements he made since he saw him in college.

For example, Sickels writes about 2009 Angels supplemental first-round pick Garrett Richards:

“I saw him pitch one Big 12 game where he was throwing 94-96 MPH fastballs, a plus slider, and a big-breaking curveball … and he still got clobbered because he couldn’t command his pitches.”

Now Richards pitched well in his rookie ball debut last year and combined with his high draft status, many analysts would be extremely bullish on him. But Sickels uses his college scouting (and numbers) to offer just a bit more caution that most in regards to Richards. And there are countless examples of this throughout the book.

In addition to his own scouting, Sickels has built up a strong network of scouts that he can trade information with regarding players he is unable to see in person. But before you dismiss him as someone who just regurgitates whatever information scouts give him, Sickels is not afraid to go against this information if it conflicts with what he sees in the numbers or what his gut tells him.

On Jonathan Galvez, a Padres prospect from the Dominican Republic who got a big bonus a few years back, Sickels notes: “some scouts were disappointed in him, criticizing his defensive play, particularly his arm strength, and raising questions about his work ethic.” But despite that Sickels concluded: “I still think he’s a very intriguing prospect.”

And yes, someone who has been doing this as long and as successfully as Sickels has is allowed (and is preferred) to use his gut or his instinct when evaluating players, so long as he is upfront about it in his analysis. As Malcolm Gladwell has pointed out, experts have a way of recognizing patterns in subconscious ways and it is a mistake to ignore those completely.

Sickels was using numbers to grade prospects long before most others were doing it. He uses OPS, Secondary Average (both of which he compares to league averages) and BABIP as his main offensive numbers. On the pitching side he uses K/BB, K/IP and H/IP. This year he also incorporated some FIP numbers into his analysis

The book contains prospect reports on 1,170 minor league players and is arranged alphabetically. But there is also a section that lists every prospect by team, so if you are only interested in finding out the details about guys in certain systems, you can do that, too.

It is great for both fantasy purposes and following the game as a whole. Sickels both writes and self publishes the book, which you can order here.

Which prospect sources do you use the most and find most reliable?

Reader Jonathan G. asks:

I’ve got an upcoming decision for my keepers to make which I can use some FanGraphs expertise on. The keeper rules are that you forfeit a draft pick of the round your keeper is in minus 2. So if you keep a guy you drafted in the 5th round, you forfeit your 3rd round pick. My best keeper options (with rounds I would forfeit) are as follows:

–Chase Utley (forfeit 1st round)
–Adam Lind (forfeit 19th round)
–Adam Jones (forfeit 15th round)
–Gordon Beckham (forfeit 25th round)
–Andrew McCutchen (forfeit 25th round)
–Ubaldo Jimenez (forfeit 17th round)
–Jon Lester (forfeit 6th round)

My league is standard 5×5. My thoughts right now are to keep Utley, Lind, and Jones though I’ve given a lot of thought to keeping Beckham instead of Lind/Jones/Utley because of the value I’d get from keeping him in the 25th round.

I’d appreciate any time + thought that you can give to helping me out.

You didn’t explicitly say, but I am going to answer this with the assumption that you are limited to three keepers. Generally, you want to maximize value with your keepers. We can use the ADP numbers from MockDraftCentral.com as a proxy for value. Here are the numbers for your guys:

Utley – 4 – first round
Lind – 46 – fourth round
Jones – 87 – eighth round
Beckham – 93 – eighth round
McCutchen – 90 – eighth round
Jimenez – 105 – ninth round
Lester – 57 – fifth round

Here, Utley and Lester give you the least amount of value, relative to what you have to give up to keep them. I would also eliminate Jones, because of concerns around both his GB% (55.4) and Contact% (74.6).

Of the remaining four players, I think you can make a good case for keeping any of them.
Lind’s HR/FB rate is a bit worrisome, but he has a better batted ball profile and BB/K rates than Jones. His BABIP was slightly elevated but nothing too concerning. If you keep Lind, you do have to be a tiny bit concerned about his lack of SB.

Beckham begins the year as a 3B and should pick up 2B eligibility by the end of the month, assuming your league allows mid-year qualifications. He held his own as a 22-year old and had his best power month in September (6 HR). He did most of his damage on the road last year and given the hitter-friendly tendencies of his home park, it is not too hard to see him developing into a 25-HR guy as he matures. Ideally, he would have a higher LD% and a lower IFFB%.

McCutchen hit more HR than was expected last year. None of the preseason projections has him maintaining last year’s pace. Still, a 15 HR and 30 SB year is within reach and it is not impossible to see him topping those marks. One thing to keep in mind is that McCutchen did very well last year against FB but was below average against both CB and SL and will probably see more breaking balls in his sophomore season.

Jimenez is a ground ball pitcher that piles up strikeouts. He has three quality pitches and is clearly an ace-type pitcher. The Razzball Player Rater had him as the 57th best fantasy player in 2009. Jimenez did have a low HR/FB rate (7.8%) which gave him an xFIP higher than his ERA. But in 506.1 IP in the majors, Jimenez has an 8.3 percent HR/FB mark.

I would go Jimenez, Beckham and Lind.

The possibility of losing Utley is no doubt painful. But if everyone else has a first-round keeper, you get to re-draft him and keep him regardless. And if other owners opt to keep value picks, you should have other first-round talents to choose from when it is your pick.

For the past two years, Jorge de la Rosa has improved in all four fantasy categories for a starting pitcher. Of course, that was a relatively easy thing for him to do, given how poor he was in 2007. Still, last year de la Rosa finished in the top 20 in both Wins and Ks. Given how fantasy players love to get “the next big thing,” you might think de la Rosa would be a hot commodity in mock draft season. But you would be wrong.

Instead, the Rockies pitcher sits with an ADP of 180. Recently, Razzball unveiled its 2009 end of season fantasy player rater and de la Rosa ranked 131. The mockers are not buying that number and instead forecast that he will not repeat, much less improve upon, his fine numbers from a year ago. Part of it may be the stigma of being a pitcher in Colorado and part of it may be the poor ERA and WHIP numbers.

Either way, it looks like we may have the new Ted Lilly. For several years now, fantasy owners have undervalued Lilly, despite a very good K rate and strong Win totals. Even after posting a 3.10 ERA last year, Lilly still appears to be a bargain, with a current ADP of 149.

Last year, de la Rosa finished with a 4.38 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP. The ERA placed 65th while the WHIP was tied for 59th out of 77 qualified pitchers. Fantasy owners do not want to pay for Wins and shy away from de la Rosa because he is poor in two of the three remaining categories.

At the All-Star break, de la Rosa had a 5.21 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP. But his final 15 starts of the year, he was a different pitcher. In the second half, de la Rosa was 10-2 with a 3.46 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP. He gave up the same number of HR in the second half in 8.1 fewer innings. The improvement appears to be all WHIP-related.

After having a 4.28 BB/9 in the first half, de la Rosa followed up with a 3.67 mark after the break. And his BABIP was .301 in the second half, after starting off the year with a .327 mark. In his final 15 games, he had 10 starts where he gave up two or fewer runs.

The turnaround actually started even earlier for de la Rosa, who started the season 0-6 with a 5.43 ERA. He went 16-3 with a 3.94 ERA over the final four months of the season, which matches up almost perfectly to when Jim Tracy took over as the team’s manager.

In July, de la Rosa credited his turnaround to his two-seam fastball and throwing more first-pitch strikes, although the numbers do not necessarily support this claim. While his F-Strike% of 55.9 was up from a year ago, it was lower than it was in 2007. And TexasLeaguers.com shows him throwing his two-seam fastball at just 2.4 percent for the year.

Either way, it is easy to read too much into second half numbers. One needs only to recall the second half of 2008 and then 2009 for Ricky Nolasco to remember this lesson. But de la Rosa does not need a 3.46 ERA or a 1.30 WHIP to be a big bargain at his current ADP.

Anecdotally, we can all remember lefties that discovered control and success later than normal, including Randy Johnson, Al Leiter and Sandy Koufax. But while there is no proof that lefties develop later than righties, it would be foolish to ignore the possibility that de la Rosa could be another late bloomer. If he can continue to throw strikes like he did in the second half, de la Rosa could wind up as one of the top pitchers in baseball.