Reliable middle infielders have always been my white whale. I overvalue them on draft/action day and somehow always end up getting burned. Whether it’s Rickie Weeks‘ wrist or Dustin Pedroia‘s foot or Chase Utley’s knees, I always seem to wind up scrounging for infield help. This year I decided to cast a wide net in our staff league, loading up on various $1 options in addition to keepers Utley and Yunel Escobar.
The regular season may have officially started with the Mariners and Athletics last week, but the rest of the league kicks off the year a few days from now. Here’s an early-season waiver wire for you folks itching to do some fantasy roster tinkering…
Now that the 2012 regular season is officially underway (for two teams, anyway), let’s round up some first base news from around the league. Here are my preseason 1B tiers from last week, just in case you missed it.
Mike Carp | Mariners | Owned: 24% Yahoo! and 74.3% ESPN
You might have missed it while you were sleeping last night, but we have our first regular season injury of 2012. The Mariners placed Carp on the DL yesterday with a shoulder sprain, adding Carlos Peguero to the roster in his place. Carp qualified as a 1B this year but was a much better value in the OF, so losing him shouldn’t create any 1B problems for fantasy owners. If it does, you likely have bigger problems in the first place. Peguero, by the way, is not rosterable.
It’s been a pretty tough few months for Ryan Madson. First the 31-year-old right-hander reportedly had a four-year, $44 million offer pulled off the table by his former team before they went all in on Jonathan Papelbon. After weeks of sitting on the offseason sidelines, he took a one-year, $8.5 million pillow contract from the Reds with an eye on a big multi-year payday next offseason. That won’t happen now. A nagging elbow injury this spring turned out to be a torn elbow ligament, and now the former Phillie will miss the season with Tommy John surgery.
An injury of this caliber has some far-reaching fantasy implications beyond the obvious — Madson being non-rosterable — so let’s break it down…
Two weeks ago we rolled out or consensus first base rankings, and last week I picked them apart and wrote about some things I didn’t necessarily agree with. The tiers below are my personal rankings, dividing the players into groups based on their approximate fantasy value. These rankings will be updated every month throughout the season.
Tier One
Miguel Cabrera
Albert Pujols
Joey Votto
Adrian Gonzalez
Prince Fielder
These five are the very best of the best, all first round fantasy options expected to produce huge numbers. Miggy’s fractured orbital bone could delay the start of his season, in which case I’d bump him behind Pujols. Either way, you’re going to get massive production.
Over the last few days, Howard Bender, Chad Young, and Ben Duronio have been writing about three players they will each avoid this season (parts one, two, three, and four), and now I’m going to join in on the fun.
Esteemed full-time employee Eno Sarris has been rolling out our consensus position rankings over the last week or so, with first base being published one week ago today. Three of our four experts consider Albert Pujols to be the fantasy’s best option at the position, which is certainly a very reasonable and safe choice. Pujols has been so great for so long that it’s hard to bet against him, but I happen to be in the minority.
Miguel Cabrera is the best fantasy first baseman (and overall player, really) for me. It’s easy to forget that he’s still just 28 years old and right in the prime years of his career. He’s hit fewer than 30 HR just once in his eight full seasons and posted an average lower than .320 just once in the last six seasons. Miggy is also insanely durable (150+ games all eight years) and piles up the RBI and runs scored. I like his chances of remaining super productive in 2012 more than I do Albert’s, who battled some injuries and had his first bout with mortality last year (meaning a .385 wOBA after ten straight years of .400+). I don’t think park effects matter much with elite guys like this, and I do like Cabrera’s surrounding cast more than I like Pujols. There’s nothing wrong with ranking Albert as the best fantasy first baseman, I just happen to disagree.
It’s my turn to come up with some outlandish fantasy predictions for the 2012 season. All of us here at RotoGraphs will present a top ten lists over the next few days, then check back to see how right wrong we were after the season. So without further delay, here are my ten bold fantasy predictions for this season, in no particular order…
1. A-Rod will hit 30 HR
Injury problems have prevented Alex Rodriguez from playing in 140 games in each of the last four seasons, and last year his ISO fell below .225 (.185 to be exact) for the first time since 1997. That said, A-Rod is now healthy after undergoing an experimental knee procedure at Kobe Bryant’s behest and will play enough games (and reincorporate his legs into his swing) to bring back the glory days of 30/100.
With Yu Darvish sufficiently crowdsourced, it’s time to look at this offseason’s other big international import: Yoenis Cespedes. Last week we asked you about his acquisition cost, specifically when you would be comfortable grabbing him in three formats…
We received a total of 325 responses, and the results are as follows…
The results are in. After crowdsourcing Yu Darvish’s expected 5×5 stats and ottoneu points production, last week we asked you about his draft round and auction value in three formats…
We received 248 total responses, with the results as follows…