Author Archive: Mike Podhorzer

He’s not dead yet! Lance Berkman is returning to Texas, where he spent his first 11 1/2 seasons with the Astros. Yesterday, it was reported that manager Ron Washington plans to bat Berkman third in the lineup, which would replace Josh Hamilton’s spot in the order. So we now have a soon to be 37-year old hitting third in a strong lineup and playing half his games in a top hitter’s park. I don’t know about you, but I can guarantee you that it is going to be difficult to resist the urge to draft him possibly one last time in my fantasy league. Whether that would be a smart move though is the question of the day.

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Average draft position, or more commonly referred to as ADP, has become an important piece of information for snake drafters over the past couple of years. We here at RotoGraphs mention it in our articles all the time when analyzing players in the pre-season as we try to get a handle on where fantasy players are getting drafted. But, there are still fantasy owners out there who believe that ADP is useless and completely ignore it during their drafts. I think that’s a huge mistake.

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Yeah, so I’m doing this a bit out of order, oops. Too much exciting news last week that took priority, so it’s time to look back at the first five rounds of this mock draft and once again analyze the American League starting pitcher selections. Along with their overall pick number from this year’s draft, I have also included last year’s RotoGraphs overall pick number for comparison.

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This morning, we published the results from rounds 6-10 in the early RotoGraphs mock draft. Apparently, I was asleep at the wheel because I missed the request for drafters, which is why you don’t see my name as a participant. Though it is unfortunate to miss another chance at experiencing the best part of every fantasy season, at least I can remain an unbiased observer. As the resident American League starting pitcher analyst, let’s go through those pitchers who were selected at this point in the draft, including where they were picked in last year’s RG mock, of which I did participate.

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After establishing himself as a strong fantasy performer over his first three full seasons, Matt Kemp turned on his nitro boosters and took his play to an entirely new level in 2011. That performance, which included just a home run short of 40/40, made him a top five pick in fantasy leagues last year. Unfortunately, a left hamstring strain cost him two months, but he still had himself another fantastic season while he was on the field. Fantasy owners haven’t forgotten what a full season of Kemp could provide — our own Alan Harrison took him fifth overall in the early RotoGraphs mock draft, but he wasn’t the only one to select Kemp among the top 10 players in recent mocks. He went sixth and seventh in two other industry mocks and sports an ADP of six on Mock Draft Central. But, are fantasy owners forgetting a key issue?

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Yesterday, the Cubs officially inked Edwin Jackson to a four-year contract. Good for Edwin, now he has a chance to actually be with one team for four seasons. In just 10 seasons in the Majors, he has been with a whopping 7 different teams! Let’s see how the move from Washington to Chicago might affect him.

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The “will he start or will he relieve?” game continues on as Brett Myers is once again moving back into the rotation. This time, he heads to Cleveland after apparently agreeing to a one-year deal yesterday. Myers began his career in Philadelphia as a starter in 2002, then became the team’s closer in 2007, returned to the rotation the following year, then was forced back into the bullpen after returning from injury in 2009, rejoined the rotation as a member of the Astros in 2010 and 2011, then pitched in relief all year once again last season, which included his move to Chicago. Phew. Let’s figure out how he might before as a starter again with the Indians.

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The perennially blah Stephen Drew is packing his bags again, this time heading to Boston after signing with the Red Sox last week. Drew was limited to just about a half season worth of at-bats after a long recovery from an ankle injury that cut his 2011 season short. It ended up being his worst offensive performance, as he mustered just a .291 wOBA. Now taking his craft to New England, let’s find out if park factors will help him at all.

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Welcome to the first edition of the Pod hitter projections for the 2013 season! If you are unfamiliar with my process, you can read the introduction I published last January. As a reminder, these are not computer generated where I input the data and a spreadsheet spits out a projected batted line. I manually project every category that has fantasy relevance.

The first projection I’ll make is for Wil Myers, the top ex-Royals prospect who was recently shipped to Tampa Bay for James Shields.

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This season, center field innings in Texas were primarily split between Craig Gentry and Josh Hamilton. But, Hamilton is now gone and the team has not signed a free agent to replace him in the field. They still seem to be in the market for an outfielder, but it’s conceivable they head to spring training with Gentry and Leonys Martin atop the depth chart. Assuming they find their everyday center fielder from an interal option, would either of these two be attractive fantasy targets?

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