Prince Fielder. Dude is big and powerful and it’s not surprising that the Tigers’ signing of the younger Fielder made a large splash in the wading pool that is the American League Central right now. The splash actually covered much of the first round of next year’s fantasy drafts and impacted leagues in three key ways. Let’s enumerate.
While projecting a player without any experience in the Major Leagues is difficult enough, we do have processes that help us come to a reasonable estimate of the player’s current talent level. Use some major-league equivalencies to equalize his Minor League numbers, weight the years, add a little boost, take a little off — whatever the details are, we’ve made progress in this arena. Not a ton of progress — a simple Marcel monkey of a projection is still just about as good as any other projection — but some progress.
What’s missing is a way to project playing time. Or at least, a commonly accepted and readily available process for projecting playing time. It’s difficult to do — there are so many moving parts. What will his manager think? How much will a small sample outburst in Spring Training (by the player or his competition for playing time) mean to his front office? Who will get injured? How much does his team value his arbitration years — will he come up with the team because they need his bat now, or will he go to the Minor Leagues to preserve years of control down the line?
All of these are factors in playing time. And, with a rough look at the schedule and at the team, we can actually try to put a number on these possibilities. Let’s try it out with Bryce Harper.
I’m ready. Let’s talk real or fantasy (or not) baseball. It’s up to you. (Okay, I’ll be here at 12:30, but you get your question answered first if you drop it in now).
Arbitration settlements are coming in today, and two notable relievers are in the news. Francisco Rodriguez got eight million, and Juan Carlos Oviedo (aka Leo Nunez) got six million. Both are stuck behind closers that should keep their jobs if healthy — do they have any fantasy value?
He’s in the news today, so it’s time to re-iterate an old meme of mine: Don’t draft Guillermo Moscoso. Just don’t do it.
Traded to the Rockies along with Josh Outman for Seth Smith, Moscoso showed some nice back-of-the-baseball card stats. On the other hand, his peripherals, along with his new home address, make him a definite miss in leagues of almost any type.
The Reds picked up a top tier closer on a short deal, and there are plenty of reasons to love this in real life and in fantasy. In fact, the real life reasons inform the fantasy reasons. It’s all one big package, and Ryan “Mad Dog” Madson is the bow.
Why love it in real life? The Reds aren’t on the hook after 2012, and that probably suits them fine. Relievers are volatile from year to year, even one as nice as the Mad Dog. And the Reds are an exercise in learning from their own mistakes.
A little personal exuberance aside, it isn’t likely that Japan’s newest (possible) position player import is an impact fantasy bat this year. His skill set, situation, and even posting fee don’t suggest a breakout is on the way. We can dream — but the realities of the situation are likely to wake us up.
Three years ago, work in my previous incarnation as an educational publisher had me in Japan regularly. The Yakult Swallows played in Tokyo and tickets were much easier to get than Yomiuri Giants tickets, so I was a default fan of the Swallows, as bad as that sounds, and their center fielder Norichika Aoki.
Sometimes you get excited about a player that seemingly no-one is in on. You even argue publicly that he’s not a fourth outfielder, and start dreamcasting him into production for your fantasy team. Maybe you even take him in an industry mock in the final rounds to signal your intent for the coming year.
Sometimes it’s good to take a step back and check yourself.
It may seem like a bit of a head-scratcher to see the Padres acquire a power bat in the middle of their perennial rebuilding process — especially one so flawed as Carlos Quentin. Then again, the flaws probably made him acquirable at all, and the Padres sorely lacked what Quentin brings to the table.
In fantasy, we don’t care about any of that. All we care about is how the player will take to his new digs. Before you count Quentin out because of his new home park, the peculiarities of PetCo park demand more attention.
For those of you stuck doing nothing at work, here’s a Christmas present. Rankings! Mock Draft! You’re welcome.
Then again, this is not really the mock, nor are they really rankings. So I’m kind of a dick. What we’ve done here is represent the National League outfielders that were taken in the RotoGraphs mock dynasty draft a few weeks back. We’ve got the round, pick, and overall pick number for each, and then we’ve broken them in some tiers for good measure.
In a pleasant surprise, it looks like our keeper tiers held up pretty good, with a few notable exceptions.
