Grady is out until opening day with a strained lower back. Grady has played in only 104 games total over the last 2 seasons and is fairly familiar with the being on the DL. Currently, there is no firm time table for his return.
Ryan Braun will not have to serve a 50 day suspension for performance enhancing drugs. While many ramifications may come from this ruling, I will get to the meat of the matter. How does the ruling affect his and his teammates fantasy value?
Ryan now jumps up from a late 2nd to 5th round pick with the suspension, to being one of the first players taken. Before the news was released, many people considered him the top pick in the draft. This high ranking should not change, but it may just a bit.
Some people love following prospects from the time the players are in high school and college to when they make it to the majors. I am not one of those people. It is important to have some idea of which prospects may have a impact in an upcoming fantasy baseball season. To keep the process simple every year, I create a combined ranking of different prospect rankings and merge them into one composite ranking. This year ranking ended using 7 different lists (I waited until Baseball America released their list to make it complete). Seven minds are better than one, especially if the one mind is mine.
Zach Britton (BAL – P) – In 2011, Britton started his first season in the majors on a tear. After his first 10 games, the ground ball pitcher had a 2.35 ERA and 5 Wins. The good start to the season was because of an extremely low BABIP (0.242). Over the next 10 games, he had an 8.00 ERA that was BABIP (0.410) driven. At this point in the season, he went on the DL for 17 days with should inflammation. After the short DL stint, he came back and pitched much better, with an 4.47 ERA and a 0.282 BABIP. During the whole time, he was able to maintain a relatively constant strikeout rate, walk rate and fastball speed.
This off season, he stated that his shoulder has still been in pain. He had an MRI on it that came back negative. With that news, he has begun long toss sessions to get ready for the season. The 23-year-old stated that he will just have to deal with the inflammation at various times over his career.
With Yahoo finally opening up its mock drafts, I am going to look today at how second basemen are being drafted at Yahoo compared to MockDraftCentral.com. Here is the list of 2B drafted at Yahoo and their positions drafted at MDC along with some notes.
Note: Remember that the rankings are highly based off of the website’s initial rankings of the players.
| Name | Position | Yahoo | MDC | Difference | Yahoo! | MDC | Differnce |
| Robinson Cano | (NYY – 2B) | 8 | 10 | 2 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Dustin Pedroia | (Bos – 2B) | 18 | 19 | 0 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Ian Kinsler | (Tex – 2B) | 21 | 24 | 3 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Dan Uggla | (Atl – 2B) | 48 | 53 | 5 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Ben Zobrist | (TB – 2B,OF) | 53 | 80 | 27 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Michael Young | (Tex – 1B,2B,3B) | 59 | 71 | 13 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Brandon Phillips | (Cin – 2B) | 60 | 61 | 1 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Chase Utley | (Phi – 2B) | 65 | 77 | 12 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Howie Kendrick | (LAA – 1B,2B,OF) | 78 | 105 | 27 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Michael Cuddyer | (Col – 1B,2B,OF) | 82 | 96 | 14 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Rickie Weeks | (Mil – 2B) | 89 | 79 | -10 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Dustin Ackley | (Sea – 2B) | 139 | 137 | -2 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Jemile Weeks | (Oak – 2B) | 157 | 155 | -3 | 100% | 100% | 1% |
| Neil Walker | (Pit – 2B) | 164 | 144 | -21 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Danny Espinosa | (Was – 2B) | 179 | 151 | -29 | 100% | 100% | 0% |
| Kelly Johnson | (Tor – 2B) | 212 | 235 | 24 | 100% | 71% | 29% |
| Ryan Theriot | (SF – 2B,SS) | 217 | 273 | 56 | 3% | 4% | -1% |
| Gordon Beckham | (CWS – 2B) | 221 | 238 | 17 | 9% | 32% | -23% |
| Jose Altuve | (Hou – 2B) | 222 | 221 | 0 | 3% | 13% | -10% |
| Omar Infante | (Mia – 2B) | 223 | 238 | 15 | 5% | 17% | -12% |
| Ryan Raburn | (Det – 2B,OF) | 224 | 241 | 18 | 7% | 42% | -35% |
| Ryan Roberts | (Ari – 2B,3B) | 224 | 196 | -28 | 98% | 95% | 3% |
| Darwin Barney | (ChC – 2B) | 224 | 417 | 192 | 2% | 0% | 2% |
| Allen Craig | (StL – 2B,OF) | 225 | 233 | 8 | 19% | 56% | -37% |
| Scott Sizemore | (Oak – 2B,3B) | 228 | 299 | 70 | 6% | 3% | 3% |
| Ruben Tejada | (NYM – 2B,SS) | 232 | 270 | 38 | 2% | 18% | -16% |
| Mike Aviles | (Bos – 2B,3B,SS) | 233 | 237 | 3 | 16% | 3% | 13% |
| Maicer Izturis | (LAA – 2B,3B,SS) | 234 | ND | NA | 7% | 0% | 7% |
| Eduardo Nunez | (NYY – 2B,3B,SS) | 234 | 273 | 39 | 6% | 2% | 4% |
| Sean Rodriguez | (TB – 2B,3B,SS) | 234 | 267 | 32 | 7% | 21% | -14% |
| Jason Kipnis | (Cle – 2B) | 235 | 166 | -69 | 92% | 97% | -5% |
| Brian Roberts | (Bal – 2B) | 237 | 242 | 4 | 7% | 54% | -47% |
| Daniel Murphy | (NYM – 1B,2B,3B) | 239 | 232 | -7 | 64% | 74% | -10% |
| Aaron Hill | (Ari – 2B) | 254 | 233 | -21 | 83% | 81% | 2% |
Notes
– The first major difference in the drafts was Ben Zobrist being taken 27 places higher. I have Zobrist lumped in with a group of 2B including Uggla, Young, Phillips, Utley, Kendrick, Cuddyer and Weeks (Rickie). At MDC, Rickie Weeks, on average, is being taken 1 spot ahead of Zobrist. At Yahoo, Zobrist is being taken 36 spots earlier. As a group, these 7 2B average being a taken at 67th over all at Yahoo. At MDC, they average being taken at the 77th spot. I believe there is plenty of talent at the 2B position and there is no reason reach for one of this group early. I think MDC’s numbers are closer to where these 2B should be drafted, about one round later.
– Danny Espinosa and Neil Walker are lower at Yahoo compared to MDC. I am guessing it is because everyone has already participated in a run on the over-ranked 2B earlier in the draft. The pair has been taken 100% of the time on both websites.
– Kelly Johnson is loved and Aaron Hill is hated by Yahoo compared to MDC. At MDC, they are being taken at almost the same clip. Johnson was taken 71% of the time with a ADP of 235. Aaron Hill was taken 81% of the with an ADP of 233. Aaron’s ADP drops 21 places to the lowest value among 2B at Yahoo. Johnson’s ADP jumps 24 spots and is the last 2B taken 100% of the time at Yahoo. Owners know that Hill has the ability to produce and are taking him late in 83% of the Yahoo leagues.
– Jason Kipnis is the biggest dropper from MDC to Yahoo of the 2B. His percentage drafted is similar (92% vs 97%), but is being taken almost 6 rounds later in the draft.
– I would not use the preset rankings for reference at all at Yahoo, especially later in the draft. If a person was to go off the percentage drafted, the ranking of the players are much improved.
Marco has been handed the 2B job of the Rockies after being traded by Boston for Clayton Mortenson. Scutaro has put up decent numbers averaging about 10 HRs and a 0.285 AVG with Boston over the last 2 seasons. While the 36-year-old is not a spring chicken, he projects to hit around 0.275 with 9 HRs.
While he is not an offensive power by any means, he is better than what the Rockies recycled through the 2B spot in 2011. They tried 7 different players at 2B last season. The seven players had a 0.256/0.304/0.351 triple slash line compared to the N.L. average for 2B of 0.258/0.319/0.380. Scutaro looks to be a significant improvement at 2B for the Rockies.
One of the ways a closer can lose his job is to not get hitters out from both sides of the plate. If a right-handed closer is only able to get RHH out consistently, teams will begin to stack the line-up with as many LHH as possible. Here is an in depth look at closer handedness splits.
I got the list of current closers from MLB Depth Charts a couple of days ago. Currently, several teams have shaky situations at closer, so this list will likely change before the beginning of Spring Training. I will try to give an update on it with the changes later.
With only 30 closers available in a draft able to accumulate Saves at any one time, not all fantasy teams will have the opportunity to get 3 closers in a 12 team league, not alone in a 20 team league. With a limited number of closers available, it is important to find other relievers to help generate stats. I am going to look at 3 of the best non-closers in the game, Koji Uehara, Sergio Romo and Joaquin Benoit.
Every week, every team gets a day off, usually on Monday or Thursday. On those days, it is nice for a fantasy owner to be able to put a player into a lineup that may add a few counting stats without hurting the team’s batting average. Zach Sanders coined these players: Plug-n-Play. These are players that have full-time jobs, but don’t have much power and don’t accumulate a ton of Runs and RBIs. Usually they hit lower in the lineup and their only fantasy attribute is batting average. I decided to look at some Plug-n-Play candidates for 2012.
Fantasy owners usually feel good about their rosters after a draft or auction. They got most of the players they wanted and/or needed. All is good. A nice core lineup is set. A couple of players with several qualified positions are waiting on the bench to fill in for a starter’s off day. Rookies were selected that should be called up soon. A pitching staff that is second to none is ready. The first waiver period expires and the guy that auto-drafted then places a player on the waiver wire you desire. Now, a owner must figure out which player they should drop to pick up the desired player.
Once a fantasy manager has completed their draft or auction, a owner needs to immediately designate the first player to be dropped. Finding a player to drop for a better player should be easy, but many owners struggle with it. It should be known at all times which player is the first to go on the team if an opportunity arises. It gives an owner flexibility to make moves while others are holding onto their preciously drafted team.