– Huston Street will be starting the year on the DL, which isn’t a good sign for those of you who decided to select him as a keeper. He had problems with tightness in his shoulder over the past month, and had an MRI done yesterday. Street hasn’t had shoulder problems in the past, so this isn’t too much of a concern. Still, a closer with arm troubles is hard to judge, because missing a few weeks could mean losing their job. I doubt Street will lose his gig, but keep an eye on him.

– The big ball of power known as Mat Gamel has had a hard time recovering from a sore shoulder. Gamel entered spring hoping to win the third base job, but now I’d bet that Casey McGehee will start the year with the job. McGehee may not hit .300 again, but 15 homers and a .275 average are reasonable expectations. McGehee is eligible at second and third base, and is currently the 210th player off the board according to Mock Draft Central.

– A’s closer Andrew Bailey is going to sit out for a couple days due to elbow soreness. Bailey’s rookie campaign was helped by a .234 BABIP against, but his strong strikeout and walk numbers should translate over to 2010.

– Dustin McGowan pitched two innings in a simulated game this week, and the Jays still don’t have a timetable for his return. McGowan had a good 2007 and a decent 2008, but since his progress has been slow he is no longer draftable even in the deepest of leagues with a DL spot.

– Placido Polanco suffered a sprained right knee earlier in the week, and he hopes to return to action tomorrow.

– Rick Ankiel’s ankle is starting to become a legitimate concern for the Royals, and he isn’t likely to play until Sunday, at the earliest.

Every once and awhile I will be reading through comments on articles and in the forums, and I’ve noticed an interest in leagues involving WAR, wOBA, etc. I’m not surprised, since this is a statistical site that uses those numbers every day. However, not enough is being said about these “strange” leagues, so I think we need to shed some light on the situation.

WAR Leagues

WAR leagues are always going to be fun and much more realistic, seeing that they actually use defense, which is just as important as the offensive side of the ball. Since UZR is involved, you can’t exactly set up a Yahoo! league to track WAR, whether you want to or not. That leaves you with two options. You can continuously call Yahoo! until they give in, or you can start your own WAR league. I’ve heard of some readers forming their own leagues using WAR, and doing a draft on their own time. This is a great idea, and the boys over at Beyond The Boxscore have a draft every year. In fact, BtB takes it one step further and uses MLB contracts and assigns each owner a $60mm salary cap. This makes drafting hard, and forces owners to put a lot of work in (I should know, I’ve done the draft each year and am actually running a league this year). These leagues aren’t difficult to run after the draft, because each owner can enter his players into his FanGraphs account and check on his team quite easily.

Real Runs

Every fantasy league has the option to use “runs” as a category, but that just counts how many times the player crossed the plate, not how many runs he actually contributed at the plate. Fortunately, there is now a very easy solution for this. In a league I am in with BtB writer JinAZ, he has set our scoring to a “wRC*10 scale”. This point system can now be found on Beyond the Boxscore, if that is something you are interested in. I have to say, I am very excited to see how the draft goes for this league, because the rankings will be different from standard rankings, though by how much remains to be seen.

The new wave of fantasy leagues will eventually be noticed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the “Big Three” (CBS, ESPN, Yahoo) implement more advanced stats in the coming years to satisfy their customers. Don’t forget, the more you bug them, the sooner they will be implemented.

– Alex Gordon broke his thumb, and will miss the next 3-4 weeks. The once highly touted prospect has struggled in the bigs, coming in at -3.3 batting runs for his career. He was likely to put up a solid 2010 campaign, but his injury could hurt his playing time. If the newly acquired Josh Fields plays well in spring training action, he might be able to sneak in and steal the third base job. However, it is more likely that Fields and Gordon will simply platoon, with Fields seeing time against southpaws.

– Dodgers catcher Russell Martin has a pulled groin, according to MRI’s, and will miss the next 4-6 weeks. Martin was in line for a nice bounceback season, with all of the projection systems having him hitting around .273 with 12 homers, and double digit steals. But, a leg injury could make him timid at the plate and could stop him from running as much. Leg injuries always scare me with catchers, and this is no exception. A.J. Ellis will get time in Martin’s absence, but he isn’t important, as his value is as close to zero as you can possibly imagine.

– As you’ve probably heard, Angel Guzman’s career is in question after suffering a major tear in a ligament “near his armpit”, as well as shoulder problems. He plans to have surgery and attempt to come back from his injury, but he wouldn’t be available to pitch this season. Guzman was looking to be the setup man in Chicago this year, and had value as a handcuff to Carlos Marmol, and even more value in Holds leagues. Now it appears that John Grabow is likely to get more high leverage innings, and the Cubs are going to go searching for a new right handed setup man on the trade market.

– Jeff Francis returned to action Friday, after not pitching since September 12 or 2008. Francis isn’t a fantastic fantasy pitcher, but he is a nice source of wins if he’s healthy.

– Josh Hamilton has a bruised left shoulder, and is trying to work his way back. He went 2-3 and scored a run in a spring training game on Monday.

– In other Dodger news, third baseman Casey Blake had to be pulled out of the team’s game on Monday, due to a strained rib-cage muscle. The prognosis is unclear, but it doesn’t appear to be anything serious and the club just wants to be careful.

Every fantasy owner has their personal list of prospects that they follow throughout the season, waiting to pounce on them should they be called up. Sure, everyone had guys like Evan Longoria, Ryan Braun, and Buster Posey on their list, but there is always a few fringe prospects that could be of interest that no one else is thinking about. For me, one of those guys is Tony Gwynn, Jr. Following the 2006 season, in which he hit .300/.360/.396 with 30 steals in Triple-A, I was hooked. I liked him more for his name value than his production, but was interested in following his development nonetheless.

During 249 MLB games scattered across four seasons, Gwynn has been unimpressive. He has posted a career line of .261/.331/.326, good (bad?) enough for a wOBA of .298 and a wRC+ of 85. However, his career 9.2% walk rate is a plus, as is his 23% career line drive rate.

In 607 minor league games, Gwynn stole 151 bases in 205 tries (73.6% success rate). In 249 games in the majors, Gwynn has stolen 25 bases in 35 tries, coming in at a lower 71.4% success rate. A stolen base rate dropping once a player hits the big time is to be expected, due to veteran pitchers who can keep runners honest and catchers with better arms behind the plate. The big problem is that he is not being given the green light enough, and is on pace to attempt approximately half the steals he did in the minors over the same period of games.

Even though Gwynn has consistently hit below league average, his defense will keep him around in the big leagues. Both the FANS and CHONE have Gwynn at 5 runs below replacement level at the plate in 2010, yet both have him as a 2 WAR player. The CHONE projections have him with less than 500 plate appearances, so they are not inflated by unlikely playing time.

Talking to people that know the Padres far better than I do, it sounds like Gwynn will be given every opportunity to take the center field job. I’m still skeptical, but if he can get ample playing time, a .270 average with 15 steals is not out of the question, and will provide some value in NL-only and deep leagues.

This is the first part of a series that will check up on injured players and recent injuries during spring training.

– Brandon Webb is working his way back from shoulder issues, and threw 43 pitches in a bullpen session on Sunday. He also threw 45 pitches in a previous bullpen session on Thursday. The D’Backs are trying to get him ready for some in-game appearances by mid-March, but that may be far too optimistic. Arizona has a shot to be good this year, and if they are smart they will baby him along and attempt to get 25-28 starts out of Webb this year. All looks well with Webb, but that’s what we thought going into last year, and continued to think that at times during the rehab process. If he looks healthy, take a shot at Webb.

– Brandon Inge is still going through the rehab process after undergoing surgery on both knees this offseason. Inge thinks he’ll be ready to start the year, but some Tigers officials aren’t as optimistic. Inge is “bored”, and that is leading him to try to come back from his injury quicker, which is not the best thing for him. During the first half of ’09, Inge was a stud, and it’s unclear if his second half was due to regression, injuries, or a combination of both. Now, with bad knees and lost catcher eligibility, he’s no longer draftable.

– After missing a vast majority of 2009, Daisuke Matsuzaka is continuing to work his way back for the 2010 season. He threw off a mound, although the catcher was standing, and also participated in some long toss. The Red Sox are willing to admit that Dice-K won’t be ready for opening day, but it looks like they hope he will be ready to go sometime in the first month of the season. The Red Sox may choose to go with a four-man rotation until Dice-K gets back on the mound, but they could also place Tim Wakefield in the starting rotation. Wakefield is always a strange fantasy pickup, but he could be a nice waiver wire guy for wins.

More injury notes:

• Jose Reyes tripled in an intersquad game yesterday. Hard to gauge a speed guy with a leg injury, but Reyes could be fantastic value in the late second round.
• Jesus Flores admitted that he won’t be ready for opening day. He has shown some promise in the past, but his shoulder problems combined with the arrival of Pudge will kill his value.
• After an early scare, Jair Jurrjens’ shoulder seems to be doing better. He is throwing from long distances and hopes to get on the mound next week. Until I see him on the mound, I’m skeptical.

Reader Beau B. asks:

“I get to keep three players. Two of those slots are going to Braun and Wright. The last slot will go to either Johan Santana or Justin Verlander. I’d love your input.

12 team league, 5×5 (basically the standard 5×5, but with OBP replacing BA, pitching categories are typical).”

The answer to this question is easy. I’m keeping Verlander, and not thinking twice about it. I suppose I should explain myself, so let’s go a little more in-depth.

First, Verlander is four years younger than Johan, making him a more valuable keeper. Johan also has a recent injury history, with Verlander pitching 200+ innings in three straight seasons.

Second, I think Verlander is a better fantasy pitcher than Johan this year, regardless of keeper status. Verlander won’t strike out 269 batters again, but he will get close to the 200 mark. Verlander’s 2009 was likely a career year that he will never repeat again, but there are some signs he could improve aspects of his fantasy game. His BABIP against was .328 last year, which should drop back down and settle closer to his .306 career line. The only worry I have with Verlander is his declining GB%, as it has dropped from 41.1% in 2007, to 39.9% in 2008, all the way to 36% in 2009. Comerica will help him in this regard, but any further drop in his GB% would be just plain scary.

A little over a month ago, I said this about Johan:

“From 2002-2007, he never struck out less than a batter an inning, and now he is doing so consistently. CHONE projects his strikeout rate to be at 8.11, with fan and Marcel projects hovering around the same mark. But what proof do we have that his strikeout rate should rise back towards his career average (even if it is only a slight bump)?”

On this week’s FanGraphs Audio featuring Jack Moore and Matt Klaassen, they had a discussion about Johan, and essentially came to the same conclusion. For Johan to get back to his old self (and be better than Roy Halladay) he needs to get his strikeouts in order.

Hopefully I have convinced you that you should be keeping Verlander over Johan. Quite frankly, it’s a fairly obvious decision for me.

For those of you in a non-keeper league, I’d draft Verlander over Johan, but that is a closer argument. Both are being selected around pick 45, so you aren’t going to get a value pick by choosing one over the other.

Jason Hammel and Jeff Niemann will always be connected. Both came up through the Rays system, are big dudes (6’6” and 6’9”), and were in the running for the fifth starter spot in Tampa last spring. The Rays decided they’d rather have Niemann, and dealt Hammel to the Rockies during the first week of April.

Both Hammel and Niemann had solid ’09 campaigns, but who is the better pick in 2010?

Niemann went 13-6 with a 3.94 ERA, striking out 6.23 batters per nine and walking 2.94 per nine. He posted a 4.53 xFIP, .304 BABIP, and 73.7% LOB%, showing that his numbers weren’t to far off from what we’d expect. Niemann is currently the 56th pitcher being taken, and the 213th player off the board overall. He is being drafted in 96.7% of leagues.

Hammel went 10-8 with a 4.33 ERA, striking out 6.78 batters per nine, and walking 2.14 per nine. He posted a 3.81 xFIP, .337 BABIP, and 69.5% LOB%, which could translate into a better line in 2010. In 384 big league innings Hammel has a career BABIP of .331, but that should drop closer to the .300 mark as his career progresses. Hammel is the 99th pitcher off the board, and the 362nd player overall. He is being drafted in a mere 2.9% of leagues.

Why is Niemann being drafted so much higher than Hammel? For one, I would venture a guess that the old stigma behind Coors Field is catching up to Hammel. His numbers are very similar to Niemann’s, although his stuff graded out lower according to our Pitch Value data.

Hammel at 362 is an infinitely better value than Niemann at 213, and I think Hammel may move up some boards as the season draws nearer. Hammel isn’t an ace, but neither is Niemann, and one is being taken in almost every league while one is hardly being picked at all. Take advantage of the value Hammel presents in deeper and NL-only leagues, and keep an eye on him as a possible waiver wire pickup in standard leagues.

Want more fantasy analysis? Purchase the Second Opinion, FanGraphs’ 2010 Fantasy Companion for only $7.95.

If you aren’t a Dungeon Master and actually leave the house every once and awhile, you know about the social faux pas that is double dipping. If not, “double dipping” is when you dip a chip, take a bite, and then dip again. It is frowned upon because not only are you a fat slob with an insatiable appetite for guacamole, but you are spreading your germs into the bowl of dip.

Double dipping shows up elsewhere in life, including fantasy leagues. What is Fantasy Baseball double dipping you ask? Fantasy double dipping is when an event affects two different stat categories in your league. When an event counts twice, it can skew league results slightly and have a small affect on player rankings. Fantasy double dipping comes in two forms: acceptable, and unacceptable. First, let us look at some acceptable double dipping:

• HR & R/RBI/AVG – A home run goes into almost every category, but since it is such a special event it can slide through.

That’s it! The above case is the only common acceptable case of double dipping. Now, some of the many unacceptable cases:

• ERA & QS – If you had a quality start, you had a low ERA.
• AVG & OBP – A walk counts once, but a hit counts twice? Absurd.
• OPS & OBP/SLG – OPS is “On-base plus slugging”. It’s in the name, people.

Consider this a public service announcement. In the words of the almighty Seinfeld, “Just take one dip and end it!”

Reader G. Azama submitted this question to me directly, but it’s a mailbag question nonetheless:

I’m in a 14 Team mixed keeper league. We get to keep any 7 players and as far as I know, there’s no limitation on how many years we get to keep the players.

Positions are C,C,1B,2B,3B,SS,CI,MI, 5 OF, bunch of pitchers and long bench.

Stats are the basic 5×5 plus OPS and Holds. Because of the holds, Closers are hard to come by, in fact very hard to come by if you don’t draft them.

I had a pretty good team and got nip at the end and came in second. My potential keepers are Chase Utley, Tim Lincecum, Joey Votto, Kung-Fu Panda, Kendry Morales, Jonathan Broxton, Andre Ethier, Tommy Hanson, Cole Hamels.

Straight up keepers. Draft position from last year is not a factor.the draft will be done in the reverse order of the finish in every round. In other words, I will be drafting thirteenth on every round, since I came in second last year.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what makes sense. As you can see I’ve got quite a few good young players! Hard decision. I think the top 4 are keepers for sure. It’s after that that I have a hard time deciding.

I completely agree that Timmy, Utley, Votto and Pablo Sandoval are instant keepers in this case. I also think that you need to keep Broxton to at least have one closer on your roster. That leaves us with Kendry, Ethier, Hanson and Hamels to fill two spots.

Kendry provided owners with more power than they could have ever hoped for, with a fantastic average to boot. For the most part, his 34 homers came out of no where, but he did have a brief history of power in Triple-A during the 2008 season, hitting 15 homers in 340 plate appearances. However, a .335 BABIP is likely to drop bringing his average down below the .300 mark. Also, Kendry doesn’t draw many walks so his value drops in OBP leagues, but an OPS league keeps his value high.

Ethier’s power last year was also a pleasant surprise, but his .272 average was a disappointment. He isn’t likely to hit 31 homers again, but 25 homers is not out of the question. Unlike Kendry, Ethier draws a walk and can keep his OPS high even when he is in a “slump”. His average should rise back to around .285, and a solid lineup around him means good production all around.

David Golebiewski already did quite the workup on Hanson in December, so I’m not going to step on his work and repeat what he said. Cole Hamels had a career year in 2008, and then posted career worst fantasy numbers in 2009. However, his FIP was exactly the same in both years, coming in at 3.72. Will the real Cole Hamels please stand up? 2010 is likely to be an average of 2008 and 2009, with his ERA coming in around 3.70 with good wins, strikeouts and WHIP.

I really like Kendry, but with Votto and Kung-Fu Panda already on the roster he is expendable. In a league with five outfielders, I’m keeping Either, that much I’m sure about. Now we are down to Hanson and Hamels for one last spot. Because there is no limit on how long you can keep players, I’m keeping Hanson.

To recap, I’m keeping Timmy, Utley, Votto, Panda, Broxton, Ethier and Hanson.

Have a question for the mailbag? Send it to rotographs+mailbag@fangraphs.com.

Now is the beautiful time of year that leagues are beginning to form. Commissioners are emailing participants to confirm interest, and discuss possible rule changes for the upcoming season. This is the process that is taking place in a league I participate in, and I am creating quite a stir.

A group of us in the league are considered to be the “active” owners who constantly check rosters, scour the waiver wire, and always show up at our online draft. The rest of the league is considered to be the “casual” owners who just want to have some fun. We “active” owners were discussing some possible changes in the rules, and I submitted a proposal to switch the league from batting average to OBP. All of the active owners thought OBP was superior to AVG, but two of them turned it down on the grounds that it would handicap the casual players even more than they already are.

Going into a full league vote sometime later in the week, the voting is set at 2-2. So, now it is down to the rest of the league to push OBP through and make me happy in the process.

Chances are, someone reading this is wondering why a league would want to complicate things and switch to OBP, or are thinking about convincing their league to do the same. Here are some simple arguments as to why a league should adopt OBP:

1. When a player reaches base, I want credit for it. It really is a simple concept. I cannot tell you how many 0-2 games it seems I had from Manny last year, where I received no credit for him reaching base in his other trips to the plate.

2. The player is helping his team by reaching first base, so why shouldn’t he help mine? Again, a very simple and straightforward idea, but some still cannot wrap their head around it.

The only argument I have heard against changing a league to OBP is that the casual players would have problems because the players rankings being used by the draft site do not change, leaving some players vastly overvalued. My argument against that idea is simple: Deal with it. Show up to the draft and do a small bit of research and there will be no issues.

Now, I want to hear from you, the reader. Have any of you recently convinced a league to switch to OBP? If so, how did it go? I believe an OBP league is utterly superior to an AVG league, but getting most to switch over will be a long struggle that will ultimately ruin some leagues due to conflict.