Earlier this month we ranked relievers with a heavy emphasis on saves, since that’s their primary role on a fantasy team. Lots of leagues use holds as well, so here’s a ranking of the top fantasy options for holds going into 2011…
As much joy as the game of fantasy baseball brings to most of us, it can also bring an enormous amount of frustration and anxiety. They say you shouldn’t keep that sort of stuff bottled up inside you, unless, of course, you enjoy the taste of bile and all the other stomach acids that a bleeding ulcer provides. You need to get it out. But what are you going to do, bitch to your girlfriend? Try to gain sympathy from your fellow owners? Doubtful. Her level of care is reciprocal to your level of interest in her best friend’s latest relationship disaster and deep down, your fellow owners are wishing this kind of stuff on you. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re eight days away from the start of the season, so let’s check in on some ninth inning situations around the league…
While the season hasn’t started yet, it’s never too early to get familiar with your league’s waiver wire. Situations are still changing on some teams and by keeping up with the news, you’ll be better prepared to pounce on a potential quality pick-up before your competition. The waiver wire articles you’ll find here focus on players owned in less than 50% of Yahoo! and ESPN leagues. Read the rest of this entry »
During the course of the season, I will be discussing players owned in 10% or fewer of leagues on CBS Sports. Hopefully these targets will go on to have career-rest-of-the-seasons and you will thank me endlessly for sharing my wisdom. I apologize in advance if any players I mention are not available in your particular league, as I am not quite all-knowing, but working on reaching that level in due time. And off we go…
Reading the daily tea leaves surrounding the possible move of Neftali Feliz from closer to starter can get a little confusing. First, he’s their closer until something changes and he wants to be the closer. Now, he wants to be a starter and his GM thinks he would be more valuable in that role. Last, a national writer feels it would be an upset if he starts. What a way to mess up rankings.
The good news for those that drafted Feliz is that he’ll probably be valuable in fantasy baseball either way. He’s so excellent that he can survive the average 0.7 MPH drop that occurs during the switch according to Jeremy Greenhouse’s work. If his 96 MPH gas turns into 95 MPH gas, it’s still gas. According to Tom Tango’s work, he’ll also lose about 17% of his K/PA and his BABIP and HR/FB will increase by about 17%.
So all Andrew Bailey has is a forearm strain and Brad Lidge is merely sitting with a sore right biceps tendon. If you’ve already drafted and own either guy, it’s time to play it safe, grab Brian Fuentes and Jose Contreras, maybe even Grant Balfour and Ryan Madson, and consider the bullet dodged….for now. But if you haven’t drafted yet, then perhaps it’s time for a little strategy session and see if you can turn this potential closer catastrophe to your favor. Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday, Mike rolled out our long list of reliever rankings which included many familiar names from seasons past, some of them dating back to the 90’s. But there are some new arms vying for the fireman role this season and some of them have tremendous promise.
As we’ve done with all the other positions so far, let’s take a look at some closers who’ve moved more down than up the rankings over the last year…
Ah, relief pitchers, the little brother of the fantasy baseball team. No matter how well they do, they still don’t measure up. Take last year for example. The most valuable reliever – Carlos Marmol – had a 3.1 WAR, which is terrific until you consider that it was still less valuable than Juan Uribe and his 3.2 WAR. This is a lesson savvy fantasy owners take to heart – very rarely does it pay to pump a significant portion of your budget into relievers. There will always be guys who emerge as closers early in the season, and if you can pick them up on the cheap, you’ll do just fine. But, if you’re going to pay for closers, you want to at least get it right. You don’t want to pay $20 for Jose Valverde, and then watch your blood pressure balloon along with his BB/9 rate. With that in mind, here are the RG top five targets at relief pitcher. Neftali Feliz is ostensibly a top five guy (see the reliever rankings here), but since he may end up in the Rangers’ starting rotation, we’ll leave him out of the discussion for now.
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