Signing Jeff Keppinger to play third base was the Chicago White Sox’s biggest move of the offseason. That tells you two things. It shows that the team will sport a similar lineup to last season, and it also tells you just how uneventful the past few months have been for the club. The only other change to infield personnel comes at catcher, where Tyler Flowers will finally get a chance to show what he can do in a full-time role. While it’s hard to see any breakout candidates in the White Sox’s infield, they do offer some reliable veteran options.

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The Cubs are in the middle of a major rebuild, and that includes the bullpen. The club doesn’t have an obvious long-term closer or any other relievers that make you think they’ll be part of the next great Cubs team without a big step forward. That doesn’t make it a bad bullpen unit though, nor does it mean they lack fantasy-relevant arms. In fact, Chicago has several interesting relievers (and potential starters who may wind up relievers) worth having on your roster. The new front office regime stockpiled some nice arms this past offseason.

Closer
Carlos Marmol

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One might think that writing about the Detroit infield would be easy. After all, how difficult could it be to say that “Prince Fielder & Miguel Cabrera are great and you should draft them”? Because, they are great. And you should draft them.

We can try to do better, though. Fielder’s debut as a Tiger was nothing short of a success, putting up a season that saw him lead all qualified major league first basemen in wOBA. (Joey Votto, of course, was far ahead, but missed too much time due to injury.) Fielder’s .398 mark was right in line with his .393 career average and there’s little to think he won’t be able to do it again, though it’s interesting to see that he got there somewhat differently than usual. His 30 homers tied for sixth among first basemen and were his lowest since hitting 28 in his rookie season of 2006. That’s partially due to the fact that he set a career low in flyball percentage (33.3%); while his HR/FB rate was within career norms, fewer flyballs is going to equal fewer homers. That’s not entirely a bad thing, because those balls largely turned into line drives, contributing to a career best .313 batting average. Fantasy players would like to see a few more of those hits end up over the fence, though either way, Fielder remains an easy top-three first baseman in all formats. Read the rest of this entry »

Much about the White Sox bullpen is more stable than it has been in years. They have a closer in place, they have a set of reliable set-up men, and they have respectable depth in the minors should they need it. However, with six viable starters for five slots, the Sox also have the option of moving Hector Santiago or Jose Quintana into the bullpen for this season.

Both will join the White Sox rotation soon enough, but if Santiago is the odd man out, he’ll likely stay with the major league club in a set-up role. This is unlikely to affect either of the Matts – Thorton and Lindstrom – but it could move Nate Jones from his set-up job back down to lower leverage middle relief.

The White Sox bullpen was right about league average last season, but with another year of experience for players like Addison Reed and the addition of Lindstrom, there’s a very real possibility that they’ll be a top-10 bullpen this season. Read the rest of this entry »

While the Cleveland Indians had a disappointing 2012, at least they’re doing what a 94-loss team should be doing: making changes. While the solid up-the middle starters in the Cleveland infield will be sticking around, the team has shuffled their outfield and a good chunk of their infield in the hopes of improving on their dismal previous season. And while the team’s depth chart is still in flux (and may be throughout the season), there’s a lot of room here for an enterprising fantasy owner to squeeze some value out of this team.

Catcher

Carlos Santana is an upper-tier catcher capable of filling three stats consistently: homers, runs, and RBI. Despite hitting a rough patch in 2012, Santana still put up solidly above-average offensive numbers (including a 120 wRC+), and again offered plenty of plate appearances for a catcher. His batting average is a little bit of a downer (but he rocks in OBP leagues), and you can’t expect more than a handful of steals, but he’s still one of the best bets at catcher in fantasy. His backup, “Tofu” Lou Marson, is wholly un-rosterable despite getting a decent share of plate appearances backing up Santana … even though he did post a sharp walk rate and OBP in ’12.

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Few teams have experienced as much of a dramatic overhaul to the starting rotation this winter as have the Kansas City Royals. The starters underperformed in 2012, posting a combined 5.01 ERA, and the organization brought new blood. In fact, the Royals could conceivably break camp with a starting rotation that features five pitchers who were not on the 25-man roster last year on Opening Day. Crazy.

The top four starters in spring training are guaranteed spots in the rotation, according to manager Ned Yost. That means James Shields, Jeremy Guthrie, Ervin Santana and Wade Davis will anchor the staff for the Royals to begin the season. That also means the battle for the fifth spot in the rotation has not been settled, and four pitchers are vying for the opportunity to break camp as a starter: Bruce Chen, Luke Hochevar, Luis Mendoza, and Will Smith.

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There are many ways to express how bad Cleveland’s rotation was in 2012. Their staff was 3rd worst in ERA, WAR, xFIP and SIERA. They were 29th in K% and 28th in BB%, which left them tied with the Twins for the worst K%-BB%. Their “best” pitcher was Zach McAllister who gave them 125.1 innings of 4.24 ERA ball. Ubaldo Jimenez continued to see his velocity decline, and his ERA was over 5.00 as a result. The man who is likely to pitch in their 2013 season opener, Justin Masterson, posted the worst ERA of his career (4.93). They had three other pitchers who threw more than 80 innings, Derek Lowe, Josh Tomlin and Jeanmar Gomez, and none of them had an ERA below 5.50.

Thankfully, it would be almost impossible for their staff to be much worse.

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Much has been made of the success White Sox pitchers have experienced under the tutelage of pitching coach Don Cooper. Since Cooper’s first full season on the job, the rotation has consistently been a strength, ranking fifth in WAR since 1993. Last season, however, the team took a step backwards. For the first time since 2004, the rotation finished outside of the top-10 according to WAR. The team obviously believes in their current group, and will return the same cast of characters in the rotation this season.

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There are two positions clearly occupied in the Detroit Tiger outfield but there’s one very much up for grabs. The clear starter in center is Austin Jackson and the obvious starter in right is Torii Hunter. Neither will be subject to platoons and you should expect to see both of them in the lineup just about every day, given good health. Left field however has some fairly interesting possibilities relative to your fantasy squad.

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The Pirates enter 2013 looking to parlay three-straight seasons of increased win totals into the club’s first .500 or better finish since the George H.W. Bush administration. It shouldn’t take much, as the club went from 63-47 on August 8 to 79-83 to finish the season. To do some rudimentary math, that’s a .308 winning percentage in the last seven or so weeks in the season.

That’s not to say it’ll be easy for the Bucs to buck the trend; Houston is now in the AL West, and the Cubs appear to have a competent rotation and are trending the right way. The Pirates made a few moves in the offseason to shore up the entire team, but today we’ll just focus on the infield. Read the rest of this entry »