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.

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Here are the 2011 triple slash lines for 4 outfielders and the career split for another player:

0.262/0.309/0.423
0.264/0.323/0.393
0.262/0.336/0.429
0.271/0.327/0.438
0.263/0.312/0.509

All the players are similar. The first player went 14th over all in a recent Fangraphs Dynasty league draft and the others were taken at the following picks: 112th, 234th, 163rd, 62nd.

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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.

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The exodus of former Twins players to the NL West continued on Monday with DH-cum-OF Jason Kubel eschewing the draw of Coors Field with teammates Kevin Slowey and Michael Cuddyer and heading for the warmer confines of Phoenix and the Arizona Diamondbacks. If you’re puzzled about how Kubel fits into Arizona’s plan, you aren’t the only one.

The good news for fantasy owners is that Kubel’s biggest deficiency is his defense, and it plum doesn’t matter unless you’re in the rare league that uses +/- or UZR as a category. It may cost him a few plate appearances at the end of games as the Diamondbacks bring in a defensive replacement for him, but he isn’t grievously terrible in the field and shouldn’t lose too much time. It isn’t as though his defensive prowess is a secret, chances are good that the Snakes are fully aware of his issues out there and have decided his bat is worth it. Read the rest of this entry »

The strange square dance of Josh Willingham, Michael Cuddyer, the Twins, and the Rockies seems finally to have ended, and everyone — for the time being anyway — is happy with their new partner. The Twins get a player with a consistent track record of .800 OPS or better, the Rockies get the player they wanted from the start of the offseason, Willingham gets the starting job he deserves, and Cuddyer gets $10 million more than Willingham despite not really being that different a player in the outfield.

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Sometime soon, Bryce Harper will be hittin’ bombs and blowin’ kisses as the Washington Nationals’ right fielder. But could “soon” actually be this spring? The most hyped prospect in draft history might have actually exceeded expectations at age 18 during his first pro season, hitting .297/.392/.501 with 17 home runs between the Low Class-A South Atlantic League and the Double-A Eastern League in 2011. And, according to Amanda Comak of The Washington Times, Nats manager Davey Johnson seems eager to get Harper’s 80-grade power in his lineup:

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Whether he’s a Willing Ham, a Compliant Pig, or just The Pork, outfielder Josh Willingham will be making his bacon in the Twins outfield for the the foreseeable future.*

Jeff Zimmerman has already looked into batted ball profile and found that he became more pull-happy in 2011. That could bode well for his power in the coming year, but let’s look at the contextual clues in order to determine what else we can say about Willingham’s 2012.

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We got the RotoGraphs team together for a mock dynasty draft, the results of which I believe you can see here. (Just remember that Brandon Wood is a placeholder for Nolan Arenado, Anthony Vasquez = Danny Hultzen, Hector Gomez = Jurickson Profar, and Anthony Slama = Trevor Bauer.)

My team seems strong and young, at least to me. My core infield is Dustin Pedroia, Mike Morse, Brett Lawrie and Elvis Andrus, and I love starting the draft with the infield at the premium positions. Got some love in the outfield for my Jay Bruce pick earlier today, and even though I waited longer than anyone not named Podhorzer for starting pitchers, I ended up with Michael Pineda, Dan Hudson and Ricky Romero. Maybe I’ll write about all this in the future.

But maybe the most interesting thing, at least today, is that I took Ryan Braun with my second-round pick in this dynasty league mock.

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Based on some of the names Brian Sabean was rumored to be shopping at the winter meetings, it was hard to figure the Giants would pull off any sort of a deal, let alone one that would actually serve as an upgrade for the team.  But when he dealt centerfielder Andres Torres and reliever Ramon Ramirez to the Mets yesterday in exchange for 30 year old Angel Pagan, he did just that.  We’ll leave the defensive debate for Jack Moore’s piece over in FanGraphs ( I threw in my two cents in the comments section).  RotoGraphs is fantasy and in fantasy, for position players,  it’s about the hitting.  And offensively speaking, Pagan should fare well in San Francisco and improve the team’s leadoff hitting, something they are in desperate need of doing.

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The first domino has fallen in Miami. Jose Reyes will be the shortstop, for the next couple of years at least, and Hanley Ramirez will play third base. That second domino has pushed the Marlins’ remaining position battle into centerfield. Who will emerge from the three-headed beast at that position in 2012? Crockett got the occasional urge for stability in his life, but it’s chaos that produces fantasy value picks. Let’s break down the three candidates.

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