What should baseball general managers make of Melky Cabrera? The same question could be asked of fantasy owners. How can we predict, with any confidence, what type of season Cabrera will produce next year? The Blue Jays felt confident enough to give Cabrera a two-year, $16 million contract. And, honestly, Cabrera doesn’t have to be all that good in order to live up to that contract, as my colleague Jeff Sullivan recently explained. But fantasy owners are hoping for more than just a decent performance from Melky going forward. Based on his recent history, how he’ll perform is really anyone’s guess.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday night, the Marlins followed up their latest salary dump by welcoming back Juan Pierre. With Logan Morrison expected to become the team’s starting first baseman, assuming he’s not traded as well, Pierre should see everyday at-bats in left field. With every other lead-off option now gone, Pierre will likely hit atop the lineup on a regular basis.

Read the rest of this entry »

No, I’m not alluding to Alexander the Great or commenting on Chris Young’s agility, which I’m sure he possesses boatloads of. Back on October 20, Young came to the Beane, as he was traded to Oakland to give them their bajillionth outfielder. Without even looking at numbers, we could be pretty sure that all else equal, Young’s performance will suffer moving into spacious O.co Coliseum (can I officially nominate this as the worst name for an MLB park? thanks). But of course, this is FanGraphs, and we’re all about our calculators and slide rules, so let’s see exactly how his production may be affected.

Read the rest of this entry »

Learning fantasy lessons in the postseason is a tricky affair. By its nature, a postseason series is a small sample. Also by its nature, a postseason series receives greater emphasis, fair (the games are high leverage when compared to a mid-season tilt) or not (they’re still just seven games). Even though the statistics are kept separately and are often out of mind, though, the fact that this is still baseball means that there is something that can be gleaned from it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every season, we fantasy owners could choose to bust our budget for a top first baseman who will contribute handsomely in four categories or spring for a cheaper option, perhaps one we might consider a sleeper. Brandon Belt and John Mayberry were two popular choices for the latter category, but unfortunately, they remained in a slumber all season. Based on Zach Sanders’ magical formula, Belt actually reduced the final value of a fantasy team by a buck, ranking 39th among first basemen, while Mayberry did even more damage, “earning” a strong -$5 (yes, negative), and ranking 46th. So what happened and is there post-sleeper hope for next season?

Read the rest of this entry »

The pre-season prediction reviews continue this week and today I recap my bold hitter league leaders. Since these players were meant to be bold choices, I purposely did not pick any of the obvious guys or anyone I thought might not be considered very bold. Though I expected to hit a couple of my bold predictions, it would have been quite a surprise if I actually hit on any of these league leaguers. Let’s see how I did.

Read the rest of this entry »

It occurred to me while getting ready to prepare my Turtle piece — buy lows who panned out wonderfully — that I really had a pair who were virtually identical in each league. Oddly enough, it was ‘out with the old, in with the older’ as I more or less doubled down on a departed Twin — Jason Kubel — and an incoming one — Josh Willingham — as late draft power sleepers.

I think the Willingham pick was a bit more difficult to justify, though neither by themselves would be considered a ‘lock’ to produce. Willingham certainly played relatively well, hitting about half of his home runs on the road, and half at cavernous O.Co Coliseum. The 29 homers were Willingham’s largest power output home run-wise, but there was no guarantee that Target Field, which to date hadn’t been very accommodating to any sort of power hitter, would provide any sort of boost to the Hammer in his age-33 season. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, I reviewed the hitters who I calculated to be the most overvalued at each position (sans catcher) in the pre-season. Today I will recap those who I figured to be the most undervalued at those positions. And surprise, we actually have a catcher this time. I will begrudgingly use the Yahoo rankings again and hopefully no position eligibility drama will ensue this time around. Just to repeat what I said in the comments of the overvalued article, I base my own valuations/rankings on 20 games played last year and 10 this year. So to keep things consistent, I have to apply the same rules on the Yahoo final season rankings to accurately compare.

Read the rest of this entry »

The staff voting for the American League Fantasy Turtle was one of the most varied ballots for any award. The full award listing was described in full detail by Eno yesterday. All told, the AL Fantasy Turtle balloting was as follows:

Read the rest of this entry »

Everything was in place for Jacoby Ellsbury to have a monster season. He was exceptional in 2011, when he hit .321/.376/.552, and finished second in the AL MVP voting. Ellsbury entered 2012 looking to turn in another solid season, and, at age 28, there was no reason to think he would experience a significant decline. While his power numbers seemed like a fluke, there were some signs that maybe Ellsbury had changed his approach, and that the power would remain.

None of those things happened. A shoulder injury put Ellsbury on the shelf early in the season. Once he returned, he hardly looked like the same player. His .271/.313/.370 slash line was pedestrian, and his power completely disappeared. Given that Ellsbury was one of the top fantasy outfielders coming into the year, his performance makes him a prime candidate for LVP.

Read the rest of this entry »