Today’s Roto Riteup features a guy with bad knees, someone who can’t hit, and a man who’s older than the earth himself. Sadly, all three of people are different and not one pathetic man.

–  Chase Utley is not going to be ready for opening day, as his knee problems keep on keepin’ on. I had suspicions that Utley was going to have issues both staying healthy and producing this year, ranking him 20th among second baseman while my compatriots place him an average of 9th. Utley is going to have these problems the rest of his career, so it’s not like you should be expecting a bounceback in keeper leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

Your Monday edition of FanGraphs’ Roto Riteup is just around the corner. Hey, there it is now!

–  Bryce Harper has been sent to minor league camp, which means he will not start the season with the big league club. Harper looks to be a great major league player, but he just wasn’t quite ready yet. I’d like to see if he can drop his strikeout rate in the minors while maintaining his power stroke before calling the greatest prospect who ever lived, but he’s about as talented as they come, and far advanced for his age. Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson has stated that Harper will get work at CF while in the minors, potentially making him insanely valuable in leagues that differentiate outfield spots.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the 2012 season just a few short weeks away, it’s time for the return of the Roto Riteup to the RotoGraphs lineup. If you were not reading the site late last season, this will be new to you. And you will enjoy it.

Now, onto the notes for the day:

–  Yesterday I mentioned that Salvador Perez had injured his knee but the severity was still unknown. The severity of the injury is now fully known, and the Royals catcher is going to miss about two months after tearing his right meniscus. Perez wasn’t being drafted highly, but he was well owned in AL-only and keeper leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the 2012 season just a few short weeks away, it’s time for the return of the Roto Riteup to the RotoGraphs lineup. If you were not reading the site late last season, this will be new to you. And you will enjoy it.

Now, onto the notes for the day, most of which involve injuries of some kind:

–  Francisco Liriano is one the biggest enigmas in baseball at the moment, right behind Jeff Francoeur and David Appelman. Liriano pitched for the Twins on Tuesday, and while he looked good early in his stint, he got rocked a little bit during his last inning of work against the Toronto Blue Jays. After the game, Liriano talked about how he feels like he’s trying to overthrow and rush things on the mound, which is not a recipe for big league success. His fastball was reported to be in the low-90s, but if he can’t control his fastball, he’ll be a sitting duck again this season. I’d take a flyer on Liriano in the last round or two of standard leagues if there’s any indication that he’s calmed down enough to pitch effectively.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the 2012 season just a few short weeks away, it’s time for the return of the Roto Riteup to the RotoGraphs lineup. If you were not reading the site late last season, this will be new to you. And you will enjoy it.

Now, onto the notes:

• – Hopefully you’ve heard by now that Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter is questionable for opening day after discovering he has a bulging cervical disk. Lance Lynn, previously slotted for the bullpen, will begin to prepare to open the season in the rotation just in case Carpenter can’t make it back. Lynn was a starter throughout his minor league career, but his results weren’t spectacular. His stats weren’t stunning, but his repertoire is nice. Lynn has a sweet power-sinker and a decent curve, so there’s no reason to think he couldn’t at least fill in as a starter. If you play in a dynasty or similar format, make sure to snatch Lynn up. At the very least, he’ll fill your RP slot with Ks and the occasional spot start. Read the rest of this entry »

With the 2012 season just a few short weeks away, it’s time for the return of the Roto Riteup to the RotoGraphs lineup. If you were not reading the site late last season, this will be new to you. And you will enjoy it.

Now, onto the notes for the day:

• Cespedes’ First Impression
• Yoenis Cespedes not only homered in his American debut, but he crushed the ball and even took a walk in his first trip to the plate. Whether or not he starts in the minors is going to be a fluid decision for the A’s, but I’m willing to bet he spends at least a few weeks in the minors getting his legs under him and adapting to his new life. The A’s already seem to have a full outfield, so they aren’t going to be in any hurry to rush his development any more than they already have with his contract. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Under almost no circumstance, fly through O’Hare. It is not worth it.

2. On Wednesday, in his first spring training game, Jonathan Sanchez’s fastball was off by 2-3 MPH. He may get the speed back. He may not. If a person has a draft before his next start, there is a no need to pick up a below average pitcher with velocity issues. Just go for the below average pitcher with no velocity issues.

More fastball speed updates

3. Ubaldo Jimenez fastball (94 to 96 MPH) is closer to his 2009 and 2010 levels (96 MPH) than 2011 levels (93.5 MPH) .

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, the FanGraphs Staff League II finished up its fantasy auction. Starting at 6:30pm EST, we plugged away until our eyes became blurry, our muscle coordination began to fail, and we became so delirious that even Chone Figgins and Ryan Roberts started to look damn attractive. Staring at a computer screen intensely for 5 hours — stressing out over fringe major-league players — is a recipe to make anyone go insane.

Now that our draft is done, I figured I’d share with everyone a nifty resource that I put together: a tiered ranking for every position, based on players’ projected points according to ZiPS and CAIRO. As I explained in my first post:

I took ZiPS projections for hitters (from the Baseball Think Factory) and CAIRO projections for [starting] pitchers (from RLYW), and then converted these projections into an expected point total for each player. I then broke these players up by position and tiered them, allowing me to see at a glance which positions were deeper than others and which might hold unexpected value.

Well, here is my spreadsheet (right-click, “Save As”). I’ve included the prices that players went for in our draft (minus some of the later round selections, when I couldn’t keep up). This is obviously most helpful for FanGraphs Points leagues, but it’s not a bad proxy for other leagues as well. I’ve included my tiers, and then also included the larger ZiPS and CAIRO projections so that you can find points projections for other players not included in the tiers.

Please keep in mind that these spreadsheets are far from perfect. The projections don’t account for issues like playing time or injuries — Notice how Victor Martinez is highly ranked? — and projection systems are notoriously rough when it comes to rookies. I have not tampered with these rankings in any way, though, because I wanted to present them to you relatively unbiased (you still have to deal with my somewhat arbitrary cut-off points for tiers).

Based on these rankings, there were a couple players that I targeted coming into the draft, since I thought they might be underrated by most people. I didn’t end up with all of these players, but they all did end up being pretty good bargains:

Read the rest of this entry »

Due to the rampant success of the first FanGraphs staff ottoneu league — and the fact that the FanGraphs staff has grown tenfold over the past year — we put together a second FanGraphs staff fantasy league for this season, figuring our readers can never have too much ottoneu content. See the labors we go through for you, our loyal readers? This league is a selfless endeavor, and its sole purpose is to educate and entertain the masses. Please, don’t thank us. We do this for love.*

*And by “love”, I may or may not be referring to you, our loyal readers, or fantasy baseball.

This league is a FanGraphs Points league, and since this is the league’s first season, we have to complete an epic, 8+ hour auction draft that is standard fare for ottoneu leagues (it gets quicker in subsequent years). We chose to break this draft into two parts, and completed the first four-hour block last night.

Chad Young will have a general recap of the draft a bit later, but in the meantime, I want to pass along some thoughts about my strategy and observations. Because, you know, fantasy baseball is a selfish endeavor, and even if nobody else cares about my fantasy team, I sure as hell do and I’m going to make you all suffer with me.*

*Actually, I think there were some good take-away points from last night’s draft about player valuation and draft strategy. So hopefully my observations will actually be useful, and not just self-aggrandizing. 

Without further ado, let’s get on to the draft. I have three main points I’d like to focus on, which as general strategies should make sense in any league format.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last season, the first five pitchers off the board were Roy Halladay, Tim Lincecum, Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee and Jon Lester. But what will 2012 look like? Let’s take a guess.

1. Roy Halladay. Nothing has changed here. Halladay is consistently brilliant and he will be the first pitcher drafted because of his long track record of dominance and his placement in the NL.

Read the rest of this entry »