Yesterday, Alexi Ogando struggled against the Kansas City Royals in his first appearance of the year. While it is not uncommon for a pitcher to struggle during spring training, it was how he struggled which worries me. He struggled with his delivery and maintaining his velocity. His next few outings should be monitored closely to see if he has a possible injury.
The editors apologize for the title error. As reader Matt Bertelli notes below, however, “No one would read the post if it said Astros rotation.”
The Astros make the move to the American League this year and this switch is going to hurt their pitching staff. Of course, even in the National League this was not a staff that made fantasy owners very excited, but now it becomes even more of a struggle to identify anyone worth pursuing in shallower leagues.
For the most part, the Athletics have an exciting young starting rotation. But with youth comes inexperience, so it’s a group that could lead the team to another playoff visit or break the hearts of Oakland fans. Enough with the cliches, let’s dive into the players.
Your voices have been heard. Tallying six big votes for the next pitcher to be Pod Projected was 2012 breakout starting pitcher, Jeff Samardzija. I owned him in all of my leagues last year after scooping him up post-draft during spring training and I know how to spell his name without looking it up! Impressive feat, I know. So what will the “Shark” do for an encore?
The Texas Rangers’ hopes for contention in the strong AL West depends on whether their starting pitching can take a step forward. The club enters the year with more uncertainty at the position than they’ve experienced in recent seasons. In the past, the team had enough depth at the position to survive a let-down or injury. With Colby Lewis and Neftali Feliz out until at least mid-season, the club could be in trouble if any of their top-five options falter.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have published several of my hitter projections with a detailed explanation of each metric projected. Today, it’s finally time to switch over to the pitching side. Kris Medlen returned from Tommy John surgery with a bang last year, posting a microscopic 0.97 ERA and 0.81 WHIP as a starter. A performance like that will grab the attention of fantasy owners and it has vaulted him up the ADP charts, as he has been getting drafted 75th overall and 14th among starting pitchers on Mock Draft Central. With a limited history, projecting him is tough. Let’s go through the process, of which you can read more about here.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be covering each team’s potential depth charts in an effort to shine a spotlight on the interesting playing time battles that will be waged this spring. Obviously none of these depth charts are set in stone — rather they should function to focus your attention in the right places to find cheap fantasy value.
Here’s all we can say that we know for certain about the Dodger rotation right now, as pitchers & catchers around baseball are reporting to camp: Clayton Kershaw is going to start on Opening Day against the Giants, and Zack Greinke is going to follow him. Read the rest of this entry »
Phew. After a nearly four and a half hour snake draft online, I have officially completed the earliest draft in my fantasy baseball career. LABR stands for League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and along with Tout Wars, is one of the two most publicized “expert” leagues. In the past, LABR has had only two leagues, an AL-Only and NL-Only, with both formats using a live auction in Arizona to select players. Last year, a mixed league with an online draft was formed and I participated in the inaugural season as well. With that background out of the way, let’s get into more league specifics.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be covering each team’s potential depth charts in an effort to shine a spotlight on the interesting playing time battles that will be waged this spring. Obviously none of these depth charts are set in stone — rather they should function to focus your attention in the right places to find cheap fantasy value.
Projected Rotation:
Jorge de la Rosa
Jhoulys Chacin
Juan Nicasio
Jeff Francis
Drew Pomeranz
Waiting in the Wings:
Christian Friedrich
Tyler Chatwood
Chris Volstad
No matter what the venue is, pitchin’ ain’t easy. The humidor has helped, but pitching well in Coors Field remains to baseball what invading Russia in winter is to infantries: difficult and bordering on impossible. Rockies starting pitchers have managed to keep their collective ERA under 4.50 just twice since 2000 and their home ERA over the same span is a rather inflated 5.02. On paper, the Rockies appear to have a very similar rotation to last year’s less-than-august crew. Their starters combined for 5.1 WAR last year or 0.4 WAR less than Clayton Kershaw had on his own, which would seem to portend more rough sailing for the Rockies in 2013.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be covering each team’s potential depth charts in an effort to shine a spotlight on the interesting playing time battles that will be waged this spring. Obviously none of these depth charts are set in stone — rather they should function to focus your attention in the right places to find cheap fantasy value.
Today we head out to San Diego to check in on the Padres rotation, which could be legitimately labeled a mess at the moment. The good news is that there are some intriguing options, the bad news is for the forecasters (like me!) trying to project innings total for their potential starters. It’s not fun, let me tell you. I won’t pretend to really have a clue as to which five starters will open the season in the rotation, but I will do my best to analyze the options.
