When we last left off, I was excited about my pitching, and mildly horrified with my offense. A month into the season, things haven’t changed much. Overall, my team has been a pleasant surprise — I ended last week tied for first in my division — but my margins have been thin, to say the least.
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In remembrance of the formerly-talented, forever-volatile Milton Bradley, who was designated for assignment yesterday by the Mariners following two ejections and a one-game suspension last week, here are three other American League outfielders rostered in about three-quarters of leagues that owners shouldn’t feel bad about giving the Bradley treatment at this point in the season.
Pick Six debuted last week, and since then it’s been sweeping the nation–or, at least, filling up my twitter feed. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a simple, free game that has you pick six players for the coming day’s action. The player who gets the most points that day wins! While it’s not an incredibly deep game, you do operate on a budget, and so you can’t just pick the best players at each position. Therefore, the question is, what should you do? I’m not exactly at the top of the leader boards right now, but here are some tips:
For those of you wondering, yes, go pick up Royals prospect Eric Hosmer, if he’s still available in your league. The first baseman has been called up sooner than expected — leading the minors in average and on-base percentage will do that — and will be in Friday’s lineup. He’s going to take over the starting job, and he’s worth a shot in every league, even 10-team mixed, on the chance that one of baseball’s best prospects translates his talents to the big-league level immediately. If so, we could be looking at this year’s Buster Posey.
Now back to your regularly-scheduled Mining the Minors programming, as we take a look at another minor-leaguer who could soon be making his own way to the majors, even if he’s not quite as highly-regarded.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve been keeping such close watch on my AL outfielders beat, but it seems that no position in fantasy baseball has seen more fluctuation in the first month of the season than this one. There are former studs still hitting sub-.200 (here’s to you, Carl Crawford, Alex Rios and Vernon Wells) while lesser-thought of has-beens are piling up RBIs (hello, Jeff Francoeur, Alex Gordon and Johnny Damon). And that’s to say nothing of a fella named Sam Fuld who’s gone from complete after-thought to straight up legen — wait for it — dary.
How do we make sense of such who-could’ve-seen-this-coming-ness? Why, by updating the RotoGraphs AL outfielders rankings, of course!
Timing is an important factor in this space. I had been planning to include Alexi Amarista, a second baseman in the Angels org who leads the minors with a .455 batting average. Except Amarista no longer plays in the minors…because the Angels called up the 22-year-old earlier this week to be a part of their middle infield mix in a utility role. Oh well. That just means one of these minor leaguers got some pub instead.
Earlier this week, on the main FanGraphs blog, we re-ran Pizza Cutter’s classic study (yes, I think it’s a legitimate classic), 525,600 minutes: how do you measure a player in a year. In it, he demonstrated just how large of a sample size you really need before you can start drawing conclusions about a batter’s skills. The answer was a lot more than I think most folks realize: you can get an idea of a hitter’s swing % and contact rate pretty quickly, but stats like OBP, SLG, and especially AVG (much less BABIP!) take 500 PA or more to provide much useful information. While I think many fantasy managers understand the need for patience, I also see a tremendous emphasis placed on small samples when I read fantasy baseball advice–especially when it comes to players on hot and cold streaks.
Is there something special about a hot or cold streak that makes it different from a typical small sample of performance? It seems like there could be, right? Even if you can’t trust a normal sample of 20 PA’s, if someone is absolutely tearing the cover off the ball–or is striking out in virtually every PA–might that not mean that he’s likely to hit particularly well (or poorly) for the next few games? After all, we see (or, at least, think we see) guys go through amazing hot streaks all the time when watching baseball, and players describe what it’s like: the game slows down, the ball looks bigger, etc.
Chalk it up to small sample size. This column is off to a 2-for-2 start, with each edition having highlighted a minor leaguer who was called up to the bigs only days later. First Chris Davis two weeks ago, then Jerry Sands last week. Don’t expect Mining the Minors to maintain this type of perfection because, frankly, that would be impossible. In fact, the three players chosen in this installment, while certainly capable of making an impact at some point in 2011, will definitely not be doing so in the next few days. Even Jobu doesn’t have that kind of power.
For years I have preached about the immense depth at starting pitching. You can find plenty of quality starters for cheap in your draft and, with the help of the waiver wire, can build a successful fantasy rotation without having to invest heavily in an ace or two. With a nice complement of some quality relievers, you can go cheap on starters and, in turn, bulk up on better hitters. In the end, your team dominates in the offensive categories, puts up a solid showing in almost all of the pitching categories, and leaves you at the top of your standings by season’s end. Read the rest of this entry »
Negotiating trades in fantasy baseball can always be tough in competitive leagues. Everyone is trying to gain the upper hand and each time you ask for that better starting pitcher or that more powerful outfielder, you end up taking some kind of grief for over-valuing your own players. So why not try and get that extra boost in numbers from a low-profile spot like behind the plate? Negotiate a deal and then try to throw in your over-performing catcher for their under-performing one who you think has the potential to improve. You just might be able to squeeze some more out from their end. Looking at early season BABIP and xBABIP, here’s a look at some “throw-ins” you just might want to try out… Read the rest of this entry »
