One of the most common reader requests here at RotoGraphs is to have more information on auctions. Unfortunately, it has been a few years since I have participated in a fantasy baseball auction. But with the availability now of auction mocks on several sites, I thought it was time to get back to that format. Last night I participated in a 12-team mock auction over at ESPN. I played this pretty straight, just trying to accumulate value. I ended up with this team:

Gavin Floyd – $9
Matt Holliday $28
Ichiro Suzuki $22
Justin Verlander $18
Robinson Cano $19
Ryan Zimmerman $20
Carlos Lee $17
Johan Santana $15
Josh Johnson $15
Bobby Abreu $14
Jay Bruce $12
Adam Dunn $16
Francisco Cordero $12
Jonathan Papelbon $12
Miguel Montero $9
Rafael Soriano $8
Juan Rivera $2
Ryan Theriot $1
Everth Cabrera $2
Paul Konerko $1
John Maine $1
Felipe Paulino $1

I left money on the table, which shows how rusty I was at this auction thing. It was a typical Stage 1 auction, where owners spent too much early and values were to be had in the middle and the end of the proceedings. Several players went for over $50, which seems hard to justify in a 12-team mixed league.

For my guide, I was using the auction values by veteran fantasy player Lenny Melnick, published over at FantasyPros911.com on the premium side. My team accumulated $79 of excess value over Melnick’s projections, with only Montero, Rivera, Maine and Paulino not providing me profit over his prices. I made a mistake on Montero, not realizing that Kurt Suzuki was still available but I think the price I got him for was acceptable. I was looking for power late, which made Rivera worthwhile. And I like both Maine and Paulino if they can stay healthy this year.

Mainly, I used this draft to get reacquainted with auctions. From now on, I will definitely write more about auction prices and strategy. If there is anything in particular that you would like to see covered in the future, please note it in the comments.

Friend of RotoGraphs Jimbo posed this question in the comments of an earlier article:

How do you weigh a pick like Ichiro that early when there’s still power left to draft…and it’s a scarce resource?

I thought that would make an excellent question for the debut of our newest feature, the RotoGraphs Panel. Here’s how our writers responded:

Marc Hulet: I personally have Ichiro ranked as the 10th overall outfielder (based on 5X5) in mixed leagues and 4th overall in AL-only format. At 36, you have to start worrying about his age and the slip in steals in ’09 (from 43 to 26). With that said, he has nine straight 200 hit seasons, hit .352 last year and has scored 100+ runs in eight of the past nine seasons. I have him nestled at No. 10 between Jayson Werth at nine and Adam Lind at 11.

Power is a scarce resource, but so is reliability; the only pieces missing from his game are power and RBIs and I would rather go hunting on the waiver wire for home runs than steals and/or batting average. I will admit that Ichiro is getting credit in 2010 based on his reputation but I’ll personally keep believing in him until A) He slips for two straight seasons or B) He hits 40 years of age, whichever comes first. I expect his average to drop to between .310-.320 but I am hoping for a return to 100 runs scored and 30+ steals. Call me optimistic.

Zach Sanders: Ichiro has been a top-50 fantasy player since his move to the Major Leagues. I remember him going in the second round in years past, due to his awesome steal and hit totals. Now that he is older and the steals aren’t as bountiful, he still has great value. Drafting Ichiro (around his ADP) over a power hitter is perfectly acceptable for two reasons.

First, he does contribute to the steals category, even if it is only 20 a year. Second, his AVG is so high that it can change the way you draft. Since he comes to the plate so often, his average is even more influential, and can make up for other guys on your team. Since he makes up for guys with low averages, you can draft power players that slip through the cracks for this very reason, and still be fine.

Dan Budreika: Ichiro’s been wowing us for years. He put together a nice year offensively last year after a lackluster 2008. But he is not getting younger and he will be 36-years-old this season. He did battle some injuries last season but what disturbs me is his un-Ichiro like 26 steals. He was also caught 9 times. I just don’t see Ichiro approaching the 40 marker in the stolen base department again and those have generally been one of his biggest fantasy strengths. He doesn’t offer much power and you can really only expect 10 homers. Power ages better than speed and Ichiro is no young buck anymore. Take the safer route with a big bopper over the aging Ichiro early in your draft.

Eno Sarris: Ichiro Suzuki is a tough nut to crack. He hit .311 on 0-2 counts last year! Nutty. On the other hand, minus the batting average, he looks like Denard Span (ADP 125.46) – a guy with barely-double-digit power that is likely to steal about 30 bases. That’s a guy that should be picked in the late rounds to boost a team flagging on speed, not in the mid-rounds as a foundational player. Managers shouldn’t normally build their rosters around him… except in certain instances. Let’s say you are hoping to get Adam Dunn (ADP 55.95) after Ichiro (ADP 40.46) – then he fits like a glove. Consider that taking those players in the fourth and fifth rounds would give you two players that, using last year’s numbers, averaged out to a .313 batting average with 25 home runs and 13 stolen bases. That fits. Ichiro gives you domination in one category that allows you to pick people like Russell Branyan (ADP 293.50) and Chris Davis (159.89) later in the draft, too. That’s added value, in flexibility, that shouldn’t be poo-pooed. It’s not easy to answer this question, and that’s why Ichiro gets drafted as high as 29 and as low as 57. But there are plenty of high-power low-batting average sluggers that become much more attractive as soon as you bring Ichiro! into the fold.

David Golebiewski: Ichiro is one of the more difficult players to project in all of fantasy baseball. We know that he’s not going to draw many walks or hit for much power (his .113 ISO last season was his highest mark since 2005). But he has consistently posted well above-average BABIP figures (.357 career) by virtue of his Olympic-level speed and ability to beat out infield hits. Over the last three years, Ichiro has the second-highest infield hit rate in the majors. His career batting average on ground balls is .306. For reference, the AL average hovers around the .240-.245 range.

In 2009, Ichiro managed a .384 BABIP, and hit an obscene .353 on grounders. Even for a guy who has time and again posted lofty BABIP figures, it’s likely that those numbers will regress in 2010. A simple Marcel projection forecasts a .319/.365/.418 line and a .352 BABIP. If Ichiro’s BABIP trends back toward his career average, then he’s a .320 batter, as opposed to last year’s .350+ machine.

The big question regarding his fantasy value is, will a 36 year-old Ichiro be great base stealer, or merely a good one? He missed the beginning of the 2009 season with a bleeding ulcer, but his 26 steals were a career-low, and his SB percentage (74.3) was his lowest since 2002. Ichiro’s Speed Score (5.2) was a career low, and well below his 6.6 overall mark in the majors. If I had to conjure a guess, I would lean toward the conservative side and project somewhere in the range of 25-35 steals next year.

MockDraftCentral currently has Ichiro at number 39 overall, which strikes me as reasonable. Just how one values Ichiro’s steals compared to another player’s power depends largely on the league format, but I’m a big advocate of going for the best available talent in the early rounds. Owners can get themselves in trouble by feeling that they must take a player who does X in round Y. I still think Ichiro is worthy of a relatively early-round pick.

Brian Joura: I have not owned Ichiro since 2005. I like taking him in mock drafts but not in real leagues. And the reason is that he is very unpredictable. Everyone says you take him and you have a stud in AVG. Some years that is very true and other years he is simply not that dominating. Yes, he has four years where he’s posted marks over .350, including last year. But he also has five years where he was at .322 or lower.

If he reaches that .350 mark, than the early pick on him works out great. But if he finishes at .310 like he did in 2008 then you are sort of left holding the bag. It would be like drafting Adam Dunn and only getting 30 HR. It’s a good total but not what you were expecting. Eno mentioned that he has gone as low as 57 and I would certainly take him there but I will not pull the trigger on him at pick 29.

In the next part in my series on punting, I am trying to ditch ERA. This has proven to be more of a challenge than the two previous ones in the series. After a few unsuccessful tries that my friend and colleague Paul Greco would term “drafting naked” (no outside sources) I decided to consult the Razzball Point Shares System.

Specifically, I was looking for pitchers who were worse in ERA than they were in WHIP. I was hoping to finish last in ERA yet still gain a couple of points in WHIP. So, I wrote down the names of about two dozen pitchers who fit this criterion and went off to draft. This was a 12-team mixed Yahoo Style Draft over at Mock Draft Central. I had the first pick and drafted this team:

Albert Pujols
Ryan Zimmerman
Ichiro Suzuki
Curtis Granderson
Adam Dunn
Nelson Cruz
Josh Beckett
Matt Wieters
Jason Bartlett
James Shields
John Lackey
Huston Street
Scott Baker
Gavin Floyd
Jorge de la Rosa
Chad Qualls
Brian Anderson
Leo Nunez
Julio Borbon
Nick Johnson
Mark DeRosa
Luis Castillo
Nick Swisher

This team finished first with a total of 87 points. The breakdowns were as follows:

AVG 12
HR 10
RBI 5.5
SB 9
R 11
W 10.5
S 6
K 8
WHIP 4
ERA 11

I’ve never tried to punt a category and almost ended up winning it before! Let’s see how that happened.

The best ERA among my starters last year belonged to John Lackey, who had a 3.83, which was 33rd best among SP. Of my seven SP, two had ERAs in the 3s and the remaining five had ERAs in the 4s. Two of my relievers had ERAs in the 3s and one was in the 4s. Nothing in this shouts out a team that should finish second in ERA. Andy Behrens estimated that you need a 3.27 ERA to win the category.

Obviously, we don’t know what these pitchers will do in 2010 yet and ERA has a lot of volatility. But we can check the Fans projections and get a glimpse of why this team was projected to finish 2nd in ERA. Eight of these pitchers the fans projected to have lower ERAs in 2010 than 2009. The only exceptions were Street, projected to go from 3.06 to 3.21 and Qualls, who did not have a fan projection. Using the Fans projections, I have five SP with ERAs in the 3s (lowest belonging to Anderson at 3.69) and two in the 4s. Furthermore, the highest ERA belonged to de la Rosa, who had a 4.26 projection.

So, you don’t need a star in ERA to be successful in the category.

Now I am back to the drawing board to field a money-finishing team that successfully punts ERA. I’ll be looking to trade in my pitcher picks in rounds 7 and 10 for better RBI and SB production.

A little while ago I did a mock draft where I punted AVG. Pleased with those results, I tried again to do something I have never done in a real draft. This time I punted homers. Unlike last time, this was not a private draft. This was just a regular draft over at Mock Draft Central where I took over an AI team at the last minute.

I can see you shaking your heads now. There is no way to punt HR because you will end up finishing at or near the bottom in RBIs, too. That is certainly a possibility. But even if the team has no chance of winning, let’s see how it would look. It is always good to test out an hypothesis, just to confirm that the conventional wisdom is indeed correct.

This was a 12-team, mixed Yahoo! Style Draft in which I had the 11th pick. Here is my team:

Tim Lincecum (ADP 12)
Carl Crawford (15)
Ichiro Suzuki (39)
Dustin Pedroia (38)
Jon Lester (59)
Lance Berkman (60)
Chone Figgins (79)
Ricky Nolasco (106)
Torii Hunter (99)
Chad Billingsley (120)
Carlos Marmol (137)
James Shields (128)
Yunel Escobar (152)
Jorge Cantu (168)
James Loney (180)
Chad Qualls (208)
Todd Helton (196)
Mike Gonzalez (192)
AJ Pierzynski (235)
Nick Johnson (266)
Wade Davis (288)

You can quibble with the selections of Berkman and Hunter and if they really fit into a punt HR strategy. I thought Berkman was just too good of a value to pass up at pick #62. I wanted Bobby Abreu but he got picked two slots ahead of me (when I ended up taking Figgins) and I ended up taking Hunter. The James projections give Berkman 31 HR and Hunter 24. The next highest projection is Jorge Cantu’s 18.

So, how did this team rate? This team was picked to finish first, with a total of 86 points. The second place team had 76.5 points. The individual category projections were as follows:

AVG – 12
HR – 1
RBI – 1
SB – 11
R – 9.5
W – 11
S – 6.5
K – 12
WHIP – 11
ERA – 11

Because it was a Yahoo! Style Draft, they graded both the starting lineup of 16 and the 5-man bench. My bench came in 10th place with a score of 56.

Theoretically, a team can punt HR, finish last in RBIs too and still win, as this draft shows. I certainly would not try this in a real draft. But it is interesting to see how a team that ignores power can be a productive one, at least on paper.

I participated in a 12-team mixed mock draft last night hosted by Baseball Digest Daily. I had the 10th pick and my strategy going in was to punt AVG and draft starting pitchers earlier than I normally would. My roster ended up like this:

Tim Lincecum (ADP 12)
Ian Kinsler (15)
Jason Bay (26)
Justin Verlander (44)
Nelson Cruz (64)
Carlos Pena (75)
Matt Wieters (96)
Gordon Beckham (94)
Ubaldo Jimenez (104)
Jay Bruce (118)
Carlos Marmol (139)
Elvis Andrus (158)
Carlos Gonzalez (122)
Scott Baker (155)
Brett Anderson (170)
Julio Borbon (187)
Chad Qualls (220)
Adam LaRoche (231)
Casey McGehee (221)
Mike Gonzalez (188)
Russ Branyan (computer problems and it went to auto pick – 217)
Homer Bailey (279)
Carlos Santana (320)

Punting AVG is something I never do in real drafts and I was pleasantly surprised by the offense I was able to amass. In hindsight I think perhaps I drafted Wieters and Marmol too high but I am pretty happy with the upside that this team possesses. Of course by punting AVG you also run the risk of finishing near the bottom in R, which would probably go a long way to determining the success of the strategy.

For those in the crowd who do punt AVG, please weigh in with your wisdom on what needs to be done to make this strategy successful.

Now is the beautiful time of year that leagues are beginning to form. Commissioners are emailing participants to confirm interest, and discuss possible rule changes for the upcoming season. This is the process that is taking place in a league I participate in, and I am creating quite a stir.

A group of us in the league are considered to be the “active” owners who constantly check rosters, scour the waiver wire, and always show up at our online draft. The rest of the league is considered to be the “casual” owners who just want to have some fun. We “active” owners were discussing some possible changes in the rules, and I submitted a proposal to switch the league from batting average to OBP. All of the active owners thought OBP was superior to AVG, but two of them turned it down on the grounds that it would handicap the casual players even more than they already are.

Going into a full league vote sometime later in the week, the voting is set at 2-2. So, now it is down to the rest of the league to push OBP through and make me happy in the process.

Chances are, someone reading this is wondering why a league would want to complicate things and switch to OBP, or are thinking about convincing their league to do the same. Here are some simple arguments as to why a league should adopt OBP:

1. When a player reaches base, I want credit for it. It really is a simple concept. I cannot tell you how many 0-2 games it seems I had from Manny last year, where I received no credit for him reaching base in his other trips to the plate.

2. The player is helping his team by reaching first base, so why shouldn’t he help mine? Again, a very simple and straightforward idea, but some still cannot wrap their head around it.

The only argument I have heard against changing a league to OBP is that the casual players would have problems because the players rankings being used by the draft site do not change, leaving some players vastly overvalued. My argument against that idea is simple: Deal with it. Show up to the draft and do a small bit of research and there will be no issues.

Now, I want to hear from you, the reader. Have any of you recently convinced a league to switch to OBP? If so, how did it go? I believe an OBP league is utterly superior to an AVG league, but getting most to switch over will be a long struggle that will ultimately ruin some leagues due to conflict.

Now that we know what kind of fantasy owners are out there, it’s time to discuss how to best humiliate, destroy and take advantage of the worst one of them. Today, how to beat the Dungeon Master. To refresh your memory, here is my crackpot definition of the Dungeon Master:

They play in so many leagues and attend so many mock drafts that you begin to worry about their safety. Chances are, if you are reading this blog (or writing on it), you may be the Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master is always cool and collected at draft time. Even when his players aren’t making it to him in drafts, he has plan 1A at the ready. Be careful when trading with him, as he is probably looking to screw you over.

So, how do you beat the player who knows it all? There are a couple simple maneuvers you can pull on draft day and beyond to take down the Dungeon Master:

1. On draft day, you may have to reach a little for players. Since the Dungeon Master isn’t playing off the stock rankings, you shouldn’t be either. If you like a player that isn’t supposed to go for another 10 picks, but you don’t think he’ll make it back to you, take him. You cannot risk it. If you think a player is the best person left on the board, pounce on him.

2. Be social. The Dungeon Master fears four things in life: Sunlight, conversation, women and salad. He never goes out in public, so he doesn’t know how to react when he is taunted. He could take Albert Pujols with the tenth pick in the draft, and you should still heckle him. He may get thrown off his game enough to make a mistake. Don’t stop until he cries, drafts Carlos Silva, or wets himself.

3. Flooding his inbox with trade requests is another popular option. You can hope he has a moment of weakness and accepts, or simply hits the wrong button and accepts it anyway. Believe me, it’s happened.

4. Read RotoGraphs and study up enough to turn yourself into a Dungeon Master. It works, but only if you give up the rest of your life. And it’s worth it, I promise.

In the end, you are going to need some luck to beat a Dungeon Master. You have to hope his famously durable players succumb to crippling injuries (Brandon Webb) and for his team to slip in the standings. Finishing in second behind a Dungeon Master is nothing to shake a stick at.

It’s time for another episode of “You can get with that, but this is where it’s at,” boys and girls. This week, we take a look at the heroes manning what may prove to be the thinnest position on the diamond. Where shortstop had such frugal luminaries as Everth Cabrera, Ryan Theriot and Elvis Andrus, and catcher featured thrifty backstops like Miguel Montero and A.J. Pierzynski, we may have a harder time finding values at the hot corner.

As usual, we’ll start in the first tier. You can’t really fault anyone for going big with Alex Rodriguez (despite the hip and the age, 3.37 ADP), David Wright (despite the power outage, 14.76 ADP), Evan Longoria (I don’t see a problem here, 10.28 ADP) or Mark Reynolds (the king of the whiff, 20.17 ADP). Why is Ryan Zimmerman being drafted at the end of the third round (39.78 ADP)? I guess people are suspicious of his career high .233 ISO (and 33 home runs) last year. I take the view that nothing seems out of place for a 25 year-old top prospect with a .229 minor league ISO and a slowly increasing fly ball rate, who is also on the correct side of his peak. Sign me up for some of that in 2010.

The next tier has some svelte athletes (Pablo Sandoval, 44.83 ADP), some slow-footed plodders (Chone Figgins, 77.84 ADP) and some low-contact sluggers (Michael Young, 93.51 ADP). Scarcasm aside, why not take a player with possibly the same amount of risk (and yet bundles of upside) a little bit later than the fellow members of his tier? Gordon Beckham (93.87 ADP) had a good rookie season despite a low line drive percentage (16.6%) that kept his BABIP down (.294), and therefore his batting average (.270). But look at the good side, if you prorate out his stats, he had a 21-home run, 11 stolen-base kind of year, and his line drive rates were much higher in the minor leagues. Even if he just finished out the pro-rated string next year, he’d be an ADP value in his tier. Bend it like Beckham!

Let’s move past mixed metaphors to the final tier. This tier makes you realize how turdly third base truly is this year. You can gamble on next year’s Mark Reynolds with Ian Stewart (131.84 ADP) or put your grandfather Larry Wayne Jones (ADP 134.39) in the position and cross your fingers. The projection systems don’t like the bearded wonder Casey Blake (ADP 162.64) for good reason, as late bloomers are usually early exits. You could say the same about Mark DeRosa (ADP 246.44), really. Who’s to like in this tier?

The answer, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, is “I… don’t… know.” I’d probably try to avoid the whole situation altogether by drafting a third-sacker earlier. But I think I might take a pair of players from the bottom, and those two might be Adrian Beltre (ADP 199.55) and Alex Gordon (245.03). Some may say that splits aren’t statistically significant, but perhaps that’s not true in Beltre’s case, who has a grand total of 3272 away at-bats away from pitcher’s havens in Los Angeles and Seattle. In those (probably significant at-bats), he’s put up a .287/.338/.488 career line (compared to a .726 OPS at home). I’d just cover my butt with a post-hype sleeper like Gordon, who had been making nice strides in walk rate, strikeout rate, ISO, line drive rate, and reach rate before injury sidelined him last year. I’ll be owning him more than once this year, I’d reckon.

Ah! Let me stop you right there. Jorge Cantu is ranked as a first baseman.

The biggest part of fantasy baseball is the draft. No question about it. So it is important that we understand who we are drafting with when we step into the room, be it virtual or physical. The easiest way to go about this is to group all players into five simple families, which are listed and explained below.

The Dungeon Master – You all know one of those nerds who is ready to dominate a fantasy league at a moments notice. They play in so many leagues and attend so many mock drafts that you begin to worry about their safety. Chances are, if you are reading this blog (or writing on it), you may be the Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master is always cool and collected at draft time. Even when his players aren’t making it to him in drafts, he has plan 1A at the ready. Be careful when trading with him, as he is probably looking to screw you over.

The Cockeyed Optimist – This person runs around your draft room or lobby saying things like “I can guarantee Erik Bedard starts 30 games this year”, or “I see a breakout season from Yuniesky Betancourt.” The last time he won a draft, pigs were flying and hell was still defrosting. Let him do his own thing, and don’t bail him out of his bad moves.

The Cast Away – Straight out of a Tom Hanks movie, the Cast Away hasn’t been around (fantasy) civilization for awhile. In the past, he may have been a supreme player, but those days are behind him. The Cast Away will take big name players that have faded from glory, because those are the guys he is comfortable with and knows well. On occasion, he may even select a player who recently retired. If he somehow drafts a player he doesn’t know that you may want, take a run at fleecing him.

The Rival – This league mate always knows how to piss you off. He understands who your sleepers are, as well as your favorite players, and takes them earlier than you would just to push your buttons. He then purposes ridiculous trades, hoping you really want to have your favorite player on your roster. This owner rarely wins a fantasy league. Don’t encourage him by accepting any of his trades, and hope he isn’t invited back next year.

The Rookie – In the wild, The Rookie may often be referred to by his scientific name, “N00bulus Maximus”. When at the draft, he won’t deviate from the rankings provided to him by his most trusted website. Once the season begins, he can be easily convinced to trade his underachieving players that are sure to have a nice bounce back to glory. All is fair in love, war, and fantasy baseball, so exploit this player if you can by stealing away his players.

While it’s difficult to find many glaring faults with a ball club that tallied 95 victories and outscored the opposition by 136 runs, the 2009 Boston Red Sox featured porous team defense.

Collectively, the Red Sox ranked 18th in the majors in UZR/150. Per 150 defensive games, Boston’s fielders were -2.4 runs below average. Some players turned in great years with the leather: RF J.D. Drew and 2B Dustin Pedroia were exceptional, and Kevin Youkilis really picked it at first base. However, a hip injury turned 3B Mike Lowell into a liability, LF Jason Bay was DH-worthy and Jacoby Ellsbury rated poorly as well.

Enter Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre, two of the most skilled defenders in the game at their respective positions. It’s still unclear whether Cameron will play his customary center field, bumping Ellsbury to left, or if he’ll play left field himself. Either way, swapping in Cameron for Bay is a massive defensive upgrade. Ditto for bringing in Beltre to take over for Lowell at the hot corner.

Jeff Zimmerman of Beyond the Box Score released 2010 UZR projections in November. Jeff took four years of a player’s UZR totals, weighing them 5/4/3/2 and regressing to 125 games. He then applied a slight aging factor (more details here).

Here’s how the Red Sox project in 2010, with Cameron and Beltre in the fold. For comparison, I put Boston’s 2009 UZR/150 totals for each position in parentheses:

1B: Kevin Youkilis, projected +4 UZR/150 (+8.3 UZR/150 team total in 2009)
2B: Dustin Pedroia, projected +5 UZR/150 (+9.1 UZR/150 in ’09)
SS: Marco Scutaro, projected 0 UZR/150 (+3.1 UZR/150 in ’09)
3B: Adrian Beltre, projected +9 UZR/150 (-10.7 UZR/150 in ’09)
LF: Jacoby Ellsbury, projected +6 UZR/150 (-9.4 UZR/150 in ’09)
CF: Mike Cameron, projected +4 UZR/150 (-19.6 UZR/150 in ’09)
RF: J.D. Drew, projected +5 UZR/150 (+9.1 UZR/150 in ’09)

Youkilis, Pedroia and Drew figure to regress a bit, going from great to merely very good. Scutaro, another free agent import, is roughly average at shortstop. But look at those totals at third base, left field and center field. We’re talking gargantuan upgrades here.

Some might be surprised about Ellsbury’s projected total in left field, given his dreadful rating in CF last year. However, Ellsbury did rate as a well above-average fielder in 2008. Also, the average center fielder is about 10 runs better than the average corner outfielder, based on observations of how players perform at multiple positions.

For those of you wondering, Ellsbury projects as a -9 UZR/150 fielder in CF. Even if we say that Cameron would indeed be a +14 UZR/150 fielder in left (10 runs better than in center field), the Red Sox are better off with an Ellsbury LF/ Cameron CF alignment by about five runs per 150 defensive games.

What does this all mean for fantasy owners? Boston’s vastly improved fielding gives a boost in value to Red Sox pitchers. Plenty of Boston starters underperformed their Expected Fielding Independent ERAs in 2009, due in part to higher than expected batting averages on balls in play:

ERA-xFIP splits for 2009 Boston starters, minimum 50 IP

Lester’s fielders did him no favors in 2009. Beckett didn’t get burned too badly by a high BABIP- the difference between his ERA and xFIP stems from a higher-than-normal home run per fly ball rate (12.8 percent). Granted, those two (along with newcomer John Lackey) are going to be high on draft boards regardless. But it’s nice to know that they’ll be backed by quality glove men.

Penny’s no longer around, though you can see the dichotomy between his ERA and xFIP due to an inflated BABIP. Buchholz’s ERA-xFIP split is due to a sky-high HR/FB rate (15.7%), not a sky-high BABIP. Dice-K’s future is uncertain after a season mostly lost to shoulder problems, but maybe you’ll be more likely to take a flyer with Cameron and Beltre backing him up.

As a whole, Red Sox starting pitchers had a 4.63 ERA in 2009, but a 4.17 xFIP. The 0.46 run gap between Boston’s ERA and xFIP was the third-largest in the major leagues. A big reason for that split was a .324 BABIP for those starters. Some of that was probably poor luck, but a good portion of it was poor fielding. Luckily, Red Sox pitchers should have the benefit of much improved defense in 2010.