The higher the position a player is in a lineup, the better their fantasy stats will be at the end of the year. The player will get more PAs and therefore more opportunities for counting stats. Also, the team’s best players are grouped together at the top of the lineup and will create more RBI and Run chances. The key 5 spots for hitter to see a jump in their Runs and/or RBIs are the 1 to 5 spots. Today, I will look at 2 such battles on decent run scoring teams, the Royals and Reds.

Royals #2 Spot

Last season, Melky Cabrera thrived batting second for the Royals. He scored 102 times and had 87 RBIs on the league’s 10th highest scoring offense. This off season he was traded to the Giants, so the position has reopened for the Royals to fill.

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Every fantasy owner looks for an edge over the competition. Using a hitter’s platoon splits versus right- and left-handed pitchers is one such method. When looking at these platoon splits, however, a fantasy owner needs to look a little further than just the basic splits to see if the difference is seen is with all pitchers or just relievers.

Historically, left-handed batters hit right-handed pitchers better and right-handed batters hit left-handed pitchers better (called the platoon advantage). With some players, the extent of the difference can be more or less than the league average. For hitters with extreme splits, it may be best to sit them and play someone else if they are up against a certain handed starting pitcher.

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Yesterday I covered the bottom half of the list here, numbers 10 through 6.  Some solid speculation on some people’s part in the comments section as to who made the top five, so without further ado…

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Today, let’s make some useful data available for reference on a couple of a subjects — park factors and pitcher batted ball data.

Extreme Park Factors

With Carlos Quentin getting traded to the Padres and the resulting discussion on how his power translates to San Diego, I decided to make available the most extreme park factors in the league. I used the handedness data available at Statcorner.com. I only looked at values that are 10% higher or lower than the league average. Also, I made available the factors that are the most relevant to fantasy baseball, Line Drives (major component of BABIP and AVG) and Home Runs. The park factors are for hitters with a value over 100 helping a hitter and a value below 100 hurting a hitter.

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Injuries are just the worst.  While, in most leagues, you have the ability to add and drop players on a regular basis, nothing ruins a fantasy season more than when your team gets decimated by injuries.  You may possess the most in-depth knowledge of both baseball and statistics, but when the injury bug makes a run through your team, you can only do so much to keep pace.  In most cases, you simply cannot predict when it’s going to happen to your guys.  Fluke injuries happen all the time.  However, there are, obviously, numerous players out there that have a very visible track record and you need to decide come draft day (or even in a trade) if they are worth the risk.  So here’s a list of the top 10 most injury-plagued major leaguers with some thoughts as to whether you should take a chance or let them be your competition’s problem.  We’ll cover the first half today and then bring you home with the rest tomorrow.

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You’re supposed to have the resolutions in place when the new year starts, but, well, my family is still waiting for their Christmas cards from me…for 2010. I can hit print deadlines with no problem, but social deadlines apparently still confound me. C’est la vie.

Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, New Years is still some 45 days away anyway, so consider these early rather than late. With new calendars appearing all over the world and the lessons of last season well and truly learned, here are my resolutions for the 2012 fantasy season. Feel free to post yours in the comments.

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In the FanGraphs mock draft, the first three second basemen off the board were exactly who you would expect: Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia, and Ian Kinsler. The fourth was Dustin Ackley, the soon-to-be 24-year-old second basemen of the Seattle Mariners. Ackley was a top prospect prior to the 2011 season, and didn’t disappoint in his first taste of the big leagues, posting a .765 OPS with six home runs and six stolen bases in just 90 games.

Fast forward six rounds, and Jason Kipnis became the tenth 2B selected, grabbed with the second pick in the tenth round. Kipnis tore apart the American League in his first 36 games, posting an .840 OPS with seven home runs and five stolen bases. So why did he go 69 picks later than Ackley in the mock draft?

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Here are the 2011 triple slash lines for 4 outfielders and the career split for another player:

0.262/0.309/0.423
0.264/0.323/0.393
0.262/0.336/0.429
0.271/0.327/0.438
0.263/0.312/0.509

All the players are similar. The first player went 14th over all in a recent Fangraphs Dynasty league draft and the others were taken at the following picks: 112th, 234th, 163rd, 62nd.

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For those of you stuck doing nothing at work, here’s a Christmas present. Rankings! Mock Draft! You’re welcome.

Then again, this is not really the mock, nor are they really rankings. So I’m kind of a dick. What we’ve done here is represent the National League outfielders that were taken in the RotoGraphs mock dynasty draft a few weeks back. We’ve got the round, pick, and overall pick number for each, and then we’ve broken them in some tiers for good measure.

In a pleasant surprise, it looks like our keeper tiers held up pretty good, with a few notable exceptions.

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As we saw through last week’s series of articles, there’s been quite a lot of talk about the Fan/RotoGraphs Dynasty Mock Draft.  Yes, there seemed to be a bit of confusion — two people thought it was a regular keeper draft rather than a dynasty one — but lost in the mundane and repetitive critique of that aspect was the true meaning of a mock draft.  Its is a test.  It is a guideline.  It is a tool.  You use a mock draft to gauge where particular players are going; where certain positions come off the board in a run.  It certainly isn’t the gospel, but while the calendar hasn’t even flipped to January and offseason player movement has far from ceased, it’s definitely a useful piece of information from which to get started.  That being said, we’re going to wrap up its coverage with a listing of the catchers that went, where they came off the board, and a few notes along the way.

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