Yesterday afternoon, I was asked by one of my best friends and fellow fantasy baseball owners about whether he should offer a specific trade. He owns Joakim Soria and wondered whether he should offer him for Trevor Cahill. He plays in a head-to-head league with daily transactions, so I would think closers are worth a little more than in your standard weekly transaction rotisserie league. He did currently own a whole bunch of closers, but half of them were temporary or part of a committee, so Soria represented only one of two full-time closers on his roster.

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I’m in 6 different leagues this year and every league has a different set of rules, rosters, waiver restrictions, etc.  But the one common thread that ties and binds all things fantasy here is the moronic trade offers that get thrown around at this time of year.  Forget about sample size and statistical history.  Apparently those mean nothing to the trade hungry vultures just waiting to swoop down and pick off the carcass of stupidity. Read the rest of this entry »

Most fantasy leagues allow owners a few DL spots and now it is time to begin to use those positions productively. For the past few weeks, several players were known to be injured for 2011 season (ex. Adam Wainwright), but they have not yet been placed on the official DL. In the last few days, teams have begun to officially place players on the DL and the list looks to expand a ton in the next few days as the regular season begins. Now is the time to exploit these extra roster spots. Here are a few suggestions for roster management as the DL list expands.

I will be looking at individual names as the DL expands later in the week.

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While the deal is not quite official, the San Diego Padres and the Boston Red Sox have agreed in principle to a swap that would send 1B Adrian Gonzalez to Beantown in exchange for RHP Casey Kelly, 1B Anthony Rizzo, OF Reymond Fuentes and a PTBNL. Gonzalez, 28, will make just $6.2 million this upcoming season and is eligible for free agency after the 2011 campaign. Boston has a window that lasts until 2 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday to hammer out a contract extension with Gonzalez. The lefty slugger, who underwent right shoulder surgery in late October, must also pass a physical (CSNNE’s Sean McAdam Tweets that Gonzalez has already checked out medically).

While trading an elite talent like Gonzalez is painful for Padres fans, the club did get three Top 10 prospects back in the deal. For now, though, let’s focus on how the trade affects Gonzalez’s value.

A disciplined hitter with plus power, Gonzalez has managed to post sublime offensive stats despite taking cuts in a home ball park that’s death to all things lumber. Over the last three years, Gonzalez has batted .285/.387/.523, walking in 13.8% of his plate appearances and posting a .238 Isolated Power.

To give you an idea of how much of an impediment PETCO Park has been to Gonzalez, let’s use one of Baseball-Reference’s many stat head goodies. B-R has a feature that allows us to adjust a hitter’s offensive production for run environment (runs/game), league (AL or NL), and park. Here are Gonzalez’s triple-slash numbers from 2008-2010. The first column has his actual AVG/OBP/SLG stats over those seasons. The second shows his stats in a neutral offensive environment in the NL. And the third shows what his slash line might have looked like had he been playing for Boston.

B-R shows Fenway Park boosting overall offensive production by six percent. StatCorner has park factors by batter handedness, and the site has lefties getting a four percent bump. Homers aren’t easy to come by, but doubles are. By comparison, PETCO has a 91 Park Factor on Baseball-Reference (depressing offense by nine percent), and StatCorner shows the venue harming left-handed hitters 10 percent more than a neutral park.

It should be noted that Gonzalez isn’t your typical lefty power hitter: he crushes pitches to all fields. Courtesy of Greg Rybarczyk’s Hit Tracker Online, here’s a spray chart showing where Gonzalez went deep in 2010:

This past year, he hit 13 home runs to left field (41.9%), six to center (19.4%) and 12 to right field (38.7%). Over the course of his major league career, Gonzalez has hit 36.3% of his dingers to left, 23.2% to center and 40.5% to the pull field.

Clearly, Gonzalez is an upper-echelon hitter. Getting out of PETCO’s clutches will only boost his fantasy value, which was already lofty to begin with. Over the past three years, Gonzalez has been part of an elite class of big league batters. His wOBA, adjusted for league and park factors, was 46% better than average (146 wRC+). Only Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, Kevin Youkilis, Miguel Cabrera, Matt Holliday, and Joe Mauer have better marks over that time frame, and Hanley Ramirez is tied with Gonzalez.

Should the trade become official, Gonzalez becomes an even more coveted fantasy option. Also, with Gonzalez taking over at first base, Kevin Youkilis will shift across the diamond and get a bump in value by regaining third base eligibility.

Gonzalez has been an offensive beast despite being shackled by PETCO. Now, we get to see what he’s capable of while swinging in a much more liberating Fenway Park.

It looks like Roy Oswalt is on his way to Philadelphia today, and enterprising fantasy managers facing a trade deadline of their own probably want to know what the implications are for their fantasy team. Let’s take a look.

First, the park move is negligible. According to StatCorner, Minute Maid park boosts home runs for lefties 6% and righties 18% – but the Phillies’ home park boosts home runs 16% for lefties and a whopping 22% for righties. If he starts tomorrow as he is scheduled to do, Oswalt is on pace to make starts against the Dodgers, Giants, Mets, and Nationals (twice) at home in Philadelphia. He averages about 6.45 fly balls per start, so that’s about 32 fly balls, of which 10% would normally leave the park. Boost 3.2 home runs by about 5-9%, and you get somewhere between 3.36 and 3.48 home runs. This might (*might*) mean a home run extra over those five starts combined. The change in home parks is not a big deal, at least for 2010.

What will look better for Oswalt this year are his future competitors. Should the schedule line up correctly with Oswalt starting tomorrow, this is what he is looking at: @WAS, @FLA, LAD, SF, WAS, @SD, @LAD, FLA, @NYM, WAS, NYM, @WAS. Sign me up for some of that please.

Oswalt is currently showing the best strikeout rate of his career (8.37 K/9) and one of the worst groundball rates of his career (43%, 47.4% career) – and is also using the changeup the most he ever has (11.7%, 6.0% career). This is no coincidence. Going off of Harry Pavlidis’ benchmarks for pitch types this year, the changeup gets one of the better whiff percentages in the pantheon of pitches (only splitters and sliders average more whiffs). The lower groundball rate may be attributed to his career-high usage of his slider (16.9%, 10.4% career), which only gets about 45% groundballs according to Pavlidis’ work.

In any case, the added focus on his off-speed stuff has suited Oswalt well. He’ll know have one of the best offenses in baseball behind him, so the 6-12 record should rectify itself, and the schedule lines up well for him during the stretch run. There is little-to-no downside to Oswalt pitching in Philadelphia, unless he insists on driving his tractor from Texas to Pennsylvania.

Seattle Mariners acquired 1B/DH Russell Branyan from the Cleveland Indians for OF Ezequiel Carrera and SS Juan Diaz. Cleveland will either pay what’s left of Branyan’s $2 million salary or send the M’s a PTBNL.

Branyan wasn’t acquired as part of some last-ditch effort to climb back into the AL West race — the Mariners are 14 games back of Texas and have a 0.2 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to CoolStandings.com. Rather, Seattle brought the 34-year-old slugger back, in GM Jack Zduriencik’s words, “to give our team every opportunity to be as productive as possible this season, while not harming the long-term plan for the franchise.” Collectively, Mariners first basemen have a major league-worst .260 wOBA in 2010.

Last year, Branyan turned in the best season of his career in the Pacific Northwest. Getting regular playing time, the lefty batter mashed to the tune of .251/.347/.520 in 505 plate appearances and compiled 2.8 WAR. His wOBA was .368, and his park-and-league-adjusted wOBA was 29 percent above average (129 wRC+). Unfortunately, a bulging disk in Branyan’s back ended his season in late August.

He signed a one-year deal with the Indians this past winter, with a $5 million mutual option for the 2011 season. Branyan began the year on the DL with continued back woes, but he has hit slightly above expectations since returning to the lineup in late April. He’s got a .263/.328/.491 line in 190 PA, with a .355 wOBA and a 122 wRC+ (CHONE and ZiPS both projected a .348 wOBA and a 113 wRC+ prior to the start of the season).

Now that Cleveland has said see you in another life, brotha to Branyan for a fourth time, first base is Matt LaPorta’s spot to lose. The seventh overall selection in the ’07 draft, LaPorta was supposed to be the Tribe’s big prize in the July 2008 CC Sabathia deal. However, LaPorta’s monstrous minor league line (.296/.390/.563, 10.7 BB%, .267 ISO) has given way to a disastrous .240/.301/.377 (.300 wOBA) showing in 300 big league PA over the 2009-2010 seasons. LaPorta was slowed by off-season surgeries on his left hip and left toe, but his power was MIA prior to an early June demotion to Columbus. His career ISO is .137.

It’s just 300 PA split over two years, so we shouldn’t let a half-season’s worth of trips to the plate serve as some definitive judgment of LaPorta’s abilities. Still, his rest-of-season ZiPS (.257/.329/.414, .331 wOBA) is thoroughly uninspiring. He’s in his mid-twenties and down the defensive spectrum. LaPorta will need to significantly outperform that projection to be a useful starter, much less a star.

In addition to giving an erstwhile top prospect a shot at redemption, shipping out Branyan netted the Indians Carrera and Diaz. Carrera, 23, was part of the December ’08 three-team extravaganza involving the Mets (his original club), M’s and Indians. The lithe lefty batter ranked as the 15th-best talent in the Mariners’ system prior to 2010, per Baseball America. The Venezuelan-born Carrera piqued the interest of prospect types last season by batting .337/.441/.416 in the Double-A Southern League. He didn’t show much power (.079 ISO), and his BABIP was .407. But even so, he worked the count very well (14.6 BB%) while earning praise for his center field defense.

Moved up to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League in 2010, Carrera has a .268/.339/.315 triple-slash in 243 PA. Perhaps with pitchers realizing that the worst outcome of giving Carrera a pitch in the zone is a seeing-eye single (.047 ISO), his walk rate has fallen to 8.2%. Odds are, Carrera carves out a career as an extra outfielder who can cover the gaps. His fantasy value might be zilch, though — while he swiped twenty-plus bags each season from 2006-2009, Carrera’s career SB success rate is just 68.9%.

Diaz, 21, is shortstop signed by the M’s out of the Dominican Republic in 2006. The 6-3, 180 pound switch-hitter has put together a .299/.347/.434 line at high-octane High Desert of the High-A California League over the past two years. He didn’t rate among Seattle’s top 30 prospects leading up to 2010.

Boston Red Sox acquired 2B/OF Eric Patterson from the Oakland Athletics for LHP Fabian Williamson.

Dustin Pedroia’s laser show is on hold for the time being — the second baseman fouled a Jonathan Sanchez fastball off his left foot in the third inning of Friday’s contest against the San Francisco Giants. Pedroia suffered a fracture, and while there’s no firm timetable for a return, early estimates have him missing up to six weeks.

Jed Lowrie (mononucleosis) is on the DL, as is Double-A shortstop prospect Jose Iglesias (bruised hand). Saber favorite Tug Hulett has sunk with the PawSox this season (.168/.293/.302 in 241 PA). Recently recalled Angel Sanchez rates well with the leather according to Total Zone, but he’s a career .279/.334/.351 minor league hitter. As such, the Sox could give Patterson a spin at second (along with Bill Hall) as Pedroia heals.

Patterson, 27, was originally a Cubs prospect taken out of Georgia Tech in the eighth round of the 2004 draft. In July of 2008, Patterson was shipped to Oakland (along with Josh Donaldson, Sean Gallagher and Matt Murton) for Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin. The lefty hitter holds a career .303/.368/.478 triple-slash in 2,570 career minor league plate appearances. Displaying decent pop (.175 Isolated Power) and adequate strike zone control (9.3 BB%, 19.3 K%), Patterson also stole bases with an 80.6% success rate.

In the majors, Patterson’s got a career .224/.301/.340 line in 378 PA, with a .300 wOBA. Corey’s little brother has walked 10.1% of the time, whiffed 28.4% and has a .116 ISO. He has nabbed bases at a 91.7% clip, with 22 SB in 24 tries. Out of minor league options, Patterson made Oakland’s roster out of spring training but was recently DFA’d to make room for Coco Crisp. ZiPS projects that Patterson will hit .248/.310/.399 for the rest of 2010, with a .320 wOBA. CHONE thinks he’ll bat .261/.322/.411.

Patterson figures to be a slightly below-average MLB hitter who can add some value on the bases. That’s not a bad fill-in for the Sox on such short notice, if he can cut it at second. Patterson, who has big league experience at the keystone and in the outfield, rated as above-average at second in the minors according the Total Zone. His scouting reports in years past were less flattering, however. In its 2008 Prospect Handbook, Baseball America lamented that “despite his athleticism, Patterson has never gotten the hang of playing second base. He doesn’t read balls well off the bat or range well to his right.”

Given his stolen base chops and non-terrible bat, Patterson’s worth a temporary pick-up in AL-only leagues.

Going to the A’s in exchange for Patterson is Williamson, a 21-year-old lefty who is joining his third organization. The 6-2, 175 pounder was acquired by Boston from the Seattle Mariners for David Aardsma prior to the 2009 season. Equipped with a quality curve/changeup combo but sitting in the high-80’s with his heater, Williamson didn’t crack the Sox’ top 30 prospect list this past winter.

Pitching in the Low-A South Atlantic League last season, he had 8.7 K/9, 4.4 BB/9, a 37.9 GB% and a park-and-luck-adjusted FIP of 4.37 in 108 innings. Williamson split ’09 between the rotation and the bullpen (16 ‘pen appearances, 12 starts), but he has been a full-time starter in the High-A Carolina League in 2010. On the positive side, his ground ball rate has climbed considerably (54.5 GB%). However, he’s also whiffing 5.5 and walking 4.7 in 65.1 innings, with a 5.05 park-and-luck-adjusted FIP.

Baltimore Orioles acquired DH/1B?/3B?/OF?/C? Jake Fox from the Oakland Athletics for RHP Ross Wolf and cash.

In the article linked to above, Baltimore president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail touts Fox’s “roster flexibility” — the former Cubs prospect, acquired by the A’s in a trade over the winter and recently DFA’d, has experience in the infield and outfield corners, as well as at catcher. It’s technically true that Fox can man those spots, in that he’ll strap on the gear and squat behind the plate if asked, or stand at one of those corner positions and pray that he doesn’t get a screaming liner or have to run one down in the gap, but his limited defensive prowess leaves him as a man without a position.

The A’s picked up Fox for his bat — the career .293/.357/.528 minor league hitter posted a .259/.311/.468 triple-slash with the Cubs in 2009, with a .332 wOBA in 241 plate appearances. Fox showed plenty of pop (.208 Isolated Power), but his lack of patience was glaring. The 6-0, 210 pound right batter chased 37.8% of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone (25.1% MLB average). Not surprisingly, Fox got behind in the count regularly (65.6 first pitch strike%, 58.2% MLB average) and walked just 5.8% of the time.

Unfortunately, Fox took his hacking even further during his brief Oakland tenure. He ventured out of the zone 47.5% (28.3% MLB average), putting the ball in play on the first pitch or getting behind 0-and-1 70.1% (58.4% MLB average). In 107 PA with the A’s, Fox batted .212/.262/.323, putting up a .262 wOBA and a .111 ISO.

What can we expect from Fox for the rest of 2010? ZiPS projects a .253/.313/.438 line (.330 wOBA), while CHONE sees a .256/.313/.440 offensive showing. Just where he plays in Baltimore remains to be seen — manager Juan Samuel said he’ll likely come off the bench, playing mostly 1B and LF while occasionally spelling Matt Wieters at catcher. Fox’s addition may well spell the end of Garrett Atkins’ nightmarish stay (-1 WAR) in Baltimore.

The Orioles, woefully out of contention, do have a fluid roster situation. Players like Luke Scott, Ty Wigginton and Miguel Tejada could be dangled in trades. If some O’s vets find new teams, Fox could see increased PT. Then again, Felix Pie (back) figures to return from the DL sometime in early July, and while 3B Josh Bell isn’t enjoying a banner season at Triple-A Norfolk (.273/.320/451), the club could choose to bring him up to the majors later this summer. 1B Brandon Snyder is a lukewarm prospect (.251/.320/.366 at Triple-A over the past two seasons), but I suppose he could factor in as well.

Given Fox’s potential to take on an expanded role while qualifying at several positions, he’s worth monitoring in AL-only leagues. However, he’s a wreck at the plate right now and doesn’t project as more than a league-average batter. Fox’s ultra-aggressive, high-power approach comes at the expense of reaching base regularly. He should probably stay on the waiver wire for now.

Oakland Athletics acquired OF/1B Conor Jackson from the Arizona Diamondbacks for RHP Sam Demel.

Jackson, 28, is under team control through the 2011 season. The 2003 first-round pick out of Cal established himself as a fairly patient hitter with mid range pop over the 2006-2008 seasons, hitting a combined .292/.371/.450 with a .361 wOBA. Adjusting for park and league factors, Jackson’s lumber was 14 percent better than average (114 wRC+). That’s not overwhelming for a guy who mainly manned first base, but Jackson controlled the zone (10.1 BB%, 12.8 K%), showed adequate power (.158 ISO) and improved his fantasy appeal by qualifying in the outfield during the ’08 season.

The past two years haven’t been nearly as kind. Jackson battled Valley Fever in 2009, limiting him to just 110 PA. He batted .182/.264/.253, with a .251 wOBA. Slowed by a right hamstring injury that required a DL stint in April, Jackson’s got a .298 wOBA and a .238/.326/.331 triple-slash in 172 PA this season. His ISO, .071 in 2009, hasn’t cracked triple-digits in 2010 either (.093).

In Oakland, Jackson figures to take over most of the playing time in left field. He’s worth a flyer in AL-only formats, but it’s hard to know how he’ll hit in the green and gold, given the uncertainty regarding his health. If Jackson is moving past the illness that sapped his strength, he could return to the .350-.360 wOBA range. Given that he has rated as about average in an outfield corner to this point, that would make Jackson a decent starting option for the A’s.

Mixed-leaguers probably want a player with higher upside and greater certainty, though. It’s also worth noting that Jackson will be moving from Chase Field, which (per the Bill James Handbook) increased run-scoring 15 percent and homers seven percent compared to a neutral park over the 2007-2009 seasons, to the Coliseum, which depressed runs nine percent and dingers 10 percent over the same time frame. That won’t help his chances of regaining fantasy relevance.

With Jackson no longer in the desert, Gerardo Parra will presumably get the majority of PT in left for the Diamondbacks. The 23-year-old lefty batter, rated as the 88th-best prospect in the game by Baseball America prior to 2009, has a .281/.319/.400 major league line in 609 PA over the past two seasons. The Venezuelan native has a .309 wOBA and a 82 wRC+, as he has rarely walked (5.4 BB%) or laced the ball into the gaps (.119 ISO).

Swinging early and often getting behind in the count (career 64.4 first pitch strike percentage, compared to the 58% MLB average), Parra has hit grounders at a 53.5% clip. He’s a good defender in an outfielder corner, but his offensive ceiling is subject to debate –Parra’s not uber-projectable at 5-11 and 195 pounds, and he didn’t display much thump in the minors (career .126 ISO). He was generally young for the levels at which he played, but Baseball America capped his home run power at the low-to-mid-teens, remarking that “if he has to move to an outfield corner he starts to look like a tweener.”

Demel, meanwhile, is expected to join a wretched D-Backs pen that ranks dead last in xFIP (5.16) and Win Probability Added (-6.88). A third-round pick in the 2007 draft out of TCU, Demel has missed lots of lumber as a pro (10 K/9) but has usually struggled to locate (4.5 BB/9). While the righty didn’t crack BA’s list of top 30 A’s prospects heading into 2010, Demel has added a cut fastball to his low-90’s fastball, changeup and erratic slider. In 28.2 IP with Triple-A Sacramento, the 24-year-old had 8.8 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and a characteristically strong ground ball rate (49.4%; his overall GB% in the minors is 54.5). Demel’s worth monitoring, particularly if Arizona shops Chad Qualls to a team that focuses more on his very good track record and 3.56 xFIP this season instead of his bloated ERA.

Arizona Diamondbacks acquired LHP Dontrelle Willis from the Detroit Tigers for RHP Billy Buckner.

As part of the deal, the Tigers will pick up what’s left of Willis’ $12 million salary for the 2010 season, save for the prorated portion of the big league minimum.

From 2003-2006, Dontrelle averaged 3.8 Wins Above Replacement per season. Since then, the lefty with the signature leg kick has racked up just 0.7 WAR, losing all semblance of strike zone control while battling knee, forearm and anxiety issues.

Happily, Willis is backing to taking regular turns in the rotation. But it’s difficult to be especially optimistic about his ability to contribute. Moving back to the NL certainly won’t hurt the D-Train’s chances of a career revival, but in 43.1 IP with the Tigers this season, he had 6.85 K/9, 6.02 BB/9, a 45.5 GB% and a 4.93 xFIP.

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