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A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that one of the first things you need to do in the off-season is set your roster for the next year and figure out who you should or should not keep. I am getting ready to do just that for my FanGraphs Experts League team, and I get to do it using a fun new toy.

For the past few years, I have been doing this in Excel, but today ottoneu released a new tool that will help players look at their roster and make tough calls in the off-season. It’s called Roster Organizer and you can find it on your league home page. I’m going to use it to evaluate my team and, along the way, explain why some tough calls are going the way they are.
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I hate closers. Despise them. Maybe this is a result of being an Indians fan. Jose Mesa tricked me into thinking he was lights out, then imploded at the worst possible time (although we all know Tony Fernandez deserves more of the blame). Maybe it is the endless stream of closing mediocrity I have had to watch since then. But since you are reading this on Rotographs and not an Indians blog, you have probably guessed that this really stems from fantasy baseball.

Before I dive too deep, let me begin by saying that if you are playing in a traditional 5×5 league, you can probably ignore this. If your league counts Saves but not Holds, you probably should not hate closers. I finished 4th from the bottom in saves in the lone 5×5 I played last year, and that is not where you want to be. However, if you are not playing in a league that places an extraordinary value on saves, this may be for you. It is mostly written from the perspective of the ottoneu FanGraphs Points scoring, but applies to any league where holds and saves are relatively equal (or both worth nothing).
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It’s the early offseason. Very few free agents have signed, and no trades have been completed. The GMs are in Milwaukee without internet and with wintry mix. The winter meetings are still a week or two away. Perfect time for a mock draft, or at least so thought Derek Van Riper at RotoWire. So he got us all together for a 15-team 30-round NFBC-style colossus of a mock draft last week — here are the results for your own perusal.

There are a million ways to break down a draft, so if you want more on this, let me know. to keep it simple at first, let’s just highlight some picks that seemed like the steals and reaches of the draft.

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I tend to get rather obsessed about starting pitchers, strikeouts, and predictability – three things that go together like Tracy Morgan, funny stuff, and sanity. What keeps me up at night, and what I find particularly unnerving are sizable, unexplained variations from year to year. Why did Jhoulys Chacin go from 9.04 strikeouts per nine innings pitched in 2010 to 6.96 in 2011? Why did Ricky Nolasco go from 8.39 K/9 to 6.47? Jered Weaver from 9.35 to 7.56? When obvious indicators of age or injury aren’t there, the resulting chaos has me reaching for torches and pitchforks.

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With Matt Kemp’s $160 million extension in the news today, it’s time to take a closer look at what his 2012 will look like. After all, the near 40/40 man went sixth overall in last week’s RotoWire industry mock draft (which I will write up on Wednesday), so it’s highly relevant in more ways than one.

Thankfully, we roto-heads don’t have to worry about his defense. Or at least, most of us don’t. Some of us play in leagues with separated outfield positions, so his defense will be relevant. But, considering his value is highest to the team if he can remain a center fielder, let’s assume that he will be CF-eligible for the next three years or so.

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Most fantasy leagues are either already in or are headed to hibernation, but ottoneu, as those of you who played this year have already learned, is a little different. With arbitration voting behind us, we are onto the ottoneu hot stove season, and there are a few things you should know as you prepare for a 4 month period that will be surprisingly important to determining your 2012 league champion.

Some of what happens in the off-season is going to be similar to your other leagues – reviewing projections, putting together rankings, valuing players, preparing for the auction – but some of it will be quite different, and that is what I want to focus on here.
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The Marlins finally have their new park, and now comes the hard part: filling the seats. No, that’s for them to worry about. Our difficult project of the day is attempting to project Mike Stanton’s power in that new park.

A caveat first. Stanton has gobs of raw power and can get it out of any park in the league. But we may find a surpise, too. It doesn’t look like the new park will produce the second 50-homer season in the league since 2006, at least not without a power surge from the player. Let’s look at the numbers and then a picture to clarify.

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Last week we went over our second tier of shortstop keepers. This week we delve into the third tier where we run into a few players coming off bounce-back seasons.

Emilio Bonifacio ($12)

Bonifacio was a jack-of-all-trades last season, spending time at second and third base, each outfield spot, and most importantly shortstop. Bonifacio’s game is predicated on speed, swiping 40 bags in 51 attempts last season while also hitting seven triples. Playing a full season for the first time, he shined for the Marlins, hitting .296/.360/.393 in 641 plate appearances. He possessed the fifth-lowest flyball rate in baseball, slapping the ball all over the field and making the most out of his blazing speed. It’s that speed that doesn’t make me too nervous about his .372 BABIP. If he keeps the ball out of the air that number should steadily be above league-average. He’ll be 27 next season and may have finally found his comfort zone in Florida. Keep an eye out for the Marlins’ free agent shopping, since Bonifacio’s playing time depends on them standing pat or focusing their money on non-third base positions.

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We’ve covered tiers one and two for the NL (and tiers one and two for the AL, and yes, we’ll collate them into mixed league rankings soon), but the position has bountiful keeper options and this third tier is not terrible. The best thing is that these guys are in their peak age ranges — the worst thing is that they each have at least one flaw that may keep them from superstardom.

Tier One
Matt Kemp
Ryan Braun

Tier Two
Justin Upton
Carlos Gonzalez
Andrew McCutchen

Tier Three
Mike Stanton
Let’s leave the speculation about Stanton’s new home park to my Wednesday slot. Instead, let’s marvel in the fact that this gigolo with gorgeous chest hair has the led the National League in isolated slugging percentage since he debuted in 2010. He even got more powerful in his second season, pushing his ISO from .248 to .275 and his home run per fly ball rate from 22.9% to 24.8% (which led baseball). He did all of this while hitting more ground balls and fewer fly balls, which may seem somewhat odd. Then again, Albert Pujols (1.17 GB/FB), Prince Fielder (1.16), teammate Braun (1.11) and Joey Votto (1.17) all have similar batted ball profiles to the Florida outfielder who doesn’t turn 22 until next week (1.18). Dude has “80 power.”

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My original intent for this highly anticipated (you were anticipating it, right?) sequel was to use the the findings from Part I to identify players who might have under- or over-performed in 2011, and I will still do that (feel free to skip the next five paragraphs if that is all you are looking for).

However, after posting part I, I got some great feedback, both in the comments and via email and decided to re-do some of the analysis, so I am going to start by recapping a couple of the changes I made and what I found.
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