Archive for Uncategorized

Mike Napoli finally signed with the Red Sox. It took him a month or so to iron out the details, and in that month his draft stock fell. Considering his track record of power, it’s tempting to label him a sleeper even after the tough year he showed in Texas last season, but the the circumstances of the deal can’t be considered ideal — even if a probable move to first base, where only Mauro Gomez is his competition, probably means more available playing time.

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It’s 2013. I just drafted Lucas Duda again.

I just can’t quit him I guess. No, I’m not a glutton for punishment. I can give you the caveats — it was pick #328 in a 14-team league with five outfielders — and we can talk about Lucas Duda specifically, but that might not be the point in the end.

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Edwin Encarnacion had a breakout that few predicted and he carried many a fantasy team with Pujolsian-like production for bargain basement prices. Since this is kind of what we do — that is, try to sniff out those back-of-the-draft goodies — one has to wonder if we all should have seen this coming.

Perhaps the reason Encarnacion gnaws at me so much is because I wrote his FanGraphs+ profile last year, and had this to say:

“…(B)ut if Encarnacion is going to play every day and he gets into the 550 at-bat range, you can bank on 20+ home runs, 70 RBI, and he should provide at least a respectable batting average. About 45% of his batted balls are fly balls, and his home run per fly ball rate dipped to 9.4% in 2011 whereas his career average is 11.9%. Should he see an uptick in HR/FB and his isolated slugging returns closer to his .200 career level (.181 in 2011), there’s certainly potential for more home runs here.”

So yeah, 20+ cough cough. At least I said “+”.

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While the movie Office space made the phrase, “somebody’s got a case of the Monday’s” a modern day staple of the American workplace, I think it’s time someone in the fantasy baseball community made the adjustment and coined the phrase, “a case of the Januaries.” Because let’s face it, this month sucks, plain and simple. The GM winter meetings have come and gone, the majority of free agents have already signed, Spring Training isn’t for another month and a half, and the baseball news feeds are pretty much barren. The derivative distraction that is fantasy football is finally over and…well…neither the NHL nor the NBA come close to that glorious six months of MLB deliciousness. I’m bored. And boredom brings on depression. And depression brings on…the Januaries. Read the rest of this entry »

In our ridiculously early draft, I picked Victor Martinez in the 10th round. I like the idea of picking up Martinez on the cheap, but I wasn’t exactly sure what his value would be after missing all of 2012. I will attempt to get an idea of his value going into 2013.

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They both weigh 170 pounds! Okay, one’s a lithe 6-foot-2, quick-twitch shortstop, and the other is a stocky 5-foot-7 second baseman, and actually we’ll get to many more differences as we go, but in the world of fantasy middle infielders, is there room for a comparison? Andrelton Simmons could be the late sleeper we all need at a tough position, just like Jose Altuve was last year.

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Prior to each baseball season, usually in January or February, I put together a massive spreadsheet that rates players in every format I play in. Placing a value on a given player is actually not that hard, assuming you have a decent projection of what that player will do over the course of the next season. Valuing “Albert Pujols” may not always be easy, but if I tell you I have a 1B who will put up 31 HR with a .285/.359/.516 line, that is something you can probably work with.

The issue is that depending on what system you pick, you could end up with some very different values.

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We showed you the first five rounds last week, now it’s time to delve into the second five. Typically, you’re moving on from surer things to high-upside youngsters. I’m working on finding a second-tier ace or two usually, since I don’t pick pitchers in the first two or three rounds. Whatever it is, it’s generally a section of the draft that has an interesting tension between wanting to keep drafting the best player available and needing to start filling out a working, balanced roster.

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In our Ridiculously Early Mock Draft — still ongoing — my first two picks ‘around the turn’ were Troy Tulowitzki and Adrian Beltre. But Evan Longoria went one pick later and I was ready to take the down on their luck pair. A year ago, that duo would have been deemed a coup, most likely — a right side of the infield filled with sixty home runs and twenty-plus stolen bases and a good batting average. This year, the picks were met with critique.

As the “Two Month Tulo” moniker from that comment suggests, most of the problem is health-related. Though the Tulo and Longo are 28 and 27 years old respectively, there’s a sense that perhaps the projections are too plate-appearance heavy for two guys that have succumbed to major injuries in multiple seasons over their young careers to date. Health does seem like a skill, but because of the way projections work, it’s a skill that should be factored into every projection you see.

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One of the joys of living on the West coast is that when my articles go up at 8:15 a.m. ET, I often have a few comments in reply before I even wake up. Somehow, I don’t think that will be the case today.

But once you do rise from the late-night-party-induced stupor that infects everyone on January first, you’ll be only weeks from the ottoneu keeper deadline and it will be time to think long and hard about what you did right in 2012, what you did wrong, and what you can do better. Here are my ottoneu Year’s Resolutions (otto-New Year’s Resolutions may be grammatically correct, I am not sure), which will hopefully include a few nuggets of wisdom that you can use, as well.

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